The crisp sound of horse hooves approached from the distance.
The heavy doors of the grand hall were pushed open once again.
A column of fully armed Royal Knights marched in with perfectly synchronized steps, pouring in like a torrent of steel.
The knight leading them was tall and slender, her short black hair cut clean and sharp.
She wore a silver knight's uniform tailored to fit her figure perfectly, with a dark red cloak draped over her shoulders. Each of her steps rang out with a metallic clang.
She walked down to the base of the white jade steps and, without the slightest hesitation, dropped to one knee with a heavy thud.
The entire movement was as flawless as a textbook example, without a single imperfection.
Her right hand clenched into a fist and struck the heart-guard on her left chest, producing a dull, heavy thud.
"My Empress, your personal knight awaits your command at all times."
The face that usually wore a mischievous grin and loved to tease her during training was now filled with absolute piety and fervor.
Su Wan leaned forward languidly, using the tip of the scepter in her hand to gently lift Lin Xiyue's chin.
"Do you know the price one must pay to swear an oath of loyalty?"
Lin Xiyue looked up, her eyes churning with undisguised possessiveness and adoration, the searing intensity of her emotion nearly melting Su Wan.
"I would be ground to dust without hesitation."
Her voice was firm and unwavering.
"I only ask that Your Majesty grant me... the honor of remaining by your side."
"Very well."
Su Wan lifted her chin, her arrogant pride on full display.
"From this day forth, you are not only this Empress's sword and shield, but also the Empress Consort of this Ice and Snow Empire."
She paused, her voice carrying the will of ice and snow as it echoed through the empty hall.
"If anyone in this world dares to utter a single word of objection, this Empress shall freeze their soul!"
Everything felt so natural.
The script was so perfect that she believed it without a doubt.
Su Wan gazed down at the frozen territory that belonged to her, a wild smile spreading across her lips.
However, just as she was about to rise and grant her newly appointed "Empress Consort" a gracious embrace, the expression on her face, flushed with satisfaction, suddenly froze.
Wait...
If Lin Xiyue became the Empress Consort...
Wouldn't that mean her ridiculously eccentric sister, Lin Qingyue, would become Su Wan's legitimate "sister-in-law"?
A horrifying image instantly flooded Su Wan's mind.
That Aesthetic Bully, who could beat the BOSS until they cried for their father and mother, and who completely crushed all dimensions of aesthetics, logic, and psychology, would now be openly interfering in her and Xiyue's lives.
She might even show up one morning, wearing her signature demonic smile and carrying a bowl of "tonic" she'd obtained from who knows where, claiming it was to "nourish the Empress Consort."
Then, she'd use her pink-haired head, which appeared and disappeared without a trace, to kindly hover by her bedside...
Su Wan felt as if a piece of ten-thousand-year-old profound ice had been forcibly stuffed down her throat, causing her to instantly fall from her high and mighty position as the Ice and Snow Empress to a future little bride completely dominated by some terrifying sister-in-law.
Her heart, which had always been pounding with a rebellious streak, was now frozen by a frost called "fear" and came to a sudden halt.
-
A gentle breeze rustled the trees, creating waves through the forest.
The air was filled with the fresh scent of green grass and morning dew, instantly refreshing the mind.
Ancient trees with towering trunks and sprawling roots formed a dense canopy, slicing the sunlight into countless golden fragments that scattered across the moss-covered forest path.
Vines wove into natural swings, while specks of glowing green life-light floated in the air.
Xia Lian stood before an Ancient Tree of Life vast enough to house a hundred people.
As the sole Ranger Leader of this forest, Xia Lian's archery had already reached the pinnacle of perfection.
But at this moment, she had no need to hunt or fight.
Because she was surrounded.
To be precise, she was surrounded by a group of lithe, handsome men.
Their eyes, fixed on Xia Lian, were all filled with fanatical adoration.
She was their King.
The supreme leader whose archery was divine.
"Chief, these are the Starlight Grapes we picked today."
A cheerful, puppy-like young man with short red hair approached her.
He wore leather armor that was half-open at the chest, revealing his well-defined eight-pack abs. Holding a crystal platter, his puppy-like eyes gazed at her, moist with pure anticipation.
"Leader, this is nectar brewed for a thousand years in the Moonwell."
On the other side, a silver-haired mage with a cool and aloof temperament offered a white jade wine cup.
His fingers were long and bony, and his voice was clear and cold, like an undercurrent beneath a glacier, each word carrying an untainted chill.
Not far away on a tree branch, a black-haired, red-eyed bard leaned against the trunk, his deep and husky voice singing love poems in her praise.
Behind her, a gentle and elegant Eastern swordsman in flowing white robes was meticulously peeling the skin of an immortal fruit, preparing to hold it to her lips.
The sunny type, the yandere type, the abstinent type, the puppy-dog type... they had it all.
This was practically the ultimate materialization of every Mary Sue novel!
As the only normal straight woman in the group, this should have been the perfect scenario of her dreams, one that would make her laugh in her sleep.
If this had been her old self, Xia Lian would have been blushing furiously and stumbling all over the place, unable to even walk straight when faced with such a scene.
Seeing her silence, the sunny puppy-dog type plucked a grape with a bold gesture, attempting to feed it to her.
His other hand reached out with natural ease to take her left hand.
Slap.
Xia Lian's body reacted before her brain could.
She took a sharp step back and even swung her hand, delivering a crisp slap that knocked away the arm with its perfectly sculpted muscles.
The blonde puppy-dog froze, his handsome face etched with utter bewilderment, looking so wronged he was on the verge of tears.
The air fell eerily silent for three seconds.
All the handsome men stared at her with the wounded gazes of abandoned pets.
"Strange..."
Xia Lian looked at this group of flawless, top-tier men, yet felt only an inexplicable sense of emptiness and boredom in her heart.
Abs?
They were firm, alright, but they looked soft. Their strength probably wouldn't even equal half the explosive power of that shield-wielding female rogue.
Cool and aloof?
What a pretentious act. On a real battlefield, that ethereal, floating gait would definitely get him sent flying into the sky by a single spear thrust.
She raised a hand to press against her chest.
Her heartbeat was terrifyingly steady.
There was no pitter-patter of a deer-like palpitation, nor the dizziness of a hormone rush.
In her mind, an inappropriately timed scene flickered.
The tall figure clad in a Xuanhuang Daoist Robe, with white hair and golden eyes, walked lotus steps on the ground in a filthy Black Sludge Purgatory, using a finger as a brush.
That person, while brutally beating the ugly False God with the most elegant posture, used the most vicious words to conduct a dimensionality-reducing psychological bullying.
With a single hand pressing down, he forcibly suppressed the monster into a compressed biscuit with ten thousand talismans, a Peerless Grandmaster who dominantly announced, "This seat will not accept this broken test paper."
That kind of cool, desirable, and fiercely powerful sense of absolute security that could protect everything.
Xia Lian looked down at her own hands, and the tips of her ears began to burn uncontrollably as a strong sense of guilt mixed with a strange palpitation surged into her heart.
"It's all over..."
Xia Lian covered her face in despair.
These men in front of her were clearly the standards for choosing a partner that she had always adhered to.
But why did it feel so tasteless now, like chewing wax?
The immense sense of absurdity brought by this cognitive dissonance caused jarring cracks to gradually emerge in this perfect Elven Forest.
"What kind of situation is this?! Ignoring so many top-tier men, my mind is actually full of Sister Qingyue beating people up... This isn't right, the script must have been swapped!"
These three tailor-made dreamscapes precisely captured the suppressed desires deep within their hearts, fulfilling their most extreme expectations of "Pride."
Although the alarms of their subconscious had already begun to sound, the dopamine provided by this spiritual opium was too intense, and the three women, deeply mired in the sweet swamp, subconsciously ignored it.