On the other side, Lovia hurried almost all the way back to her safe shack, slammed the door shut, and leaned against it with a long sigh.
She pulled off her hooded cloak and tossed it onto a nearby chair. At this moment, even her antennae were drooping a bit.
Leaning against the creaking wooden door, Lovia slowly slid down to the floor, dropping the bag of Crabs beside her, completely ignoring them.
"Unpleasant... the Conqueror of Demons is feeling unpleasant..." she muttered. Beside her, the Crabs seemed to sense her tension, waving their claws and making rustling noises.
I'm doomed, looks like I've overplayed my hand.
Although she had anticipated that the person involved might find out, hearing the Adeptus's feedback indirectly from Yaoyao (who heard it from Granny Ping) still hit differently.
He is a literal Guardian Yaksha, a being with off-the-charts combat power!
Once that Lemniscatic Wind Cycling comes out, won't he come knocking "whoosh whoosh whoosh" in an instant?
That guy can teleport!!
Her mind uncontrollably began to play out various terrifying scenarios: a dark and windy night, the reeds of Dihua Marsh flattened by a gale, and a dark green figure appearing silently outside her shack like a ghost, surrounded by a cold, murderous aura. Those golden pupils would pierce through the thin door, locking onto her.
And then—
Too scary!
"Will he really come straight to my door?"
"And then, and then jump up and poke my knees with the vortex vanquisher?"
The image was so vivid that she subconsciously touched her own kneecaps.
But in the next second, she suddenly froze.
A more cruel and realistic problem crashed into her mind.
"Wait, no!" She looked down at her limbs, which were clearly quite short, and recalled the handsome figure of that young Adeptus from the game.
Although that Adeptus was famous for his "unremarkable height," but... "Right now, I seem to be... even shorter than him!" Lovia let out a desperate wail, burying her burning face in her knees.
She, Lovia, had transmigrated into a Damselette of the Melusine race, her height fixed at a tragic 1.3 meters.
And that Conqueror of Demons is definitely taller than her!
What did this mean?
It meant that if the Adeptus really couldn't get over it and wanted to give her some "unpleasantness" on a physical level, he didn't need to "jump up" at all!
He would only need to walk over calmly, reach out calmly, and he could accurately flick her forehead! Or grab her hood! Or even... look down at her coldly with those golden eyes filled with millennia of slaughter!
"Ugh..."
Lovia imagined the scene; he wouldn't even need to use the vortex vanquisher. That condescending pressure would be enough to suffocate her.
Being poked in the knee might just hurt, but this kind of downward gaze brought by the height difference, with no room for resistance, was simply mental torture!
Moreover, she was shorter than him, yet she actually wrote an article teasing him about his height?!
The Crabs on the floor seemed to sense the turbulent emotions of the person (or rather, the Melusine?) beside them. They struggled even harder, one claw even tenaciously piercing through the oil-paper bag, waving angrily in the air.
Lovia sighed, resignedly untied the string, and temporarily put these lively little snacks into a water basin. Looking at them scuttling around, she had no mood to make stew at all.
"Celebrating, huh? Celebrating that I'm about to become an ant under an Adeptus's foot..." She collapsed onto the nearby creaking small bed, covering her head with a pillow.
The shack fell silent, with only the faint sound of Crabs blowing bubbles and the occasional bustle of the market outside the window.
Fear fermented in her heart, mixing with the guilt that had never quite dissipated, turning increasingly sour.
Had she gone too far?
For Mora and the cheers of readers, she had written an Adeptus who truly protected Liyue and bore the pain of karma like that... The Conqueror of Demons himself might just be too lazy to bother with mortals, but that didn't mean he wouldn't feel offended.
"Will he think... I'm mocking him?" Lovia thought gloomily, "Mocking him for not being able to protect what he treasures, mocking his... height?"
This thought made her feel even worse.
She never intended to mock him; she just thought... that kind of contrast was interesting and that readers would like it. But thinking about it now, this "interest" was built at the cost of potentially hurting the other party.
The shadows in the shack seemed to come alive, slowly twisting in her eyes, as if they would condense into that cold Yaksha's form in the next moment.
She suddenly bounced up from the bed, neurotically checking if the doors and windows were locked, then drawing the curtains tight to ensure there wasn't a single gap.
Having done all this, she sat back on the edge of the bed again, hugging her knees and watching the Crabs in the water basin, who were oblivious to everything and still full of energy.
It's over, I've really overplayed my hand this time.
She could almost hear a cold voice, carrying a hint of suppressed displeasure, coming from the night wind.
After letting her imagination run wild for a while, Lovia scared herself half to death. Her heart pounded as if the Yaksha would burst through the door at any second.
But then she thought about it carefully. He was, after all, a being who had protected Liyue for thousands of years and cared for all living things. Although he had a cold temperament, she had never heard of him attacking innocent mortals; instead, he often cleared out monsters and protected people when they were in danger.
Thinking this way, she breathed a slight sigh of relief, her tense shoulders relaxing a bit.
But the guilt in her heart became clearer after the fear receded slightly.
After all, she had indeed earned a lot of Mora by making things up about him and had been heavily praised by the Bookstore Owner and the readers.
Moreover, he was a good person. Even if he wouldn't hold a grudge, she shouldn't have just made things up about him.
"Sigh, after all, I was the one who made things up about him first..." she muttered, poking the tabletop with her fingertip. "Even Granny Ping said he was unpleasant..."
Although she was afraid he'd come to her door, thinking carefully, if the Adeptus really felt slighted because of this, it seemed... to make her feel even worse.
When she wrote the story, she only cared about it being interesting and earning Mora, forgetting to consider the feelings of the subject, especially a Yaksha who was silent yet always protecting.
"How about... an apology? Or, a gesture?" The thought popped up.
Go directly to the Conqueror of Demons and apologize in person?
As soon as the idea appeared, Lovia immediately rejected it. She shook her head vigorously, her hood swaying crookedly: "No, no! How is that different from walking into a trap? If he's currently 'unpleasant,' wouldn't I be delivering myself to him to be 'unpleasant' with?"
She hadn't forgotten the cruel reality that she might be shorter than him now. Facing him in person, she would lose completely in terms of presence.
But if she did nothing, she felt uneasy, always feeling as if an invisible gaze from the direction of Dihua Marsh was staring at the back of her head.
After agonizing for a long time, Lovia's sapphire-blue eyes suddenly lit up, and she slapped her thigh.
"I've got it!"
Doesn't Xiao love almond tofu the most?
"Since my writing made him unpleasant, I can show some sincerity with Mora, right?" The more she thought about it, the more feasible the idea seemed. "I'll order a few servings of almond tofu for him and have them sent to the top floor of Wangshu Inn."
"Consider it... um, an apology gift?"
Although she wasn't sure if the Adeptus would accept it, or even if he would show up to take it, doing something was better than doing nothing.
At least it expressed her apology and her humble wish that he would be magnanimous and not hold it against her.
After deciding this, the big stone in Lovia's heart seemed to lighten a little.
She perked up again and began counting the Mora in her purse, calculating the round-trip travel expenses and the cost of the almond tofu.
Although her small treasury was currently full, she still occasionally felt a pang of pain for the Mora that was about to be spent.
But at this moment, it was more of a relief, like "spending money to avert disaster."
"Conqueror of Demons, Great Immortal Xiao, I didn't do it on purpose. Please be magnanimous and let me off!" She comforted herself, already planning her itinerary for the next couple of days. "I have to pick a time when there are few people. In case I run into him... uh, it's better not to run into him."
She only hoped that the sweet bowl of almond tofu could slightly dissolve the "unpleasantness" in the Adeptus's heart.
As for the height issue... she swore that if she wrote about him again, she would definitely give the Conqueror of Demons a "two-meter-eight aura" setting!!
Yes, that's what I'll do!