Lan Yan's consciousness felt like a shard of ice slowly thawing. The white-hot impact of that cosmic assault of a kiss had shattered her world.
When she finally opened her eyes, she realized two things.
One: she was definitely alive.
Two: she probably didn't want to be dead.
She stood on cracked, blackened earth, its surface dull and glassy, like cooled lava. The air was heavy with the scent of sulfur and scorched metal, searing her lungs with every breath.
"...Great," she croaked, looking around. "Where the hell am I now?!"
The ground beneath her feet trembled faintly, and she realized she was standing on a small, desolate island surrounded by a lake of fire. Not poetic fire. Literal, boiling, churning, vermillion fire. Waves of molten flame rose and crashed in slow motion, glowing bright enough to erase the concept of shadows entirely.
It was like standing inside a blacksmith's nightmare or maybe inside the world's worst spa.
At the island's center grew a single tree. Or what used to be a tree. Its trunk was twisted and leafless, every branch blackened and coiled like wrought iron. And yet, the wood wasn't burning away. It shimmered with an inner gold fire, flickering through the bark but never consuming it.
Lan Yan blinked once. Then twice. "..."
Lan Yan hesitated. Something about the air around that tree seemed wrong—like water rippling when there was no wind. She told herself not to move closer. Naturally, her feet ignored her.
"Fine," she muttered under her breath. "If I die again, at least it's dramatic."
She reached out and touched the bark.
Nothing happened. Seriously she had half-expected thunder, explosions, or at least some dramatic burst of light. But the world remained perfectly calm, almost mockingly so.
The only change was subtle: a thin layer of frost began to creep over the spot where her fingertips had brushed the tree.
And suddenly, Lan Yan's consciousness drifted in and out.
The place she had been in only a moment ago wasn't some distant realm or hidden dimension—it was the spiritual sea of the Supreme Demon King himself.
Of course, Lan Yan had no idea.
The truth was simple yet terrifying: she and Lingfeng Moqian had exchanged souls.
Their souls had traversed time and space, crossing the boundary between worlds, and ended up inside each other's bodies.
The instant her soul entered the Demon King's body, the chains that had bound him for countless years dissolved into nothing. The seal had been designed to imprison the vast spiritual power unique to the Demon King; it could never recognize or restrain someone with such a weak spiritual root as hers.
That was why, the moment the exchange occurred, she had cast out from his spiritual sea after only three fleeting seconds.
This is why, against all logic, when she regained consciousness, she was no longer standing in the blazing void but falling straight from the sky of the Xi'Tian Field.
Her body felt strangely heavy. Before she could even scream, she landed with a heavy thud.
"Aiyoo… my butt," she groaned, rubbing the offended area and grimacing. The ground beneath her was neither soft nor forgiving; it felt like striking a slab of stone that had opinions about intruders.
For a moment she remained there, dazed, until she realized that the massive chains once binding the handsome figure had vanished. They had not snapped or shattered, but dissolved into motes of pale light, as if the heavens themselves had withdrawn their restraints.
Lan Yan blinked, lowering her gaze to her hands and froze.
Lan Yan stared at the person kneeling before her—Fan Nishan and then at the body she was in. The whole situation was beyond saving.
Her sleeves were black instead of the pale green robe she remembered. Her body felt… wrong—too tall, too strong.
She patted her chest…well, Moqian's chest and sighed.
"…So firm. So heavy. So—wait, why does breathing feel like I swallowed a thundercloud?"
The voice that came out was deep and rich, the kind that could start a war just by saying "hmm." It vibrated through the air, rolled up her spine, and nearly made her flinch.
Before she could make sense of it, movement caught her eye.
Standing a short distance away was a woman—her own face, calm and unreadable, regarding her with faintly glowing eyes.
Lan Yan's mind finally snapped. 'Wait a minute. I got transmigrated into a beautiful fairy body, right? Then I immediately got thrown into a freezing dungeon! I escape on a talking snake, arrive at a nightmare battlefield, and now I'm inside a man's body?! Why? Why is heaven so cruel to me? Can't they just leave me be? I just wanted to eat instant noodles and create vlogs!'
The woman spoke first, her tone cold and laced with absolute humiliation.
"Little mortal," the demon king said, "if you dare keep playing with this divine body, don't blame me for being impolite with yours."
Lan Yan froze. "I—I was just checking for breathing! That's basic first aid, you maniac!"
His brow lifted slightly. "So the first aid method you use includes… touching my chest?"
"Wha—? No! And stop making it sound so indecent!"
From the side, Fan Nishan, still kneeling, let out a choked noise of profound embarrassment, entirely convinced he was witnessing something utterly scandalous.
"Calculating carefully," Lan Yan continued hotly, "I've only patted the chest a few times! A big man like you can't handle that? Ugh—don't think weird things!"
Moqian's lips curved faintly. "A woman who says such things so fluently is hardly innocent."
Lan Yan's eyes widened. "Excuse me? I'm the victim here! You're the one who stole my body…"
He ignored her completely, flexing her mortal hands as though studying them. "So fragile. The meridians barely flow. Even breathing strains the spirit veins."
"Hey, I heard that!" Lan Yan shouted, stamping her foot—accidentally causing a mild earthquake. She flinched. "So powerful…"
The words had barely left her mouth when a shadow knelt nearby. Fan Nishan, the enormous black serpent who had earlier terrified her, now stood in human form, dressed in dark armor. He bowed low until his forehead nearly touched the scorched ground.
"My Lord," he said, "your seal has finally broken."
Lan Yan stared at him, then at the other her, then back at him. "Excuse me?"
Fan Nishan continued solemnly, "As you predicted, only one without ambition, hatred, or greed could bear your soul within their vessel. The vessel was found according to the guidance of the Soul-Seeking Relic."
The Soul-Seeking Relic, a terrifying artifact crafted from a single drop of the Demon King's own soul essence, was designed to pinpoint the least ambitious, most neutral soul in existence, the perfect, unthreatening vessel required to bypass the highest Celestial seals.
"Though the search spanned ten thousand years, Heaven did not deceive us in the end."
"Deceive us? There's no heaven that can seal my power."
He turned his full, terrifying focus onto the terrified Lan Yan.
Lan Yan's mind went blank. Without ambition, hatred, or greed?
So she had been chosen because she was, essentially, a salted fish.
Fan Nishan straightened from his bow, his voice low but brimming with excitement.
"My Lord, The army awaits your command. Please—undo the seal."
Lan Yan: "..."
"…Undo the what now?"
Before she could even process the words, the woman wearing her own face—Lingfeng Moqian stepped forward. Her tone was sharp enough to slice air.
"Undo the seal."
Lan Yan froze. "Me? Why me?"
Cold eyes like storm-lit glass locked onto her.
"You are in my body. This mere seal, created by those Celestial scums, is nothing but ash to you."
Lan Yan's jaw dropped. Ash!? You mean I'm supposed to just… burn away seals now? With what, pure confusion?
"You want me to—what—wiggle my fingers and unseal an army?"
Moqian's expression didn't shift in the slightest. To him, even a low-ranked cultivator with the weakest spiritual root should at least know how to break a simple seal—especially while standing in his supreme divine body. Across the Three Realms and Nine Heavens, everyone knew the name Lingfeng Moqian, the Supreme Demon King: master of magic, sovereign of all cultivation, an immortal among immortals.
Legend claimed he had witnessed the great war between the previous Demon King of the Three Realms—Hou Mingyue of the Moon Demon Tribe—and the Fairy of Sadness, Cheng Honglian, over ten million years ago in the higher realms.
Indeed, Lingfeng Moqian is that ancient.
What he didn't know, however, was that the current "inhabitant" of his divine body was not a cultivator of any sort, but an entirely different creature from another universe…
...a small-time modern-day YouTuber who could barely pay her Wi-Fi bill—now apparently expected to unseal a demonic army.
Several minutes of silence and thinking later, Lan Yan sat cross-legged on the cracked ground, expression blank. The silence between her and Lingfeng Moqian stretched so long that even the magical particles in the air seemed embarrassed to flicker.
Finally, she muttered, "So... you want me to unseal an army."
No response.
Moqian stood there, arms folded, her (well, his) expression colder than a tax form in winter.
Lan Yan sighed. "You know, a little encouragement would help. Maybe a tutorial. A pop-up window. Anything?"
Those two words—tutorial and pop-up window—were foreign to both Moqian and Fan Nishan. They exchanged a brief look; Nishan was visibly confused, while Moqian merely decided that, whatever they meant, he was already disappointed.
"Focus your mind," Moqian said, his tone patient but condescending, like a master lecturing a particularly hopeless disciple. "The seal will respond to intent."
Lan Yan frowned, closed her eyes, and tried to "focus her mind." She lasted approximately four seconds before peeking through one eye. "Intent to what?"
The Demon King did not move.
Fan Nishan, who was standing nearby, looked like he was silently composing his will.
Taking a deep breath, Lan Yan lifted one palm dramatically. "Fine! Let's do this!"
A low rumble answered her, dark energy swirling around her arm. For one glorious second, she thought it might work.
Then—
BOOM.
A wave of demonic power exploded outward. The ground split open, and half of the petrified army disintegrated instantly into smoking gravel.
Lan Yan froze, staring at the chaos. "…Oops."
Moqian's eyes opened slowly. His tone was calm, "Do you think they are your toys?"
Lan Yan pointed helplessly at the debris. "I didn't mean to! I was just..."
Moqian's gaze swept over the ruined field. "You destroyed fifteen demon generals in a single breath."
Lan Yan paled. "Fiften?" She laughed nervously. "Oh, that's not too bad, right? Maybe we can glue them back?"
Fan Nishan flinched as if he had been struck.
"G-glue... them back?" he repeated weakly.
Lan Yan looked between them. "Well, I mean, they're made of stone right now, so if we just—"
"Silence." Moqian said.
The temperature in the air dropped so sharply that even the flames of the Xi'Tian Field dimmed. Lan Yan's breath hitched. The look in Moqian's eyes could have frozen gods.
Then, just as she was about to mentally draft her will, he said in an eerily calm voice, "You have one more chance."
"One more chance for what?" she asked meekly.
"To try again," he said. "This time, do not destroy anything."
Lan Yan raised her hands defensively. "Wait, wait, no—if I try again, what if I explode the rest of your army? I'll get haunted for generations!"
"You already will be," Fan Nishan muttered under his breath.
Lan Yan glared at him. "Whose side are you on?!"
Moqian ignored them both, turning slightly toward her. "The seal binds energy, not flesh. Release your will, not your chaos."
"My what?"
"Your will," he repeated. "Not your chaos."
Lan Yan squinted at him. "You say that like it's two different buttons I can just click."
Then a sudden, horrifying thought struck her.
Wait… I just killed fifteen people. Or—were they even alive? They were stones… right? Maybe they've been stone for centuries, so technically I didn't kill anyone. Right?
She swallowed nervously and forced a weak laugh. "Yeah, they were already dead. Probably. Hopefully."
Fan Nishan, overhearing her muttering, looked like he wanted to faint.
Moqian's jaw tightened slightly. "You speak nonsense."
"That's because none of this makes sense!" she snapped. "I'm a mortal! I can't even unseal a shampoo bottle properly!"
Fan Nishan wisely decided that now was a good time to take several steps back.
Moqian said nothing for a long time. Then, finally, he exhaled.
"You are utterly hopeless."
Lan Yan shrugged. "I prefer the term relatable."