Chapter 4: Do you need help cooling down?

This fox spirit… her level is way too high.

Far beyond that soft, clingy Slime Queen Alfea, she understood so much more.

Though Fan Zhuo was inwardly shocked, his face still bore that pure and flawless expression, as if utterly ignorant of worldly desires, cold and aloof.

“Sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.” He lowered his eyelids slightly. “I serve the Holy Light; my heart holds only devotion.”

Ye Ying let out a series of silver-bell-like laughs, and the nine snowy white fox tails behind her spread out like blooming flowers.

Each tail was fluffy to an absurd degree, soft and inviting, as if beckoning someone to touch them, to bury their hands in and feel that softness.

“Then let me guess, what you love is the Holy Light? Or… the Holy Light?”

“You really are an unlovable little one, thinking one thing and saying something completely different~”

Ye Ying didn’t press further. She gracefully knelt by the tea table and delicately picked up an ancient-looking teapot with her slender fingers.

“Since you’re a new friend, you must be entertained properly. This is my treasured ‘Snowy Mountain Cloud Mist,’ aged eighty years.”

Snowy Mountain Cloud Mist… such an oriental name…

Saying this, Ye Ying leaned forward slightly and poured tea into the empty cup opposite her, where Fan Zhuo sat.

That very movement.

As she bent forward, her already loosely worn kimono collar slid further open to both sides under gravity.

In an instant, a shocking patch of snow-white suddenly invaded Fan Zhuo’s vision without any warning.

“Hss—”

Fan Zhuo asked himself, before coming to this other world, what scenes had he not seen?

By all accounts, he was quite the experienced traveler!

But he had to admit, this was top-tier material he’d never encountered before.

He truly had underestimated you… no way to tell just by looking…

“Hm? Little one, what did you say?”

Ye Ying suddenly lifted her head; her amber eyes glinted with playful amusement, as if completely unaware that she had already unintentionally exposed herself.

“Ah… ah!? I… I was thinking… I am…”

Fan Zhuo tried to pull himself back to reality, but his gaze seemed magnetically stuck, unable to look away.

He was still looking!

Wait? Why could he see this…

“Hey, kid?” Old John frowned, sensing something was wrong.

Though he didn’t know exactly what was going on with Fan Zhuo, he could feel the atmosphere had shifted uneasily.

At that moment, Fan Zhuo felt a sudden warmth in his nostrils.

A drop of thick, crimson liquid slowly dripped from his nostril, landing with a soft “plop” onto the pristine front of his uniform, spreading out into a glaring red blotch.

He was having a nosebleed.

“Damn it!” Old John immediately lost it, yanking out the thunderbolt gun from his waist and aiming it at Ye Ying.

“Ye Ying! Didn’t we agree no fighting? What did you do to this kid?!”

Ye Ying lazily straightened up, her collar closing accordingly.

She licked her lips, her gaze innocent yet seductive:

“Warden John, you’re seriously wronging me. I didn’t even touch a single finger of his; it’s him who’s just… too ‘pure-hearted.’”

Fan Zhuo ignored their conversation; at this moment, his mind was racing.

…He had seen it.

He had clearly and unmistakably seen everything that should never be seen!

Within this world’s Doctrine of the Holy Church, there was an unwritten iron rule.

To ensure the physical and mental purity of all who served the divine, every formal cleric’s soul was granted a passive divine skill called the 【Holy Light】.

Covering.

This divine skill would automatically activate when they saw the “key parts” of a human woman, instantly shrouding their vision in a dazzling, blinding holy light.

Forget seeing— the brightness was like standing with eyes wide open before a Dà Yùn’s high beams, enough to make the eyes bleed.

Even Old John naturally could not see such things, and even if he could, he would never want his eyes burned out like that.

Fan Zhuo’s mentor, the venerable Sage Nolan, was the most famous victim of the 【Holy Light】.

***

During surgery for the female Pope, as the Pope’s sacred robe was undone for the procedure, the two huge balls of holy light blinded Nolan temporarily, causing the fatal subsequent mistakes.

This rule had become second nature to Fan Zhuo after three years of crossing over.

Every time he saw those scantily clad noble ladies in the Holy City streets, his vision automatically overlaid a thick mosaic of holy light.

But…

No Holy Light!

Nothing! Only pure white…

The 【Rule of the Ring of Purity】 forbade touching “human women.”

The 【Rule of Holy Light】 automatically concealed “human women’s” key parts.

Both rules shared the same restrictive term—“human women.”

Slime Girls were not human, so he could touch them.

Nine-tailed fox spirits were not human, so… he could see!

What he saw was unfiltered, untouched by any Holy Light censorship, the most genuine, authentic scene!

Under this enormous shock, Fan Zhuo felt his blood rush wildly backwards straight to his brain.

“Pff—”

Another burst of nosebleed sprayed out.

The world before his eyes began to spin wildly; Ye Ying’s face, tinged with surprise, blurred and swayed in his vision.

His body went limp and he collapsed forward.

Before his consciousness completely faded, his last thought was: falling into a soft, fragrant embrace… how wonderful…

He really felt softness.

Was the anime scene finally coming true for him?

That softness was elastic, carrying a scent of…

Hmm? Cheap tobacco and low-quality beer mixed together?

Wait?!

Fan Zhuo suddenly snapped his eyes open, his consciousness yanked back by this familiar smell.

What met his eyes was neither Ye Ying’s stunning beautiful face nor that heart-wavering snow-white patch.

Instead, it was an old, scruffy face with stubble.

And a sweat-stained tank top stretched out of shape, printed with the words “Beer is Life.”

And what he thought was softness was tightly “wrapping” his face.

It was Old John’s beer belly!

“Damn it!”

Fan Zhuo jolted awake, scrambling and rolling away from Old John’s “soft” embrace.

Anime lied!

They promised that fainting would be followed by a beautiful girl coming to catch you! Why was it Old John’s beer belly instead?!

What kind of luck was this?!

“Kid, are you alright?!” Old John looked at Fan Zhuo worriedly. “What happened? You suddenly rolled your eyes and passed out! You scared me to death!”

***

In the room, Ye Ying was laughing so hard she was shaking like a flower branch in the wind, one hand clutching her belly and the other wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.

Old John looked utterly baffled: “I saved him, why is it my fault now?”

Fan Zhuo’s eye twitch spasmed wildly.

What could he say?

Was he supposed to shout in front of a three-hundred-year-old fox spirit, “I fainted because I saw something I shouldn’t have and got too excited that I had a nosebleed?”

He had no dignity left!

“Ahem… ahem ahem!”

Fan Zhuo forcibly straightened his uniform, soaked in cold sweat and nosebleed, and resumed his pure and aloof posture.

“Thanks for your concern, Warden. I’m fine. It’s just… I’ve been overexerting myself in cultivation lately and am a bit anemic. A good sleep will fix it.”

He lied without changing expression.

“Anemic?”

Ye Ying’s laughter paused slightly as she appraised Fan Zhuo up and down with her seemingly all-seeing amber eyes.

“Little one, that’s not ordinary anemia~ It’s called ‘qi and blood surging upward, excessive heart fire.’ A very common symptom in adolescent boys.”

“Do you need sister… to help you cool down your fire?”