"It takes a week to cook that. I have to let the meat sit and marinate before the cooking even starts. I had to first master cooking as a mortal before I could teach a cultivator to cook. It took some time, but we have this." Ethan said with a smile, watching her reaction with the quiet satisfaction of a man who already knew what the verdict was going to be.
"I found that cultivators skip the fact that even as a mortal, one can do crazy things. You all skip that and rely fully on cultivation…" Ethan said softly, leaning back in his seat with his arms folded across his chest. It was something he had noticed early on in this life—cultivators treated the mortal body and the mortal mind as stepping stones, things to be discarded and left behind the moment they gained access to Qi. They never stopped to consider what those foundations could accomplish on their own if someone actually bothered to push them to their limits.
"What a shame… if you were a cultivator." She said softly, her gaze lingering on him as her mind wandered to what Ethan could have been if he weren't a cripple. The things he had already accomplished without cultivation were staggering—what would he have done with it? Then again, if he had been born with the ability to cultivate, would he have ever been desperate enough to discover any of this? Would he have bothered looking at the mortal world for answers when the cultivator's world handed them out freely?
"If I were a cultivator, I would have never come here to see you… And I think that's worth more than any cultivation could offer. To meet a lewd princess." Ethan said, nodding to himself as though confirming his own good fortune, and her entire body went rigid at that last part.
"S-stop bringing that up," She said, blushing so hard that even the tips of her ears had gone pink, the shame hitting her fresh every single time he said it.
"Sorry," Ethan said with a laugh that made it very clear he was not sorry in the slightest, and she snorted at the obvious lie before shifting her attention back to the plate of curry in front of her. She picked up a spoon this time—she had already sacrificed enough dignity using her finger—and began eating properly. Within minutes, she found herself fully enjoying the meal, each bite better than the last as the flavors layered on top of one another in ways she hadn't anticipated.
"It's thick… it tastes good… I can't get enough of this." She said softly, her voice carrying a quiet reverence that was entirely reserved for the food—but the moment the words left her mouth, Ethan, who had turned his attention elsewhere, slowly looked back at her with a stunned expression that made her stomach drop.
"The food!" Zara cried, her face burning crimson as she realized exactly what Ethan was thinking.
"Sure," Ethan said softly, looking at her with a slow, approving nod that made her want to crawl under the table and never come out. Zara's face turned an even brighter shade of red, unable to withstand the look he was giving her—that infuriating mix of amusement and admiration that made her feel seen in a way she absolutely did not ask for.
But she forced herself to ignore him and went on to finish her meal in stubborn silence, refusing to give him another reaction to work with.
"So, how do we get you home? Or do you want more of that thick stuff?" Ethan asked casually, and in the span of a single heartbeat, Zara had grabbed him by the front of his shirt and yanked him toward her.
"I swear!" She snapped, her face red and her grip tight enough to wrinkle the fabric permanently… but she froze when she realized just how close she had pulled him.
Their faces were inches apart. She could feel his breath against her skin. The two looked at each other for what felt like a long, suspended moment, neither of them moving. Then she let go abruptly, practically shoving him back as she took a full step away, making sure there was a safe distance between them.
"You look cute when you're shy… I find it funny that you can be so shy and lewd at the same time." Ethan said softly, and the blush that had just started to fade came roaring back across her face.
"Y-you." She pointed at him, but nothing followed. She didn't know how to handle Ethan. Nothing in her life—not combat training, not royal etiquette, not a century of cultivation—had prepared her for someone like this. Ethan just smiled at her, warm and unbothered, and that smile forced her to look away, her face so red it could have been mistaken for a sunburn.
"You're a filthy human…" She said softly, but there was no venom behind it this time. She had never felt so thrown off in her entire life, and the fact that it was a human doing it to her made it ten times worse.
"I can't go home without risking my sister killing me… can I ask for your help?" She asked softly, her voice dropping the hostility entirely, replaced by something quieter and more vulnerable than anything she had shown him so far.
"Of course. Your sister sounds evil. How can anyone want to destroy perfection?" Ethan asked with a genuine frown, the concern in his voice unmistakable, and her face flushed yet again because he had said it without a single hint of falsehood.
She could read him as clearly as ever—there was no deception, no flattery, no angle. He meant it. How could someone say things like that so easily, so naturally, without any of it being a lie?
"I'm not perfect…" She said softly, shaking her head, but she was stunned into silence when Ethan stepped forward and closed the distance between them.
"I might be a cripple, but I know perfection when I see it… and that's you. Not because you're an elf—you're so much more than an elf… you're lewd, beautiful, you have an unfiltered mouth… you're lewd, and you have the bravery to stand before death and not flinch… and you're lewd." Ethan said, and her expression darkened steadily as the word "lewd" came out of his mouth not once, not twice, but three separate times, each one hitting like a slap.
But Zara froze when Ethan reached down and took both of her hands in his, holding them gently. He looked at her with a gaze she couldn't meet—too intense, too sincere, too much—and she found herself blushing while turning her face away from him. But Ethan wasn't done. He gently placed a finger beneath her chin and guided her face back toward his, looking her directly in the eyes with a depth that made her chest tighten.
"You're perfect… and I want you to see that. I want you to see what I can see," Ethan said, his voice barely above a whisper as he slowly brought his face closer. Zara's eyes fluttered shut on instinct, her breath catching in her throat, and their lips met in a kiss that was softer than anything she had ever felt… and that was how Ethan ended up sleeping with the elven princess.
***
Sita set down that section of the report and moved on, flipping through page after page of Ethan's activities, each one more outrageous than the last. What unfolded before her was the profile of a man who had, against all logic, become the most untouchable person in the entire United Empire—and he had done it without a single drop of cultivation in his body.
Why was he untouchable? Because Ethan first started with a strip club. Not just any strip club, but one so exclusive and so high-end that it had drawn in some of the most powerful beings in the empire, and while they were busy indulging themselves, Ethan was busy collecting dirt on them.
He had amassed enough dirt on enough powerful people to bring the entire political structure of the empire to its knees, and he used that information to further improve the power he held over them... of course, he had help, and this came from the shadows. No one should have known that it was Ethan behind the club... but Ellen knew.
On top of that, Ethan had spies embedded in every corner of the empire. Not just the United Empire—every corner. His network stretched so far and ran so deep that Ellen's report described him as secretly the most powerful individual in the empire after he created what came to be known as the internet.
The internet. Ethan had built a global communication network and introduced it to the world under the name "Enternet"—Enter the Net. Get it? It was a trap, and the entire world had walked into it with open arms.
They were so amazed by the concept—instant communication, access to information, entertainment at their fingertips—that they never stopped to consider that Ethan, its creator, would be secretly monitoring all of it.
Their calls, their text messages, their locations, their private conversations—he was listening to everything, recording everything, and storing it all where no one could reach it but him.
And if anyone ever thought about killing him to shut it all down? Well, Ethan had made it very clear, very publicly, that if he died—or if he failed to perform a specific set of actions within a certain amount of time—every single piece of dirt he had ever collected would be released to the world simultaneously.
Every secret, every scandal, every crime that powerful people had buried would surface in an instant, and there would be no taking it back. It was the ultimate dead man's switch. Ethan could sit back in his villa, feet up, knowing full well that he was untouchable. Not because he was strong, but because killing him would be the most catastrophic mistake anyone could make.
'This is worse than I expected...' Sita thought, lowering the report and looking out the window of the guest room.
She didn't trust Ellen. Not for a second. She was almost certain that most of the reports in this file were either incomplete or deliberately missing key information. Ellen was using her as a pawn in some larger game… but for what purpose?
Sita, of course, had her own intelligence network and her own reports on Ethan. She had known for years that he slept around—that was hardly a secret. But what she hadn't known was just how untouchable he had become in the time since they last saw each other.
What Ellen had conveniently left out of the file were some of the specific women Ethan had been involved with—the really dangerous ones, the ones whose names alone could start wars… after all, one of the many females Ethan slept with was a demigod.
But Sita had the full report. She knew exactly which powerful experts Ethan had charmed his way into bed with, and she knew that Ethan had gone into hiding specifically to escape them. He wasn't hiding from assassins or political enemies—he was hiding from the women he had seduced.
Ellen was a scheming bitch. Ellen's plan wasn't to help her—it was to expose her. By arranging this marriage publicly, by having Raven kidnap Ethan and draw attention to him, Ellen was painting a target on every woman connected to him.
She wanted to draw them all out into the open. And once they found out about each other, once they learned that the man they each believed was theirs was being married off to someone else… the result would be a bloodbath.
Ellen would have just sat back in the throne room, watching from a safe distance as thousands of powerful, furious women slaughtered each other over a single mortal man.
Ethan was in hiding for a reason. And with Ellen making sure that word of the wedding spread far and wide, what would those women do when they found out?
Hell, many of them might just want to kill Ethan for personal reasons—broken promises, abandoned nights, words that meant everything to them and nothing to him.
'That bitch… wants to get me killed along with everyone else.' Sita thought, her eyes turning sharp as the full picture clicked into place. She had almost walked straight into it. And Ellen would have watched it all burn without lifting a finger.