Iron King walked over carrying a wolfsbane plant.
Otto took one look at the wolfsbane and panicked immediately.
"I...I can't take it anymore...I really can't endure anymore...I-I-I...I don't have much qi left because of the Face Shift Technique, you can't do this-!"
"Tough talker, huh! Tough guy, right! Didn't eat properly! Just scratching an itch, right..."
Another round of torture, and even Iron King sat down next to him panting.
Xena approached again, "Uh huh, Fyren says, uh huh, got it, I'll tell him."
Xena turned around, "Our Fyren says he's a Vajra, refined in the Supreme Lord's Eight Trigrams Furnace for seventy-seven forty-nine days! He's eaten peaches, drunk imperial wine, stolen immortality pills, and tasted ginseng fruits! That broken stick of yours is just an ear pick to him!"
Iron King snapped and slammed the table, "Damn! What a tough guy!"
The four henchmen gave thumbs up in unison, "What a tough guy!"
Eliza suddenly sneered.
The Secretary General asked, "Eliza, what are you laughing at?"
"How can seventy-seven be forty-nine?"
The Secretary General was stunned, "Is that all you care about?"
After more torture, even Iron King grew tired.
Sitting down, he trembled, "What a tough guy! No wonder he's bold enough to cheat even me!"
Xena again approached the now unconscious Otto, pretending to whisper an exaggerated, drawn-out "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."
Then she told Iron King, "Our Fyren says you're a weakling with no strength at all, and asks if you need to pull down your pants and sit on the toilet to pee."
Not just the others, even Fyren listened in shock from inside.
Fyren, Eliza, the Secretary General and the rest all thought simultaneously: Toxic wow!
Xena really hates his guts!
Iron King stood up and looked away, "Ms. Xena, are you sure this is what Fyren said?"
"Yeah, I never lie."
Iron King pointed at "Fyren", "Can he even...talk?"
Indeed, could he still talk? Otto had completely fainted, slumped motionless in the corner. Everyone suspected he might already be dead.
At that moment, Fyren took a long look in the mirror from inside and stepped out.
"Iron King."
As soon as Iron King saw "Otto", he immediately knelt on one knee, "YOUNG LORD."
"You're finally being smart for once."
"Thanks to Lord Tactician's reminder, I realized I'd fallen for this traitor's trick. Fortunately, I reflected in time to redeem myself."
"Very well. Secretary General, bring the shantytown project contract and have him sign it."
The Secretary General was confused when he saw "Otto."
Holy shit, what kind of plot is this!
This... Eliza and Otto teamed up to hire someone to kill Young Master Fyren!
This is just like Pan Jinlian and Ximen Qing conspiring to murder her husband!
This kind of plot... Wait, what contract did Otto ask me to get? The shantytown contract?
This is all wrong!
Eliza shot her a look. "What are you waiting for? Listen to Otto."
"Oh, yes, yes, yes."
Iron King signed and made the payment.
Before leaving, he kept apologizing to Fyren. "Mr. Long, I made a mistake earlier. I'm really sorry."
"Alright, alright, it's fine."
"In the future, if you have any other orders, you can contact me directly. I'll leave you my phone number."
"I know, I know. Let's go, let's go."
Iron King thought to himself, Perfect!
Seeing the young lord's attitude, he's not angry anymore.
As expected, the harder you beat Fyren, the happier the young lord is.
The previous offenses will be forgiven—it wasn't in vain that I used my best torture techniques on that brat Fyren.
Heh, I knew it!
It was a rough start, but everything's back on track now.
Why am I so damn smart?
Iron King led the way out. Passing Eliza, he said, "Mr. Long is a godly man!"
Eliza forced a smile and nodded.
Passing Xena: "Otto's a gem!"
"Ahhhh, got it, got it, got it."
Passing the Secretary General: "I'm doubly honored to work with him."
The Secretary General smiled awkwardly.
Iron King reached the door. "No need to see me off. See you later."
Just as Fyren was about to speak, a shadow burst through the window, snatched Otto, and leaped right back out. The girls screamed in fear.
Fyren rushed over to look—a thin wire hung from the windowsill. No need to ask, that shadow was Sherry.
Fyren smiled bitterly.
The protagonist—the one who gets into trouble but never dies.
Eliza gasped in surprise. "Fyren, your face..."
"What about it?"
"It's back to normal!"
Fyren pulled out her phone and saw that, sure enough, it had returned to its original appearance.
"So it turns out, as long as he's incapacitated, this foreign magic quickly wears off. It's much more comfortable seeing my own face again."
Xena said excitedly, "Hehehe, you're getting more and more interesting as a person—even your face can change! I was actually worried earlier that that one was the real you, you know? I got close enough to double-check several times, and only after seeing Eliza's indifference did I deliberately provoke her."
Fyren sighed.
[Oh, good. That's just so much fun.]
[Otto, this kind of heaven's favored son, surely can't die. I made him take such a violent beating and scammed him out of five billion dollars. If anyone's going to die, it'll be me, not him.]
[This kind of scam can't go on forever—sooner or later, it'll be exposed.]
Fyren was frustrated. "Alright, from now on, you guys can fend for yourselves. I'm tired. I'm going home."
"Hey, don't go! We won big today—let's celebrate!"
"Sorry, Xena. I'm not in the mood."
"Come on, I feel in my heart that even though Otto has a powerful background, you're much more handsome than him."
Fyren laughed bitterly. "What's the point of being handsome? Handsomeness just sets the tone for the protagonist's character—someone who specializes in looking good, just for the sake of everyone's visual enjoyment."
"Sometimes when you talk, I can't understand you at all."
"Good, you're not supposed to understand. Go, go, go."
Fyren called Zaring. "Zaring, I'm in Qianfeng. Come pick me up."
Sitting in the back of the business car, Fyren wasn't happy at all.
To save Eliza once, he had not only completely offended Otto, the male lead, but also caused him to be crushed by Iron King.
Now Eliza and Xena were completely attached to him. Whether they stuck to him or not didn't matter—what mattered was that they now hated and detested Otto.
Fyren was so done with Otto.
Stupid! You're so fucking stupid!
You can't even grasp such a simple thing, and yet you rely on disguises to trick girls? And you let them find out! It didn't even work!
My God!
Is there any other hero dumber than you?
But then again, if it weren't for him, everything would have followed the original plot.
In the end, it was him—using the system's gifts and the special knowledge he alone possessed in this world—that made Otto crash into walls over and over again.
If I want to live, I have to change the story's direction to survive till the end.
But the moment I alter the plot, the protagonist will hate me, the girls will hate him and like me, and then there's no way I'll make it to the finale.
There's no solution!
Absolutely no way out of this!
Fyren sighed. "Zaring, what are you spacing out for instead of driving?"
At that moment, the car door was yanked open, and Xena flashed inside.
"What now?"
"Eliza said you took a bath with her. Is that true?"
"Yeah, I did. Why?" Fyren said it deliberately.
"Oh." Xena narrowed her eyes. "You two are teaming up to piss me off on purpose, aren't you?"
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Welp! Why are you always so mean to me?"
"I like being mean - that's just my temper. So get out of the car and go home. Don't keep running out if you've got nothing better to do."
"Hey! I've been helping you every way I can these past few days! You want me to play along when you need me, then tell me to scram when you don't! Do you know that hurts my feelings?"
"Oh? Your feelings are hurt?" Fyren clapped her hands. "Then hurry home and cry about it slowly. Very slowly."
Fyren pushed the car door open. "Get out."
Xena sat firmly in the boss chair beside her, hugging her shoulders and crossing her legs. "I'm not getting out."
Fyren grew annoyed. "Get out of the car!"
"I'm not leaving! You're such a weirdo - nice one moment, awful the next. Are you just playing with me on purpose?"
"I'm dying, understand? I've already ruined my life over Eliza! Just consider this me begging you, okay? If you keep clinging to me every day, I won't survive! Get out, sis!"
Xena stared at Fyren. "Fine! Don't you dare treat me like this!"
"Huh. How?"
Xena sat in her boss chair by the door and crossed her legs. "Molestation! Rape! Molestation! Rape! Fyren's molesting me! Rape!"
Fyren gritted his teeth and hurriedly closed the car door. "Big sis, how can you be like this? How can you say such things so casually?"
"Yeah! I'm rebellious - didn't you know?"
Fyren wiped sweat from his forehead. "You...you're a girl. Can't you stop using such vulgar language? When you were tricking Otto, you said things about sitting to pee - watch out for consequences!"
Xena suddenly put on a pitiful act. "Do you hate me?"
Fyren sighed. "That's not it. But we hadn't contacted each other for years, and you used to get annoyed seeing me. You can't just cling to me because...I've done a few decent things recently, right? That makes no sense, sis!"
Xena laughed again. "Fine! Here's the deal - drink with me. Get me drunk, and I'll never bother you again."
"You're really sick!"
Xena lowered the window. "Molestation! Rape! Molestation ah—"
Fyren rushed to close the window. "Fine, fine! We'll drink! Let's go, go, go, go! I'll do it!"
The two sneaked back home. Fyren prepared some snacks on his small balcony and had Zaring bring good wine. They raised their glasses.
Fyren said, "Deal - if I outdrink you, you'll stop bothering me!"
"A gentleman's word is his bond."
"Cheers!"
Three hours later.
Fyren giggled uncontrollably while Xena sat in his lap, one arm around his neck, the other holding a wine bottle: "...My parents think I'm such a good girl, hahaha! They don't know I have a tattoo!"
"Really? I can't see it!"
"Of course not! It's in a very secret place!"
"Hahaha, how secret?"
"Want to see?"
"Yes."
"I won't show you! Haha!"
Fyren held his glass. "That Otto - what's so special about him? If he weren't the protagonist, I'd kill him in a minute!"
"You're much handsomer than him."
"Of course! I'm the villain! Villains are always super handsome - it satisfies everyone's desire to hate rich pretty boys!"
"Hahaha, cheers! If you outdrink me, I'll show you my tattoo~"
"Oh?" Fyren's flushed face broke into a lewd smile. "Deal!"
...
Early next morning.
Fyren woke with a splitting headache.
He rubbed his head, sat up, then froze when he noticed something wrong. Turning sideways, he wanted to die.
Xena's flawless body lay sprawled out, her beautiful legs tangled in the velvet blanket - impossibly alluring.
[Shit! Again! How much did I drink?!]