Just as Sparkle's mind was reeling, contemplating how to escape again, a warm and powerful hand, without any warning, gently settled on her shoulder from behind.
Sparkle's entire body instantly stiffened, and her blood seemed to freeze at that moment.
She could even feel the terrifying presence radiating from behind her.
Lu Jingming had appeared behind her like a ghost, his proximity almost immediate.
He did not use any brutal force; he simply wrapped his arm around her in that position, pulling the petite Sparkle entirely into his embrace with an irresistible yet strangely intimate gesture, holding her tightly.
A warm and soft sensation came from his arms, carrying the unique fresh scent of a young girl, but Lu Jingming's heart was like an ancient, deep pool, without a single ripple.
He lowered his head slightly, his lips almost touching Sparkle's sensitive ear, and slowly, word by word, he whispered in his characteristic, slightly cold and magnetic voice:
"Hello there, Sparkle. You thought you could run after causing mischief? Did you... underestimate me?"
His tone was calm and devoid of emotion, yet it was colder than Jingliu's sword and more suffocating than the dying domain of Acheron.
Sparkle knew clearly that this time, her butterfly-like self, who loved stirring up trouble, had truly fallen into an inescapable spiderweb woven for her long ago.
Held firmly captive in Lu Jingming's embrace, feeling Gu Yuena's deep, mountain-like dragon might behind her, Jingliu's soul-freezing, chilling sword intent, and the silent blockade from Firefly and Acheron on her side, Sparkle's usually lawless little mind, which reveled in causing chaos, finally began to churn at a frantic pace.
Fight back? Don't be ridiculous. Any one of Gu Yuena or Jingliu could pin her down and rub the floor with her, not to mention the two others watching intently, and the unfathomable Lu Jingming behind her, capable of commanding these powerhouses.
Escape? She had just tried. Against an absolute power gap and a premeditated encirclement, her intricate illusions and spatial techniques were utterly useless.
The wise yield to circumstances. While the Masked Fool enjoys chaos, it doesn't mean she is so thick-headed as to smash into a wall.
Almost instantly after weighing the pros and cons, the horrified look of being forced out of her original form vanished from Sparkle's face. It was replaced by a teary, piteous expression; she squirmed in the confining embrace, her voice soft and tearful as she pleaded:
"Wuu... Big Brother Lu, I know I was wrong~ I really know I was wrong, please let me go, okay? I surrender, I promise I'll be good and listen to you from now on, and I won't cause trouble anymore."
She blinked her large, expressive eyes, trying to force out a few tears, her tone so sincere it sounded heartfelt.
However, Lu Jingming merely lowered his eyelids, watching her performance without expression.
He knew this mischievous brat too well; her promises were more fragile than foam in the Star Sea. Her current submission was merely a temporary measure forced by the situation.
Without giving this lawless brat a deeply unforgettable lesson, she would absolutely forget the pain once the wound healed and turn around to cause an even bigger mess.
Causing trouble is an instinct for a Masked Fool, but Lu Jingming had no intention of indulging her bad habit.
"Wrong?"
Lu Jingming's voice was flat, revealing no emotion.
"A verbal apology is not enough."
Before his voice faded, his arm suddenly exerted force. With a short yelp of surprise from Sparkle, he effortlessly flipped her small body over, making her face down and her back up. He then smoothly positioned her across his bent leg.
This posture exposed Sparkle's perky bottom, encased in her fiery red dress, completely to the air and the view of everyone around.
"Wha... what are you trying to do?!"
Sparkle finally realized the danger and began to struggle, her voice tinged with genuine panic.
The answer came as Lu Jingming's palm lifted high and then ruthlessly descended.
"Slap!"
A crisp, loud slapping sound was particularly jarring in the silent alleyway.
Sparkle was completely stunned, her mind blank, even forgetting to struggle.
It wasn't until a fiery, clear pain exploded from the struck area, spreading through her body like an electric current, that she snapped back to reality—
She, Sparkle, the Masked Fool, was actually... being held across someone's lap and spanked?!
What an absolute humiliation! Unbelievable disgrace!
"Slap! Slap! Slap!"
Lu Jingming had no intention of stopping. His palm struck repeatedly, the force neither heavy nor light, yet painful enough, and certainly humiliating enough.
He intended to use this most primitive, direct method to shatter all her pretense and wishful thinking, making her remember this lesson vividly.
Firefly, Acheron, and even the cool-headed Gu Yuena and Jingliu showed a strange look on their faces upon seeing this scene.
Firefly instinctively turned her face away, her shoulders subtly twitching, clearly trying hard to suppress a laugh.
This scene, for the lawless Masked Fool, was simply... too theatrical.
Sparkle was initially furious and ashamed to the point of wanting to die. Her violent struggles and sobs were easily suppressed by Lu Jingming.
The pain was clear and continuous, bringing physical tears to the corners of her eyes.
But gradually, an extremely bizarre feeling began to sprout and spread in the depths of her heart.
She was a Masked Fool, a follower of the Path of Elation, chasing joy and embracing chaos.
Everything in the world, whether noble, base, orderly, or chaotic, could ultimately become nourishment for Elation.
Then, this extreme humiliation, this physical pain, this feeling of powerlessness under control... and the subtle excitement brought by the presence of powerful onlookers...
All of this combined, wasn't it... an unprecedented, twisted, and ultimate experience of "Elation"?
"Ah...!"
This sound, however, was completely different from her previous sobs and cries of pain. Her voice was laced with an indescribable tremor, the trailing sound slightly elevated, carrying a strange note...?
He had expected Sparkle to explode in fury, to resist with all her might. He had even kept his strength ready to counter her retaliation.
Yet, she didn't.
The tension in her body seemed to relax slightly, her struggles grew weaker, and instead, there was a subtle trend of... compliance?
Puzzled, he slightly slowed his movements.
Just then, Sparkle slightly turned her head, revealing half of her face.
The face that had been flushed red from pain and shame now bloomed with an utterly pathological, yet bewitchingly alluring smile.
Her eyes were shimmering with moisture, but deep within her pupils burned the twisted fire of excitement, and the corner of her mouth curved into an arc that was nearly maniacal.
Lu Jingming: "???"
His raised hand paused in mid-air. Looking at Sparkle's expression, which had completely fallen into a state of bizarre elation, the corner of his mouth couldn't help but twitch.
Even with his vast experience, he was a little bewildered at this moment.
He knew all Masked Fools were "off the rails," but he hadn't expected Sparkle to be "off the rails" to this degree.
This was no longer simple heartlessness; this was... terminal illness.
Especially Sparkle's flushed face; even Lu Jingming, whose heart was as hard as iron, felt a chill run down his spine at that moment. He instinctively loosened his grip on her.
This lesson... seemed to be developing in a direction he hadn't foreseen at all.
Meanwhile, the smiles on the faces of Firefly, Acheron, and the others had long vanished, replaced by a complex expression mixed with shock, speechlessness, and deep caution.
They realized that this Masked Fool was far more troublesome and unreasonable than they had imagined.
Sparkle took the opportunity to slide off Lu Jingming's leg, stumbling slightly before finding her footing.
She rubbed her still-stinging bottom, but the yandere smile on her face grew even brighter, her gaze intensely fixed on Lu Jingming, as if she had discovered a new, incredibly interesting toy.
"Big Brother Lu... Little Sparkle will definitely... remember today's 'lesson'~"
Her voice was sweet yet slightly husky, full of dangerous implications.
Lu Jingming looked into her eyes, and for the first time, a sense of uncertainty arose in his heart—was capturing this mischievous brat a correct decision?
She was like an uncontrollable flame; if you tried to extinguish her with water, she might instead burn even more fiercely and bizarrely.
Lu Jingming's original intention was that if Sparkle resisted fiercely, he would grit his teeth and thoroughly eliminate her to prevent future trouble.
He was never one to be indecisive. For any existence that obstructed his plans, regardless of its form, he had the resolve to wield the butcher's knife.
However, the current development completely deviated from his expectations.
Not only did Sparkle not struggle at all, but after the initial shock, she decisively raised the white flag in an almost submissive posture.
Furthermore, even under the humiliating punishment he had just administered, she only made some vague whimpering sounds, her body trembling slightly, yet with no actual intention of resistance. What flickered deep within her eyes was not humiliation or anger, but... a strange, ignited brilliance.
This completely counter-intuitive reaction was like a soft punch that dispersed the killing intent he had gathered.
Lu Jingming sighed silently in his heart.
After all... it was different.
If it were some irrelevant, ungrateful wretch who dared to act so recklessly and disrupt his plans, he would have long ago annihilated them, leaving not a trace of residue. Why would he settle for such a mild punishment?
In the end, this was one of the "waifus" he had once poured affection into and stared at through a screen over countless nights.
This one-sided, fate-driven connection that crossed world barriers allowed him to subconsciously retain a thread of unnecessary patience and tolerance.
To be fair, Sparkle's actions this time were utterly lawless, directly puncturing the barrier between two worlds with a grand explosion. Her behavior itself could be described as a disaster.
Yet, from the final outcome, this chaos miraculously did not truly touch his bottom line—no lives of those he cared about were harmed, and the foundation of his plan was not destroyed.
This level of mischief, although it disrupted his pace and brought many unexpected troubles, was still within his tolerance range.
In fact, in a sense, establishing a stable channel between the two worlds was already a part of his long-term plan.
Sparkle's accidental explosion merely advanced this step in an extremely dramatic and far more costly way than anticipated.
Like the equally headache-inducing Vita, existences like the Masked Fools, while constantly troublesome, like fireworks that could ignite at any moment, could potentially be guided and used to his advantage, rather than necessarily being eliminated quickly.
Just as Lu Jingming's thoughts raced, quickly weighing the pros and cons—
On the ground, Sparkle had managed to recover from the lingering shock that had made her legs weak and her heart pound.
Far from being dejected, her pair of clever, shifting, heterochromatic eyes burst forth with an unprecedentedly intense glow, like an explorer who had discovered a lost treasure.
Failed? Captured? Treated like that?
No, none of that mattered.
What mattered was the man before her, the existence named Lu Jingming.
He had not only precisely predicted her supposedly flawless actions and set a trap she ran right into, but he had also gathered so many powerful and unique followers around him.
And he himself was shrouded in a thick layer of impenetrable mist: powerful, mysterious, difficult to gauge, yet possessing a fatal allure.
Following him, clinging to him, holding him tight—around this man, far more exciting, unimaginable, and interesting things were bound to happen.
That would be a grand elation, incomparable to the trivial mischief she could cause alone.
Thus, under Lu Jingming's slightly astonished gaze, Sparkle lifted her small, still-flushed face, flashing an eerily brilliant smile, her tone filled with undisguised, intense curiosity:
"Oh my~ It looks like Little Sparkle really did kick a very hard iron plate this time!"
She deliberately drew out the last word, her eyes twinkling.
"But... what are you going to do with me now, my esteemed, powerful captor, who has caught this humble young woman?"
She gave a playful wink, her long eyelashes fluttering like butterfly wings, carrying a hint of provocation and nine parts anticipation.
"Are you going to lock me up in a dark, damp cage? Or... keep me by your side, and personally, strictly supervise me?"
That upturned ending note, that fearless, even eager demeanor, clearly indicated that she wasn't worried about her predicament but was eagerly looking forward to a future she desired.