A Couple's Con Game

"Strategist! Hurry up and come up with a plan!"

La Signora arched her slender brows, looking every inch a grinning scoundrel. Every trace of her cool, noble bearing vanished as she called out brazenly to Kokomi, her manner casual and frivolous.

Her stunningly beautiful, icy features paired with such lively, slippery, utterly undignified mischief did not seem incongruous at all. Instead, they gave La Signora a captivating air, bright and vivacious yet tinged with seductive allure.

"...Mm, I'm not good at these schemes and plots. I'm a strategist, not a romance expert."

With La Signora teasing her so familiarly and intimately, without the slightest sense of boundaries, a powerful feeling of strangeness and incongruity inexplicably welled up in Kokomi's heart. She lightly furrowed her delicate brows, suppressed that absurd sense of wrongness, and steadied her breathing as she earnestly considered a solution.

"Use the Four-Leaf Illusion God Eye to brainwash her! That seems doable!"

She chose the approach that relied most heavily on raw stats.

"It isn't doable. Your mental strength is only at the Soul Saint level at best. How could it affect a Titled Douluo's mental strength? Even if you're in La Signora's body now, the power is fundamentally still Ji Feng's. A clever Illusion Technique might have a chance, but how could outright brainwashing possibly work?"

Nahida rebutted the suggestion from a technical perspective.

Kokomi waved her fan and said casually,

"Then I'll offer three strategies: the best, the middling, and the worst. The best is to use La Signora's appearance and let affection grow over time. As long as she feels your fondness for her and sees that following you offers limitless prospects, she'll naturally consider it."

"The middling strategy is the deception you're best at. Switch into my body or your true form and pretend to rescue her from La Signora. Use the debt of saving her life to earn her trust, then arrange things so she mistakenly believes Spirit Hall has abandoned her. That will naturally leave room for your relationship to develop."

"The worst, of course, is to use threats and inducements to force her to submit."

"I feel like little Kokomi has picked up Ji Feng's bad habits! Aren't all of these just deception?" Nahida quipped.

"Can't there be even a little sincerity and trust between people?"

Ah Yin sat to one side, hugging her knees, feeling as though her head had turned green with cuckold's horns again. She pursed her little lips, and La Signora immediately noticed. Obediently wrapping her arms around Ah Yin, she leaned close to her ear and softly coaxed her.

After a few embarrassing jokes, Ah Yin's face soon flushed crimson, her body going soft as she grew coy and alluring.

At that moment, Ling Yuan Douluo finally woke. The instant she opened her eyes, she saw La Signora, who had gravely wounded her earlier, intimately embracing another breathtakingly beautiful blue-haired woman. Beside them stood a little green-haired girl and a pretty young woman with an unusual long blue-and-pink hairstyle.

Sensing that the Soul Power within her would not respond at all, Ling Yuan Douluo's heart sank. Had my Soul Power been crippled? Have I become useless? Her injuries, however, had healed considerably.

Seeing her awake, Sangonomiya Kokomi took the initiative to approach her and elegantly knelt before her. "Sister, do you understand your current situation?"

"You're the knife and chopping block, and I'm the fish on it. What other situation could there be?" Ling Yuan Douluo sneered, refusing to yield in spirit even after losing.

Even trapped in a desperate situation, the pride etched into her bones as a Titled Douluo had not diminished in the slightest. Yet the scene before her truly struck her as extraordinarily strange.

She noticed that La Signora's cold, exquisite face, beautiful enough to bring all living beings to their knees, had clearly shed all its arrogance and murderous severity. Only languid, teasing tenderness remained as she lowered her head to coax the green-haired woman in her arms, their temples brushing together. Her voice was soft and intimate, their closeness almost painful to behold.

This arrogant, capricious woman was actually coaxing another girl with tender affection. Hadn't they been enemies before?

"Sister, you're truly perceptive and wise. But today, you unfortunately fell into trouble. With your Soul Power sealed, I'm afraid even your intelligence will make escape difficult..."

Before Kokomi could finish, Ling Yuan's gaze sharpened. "Kill me or carve me up, do as you please! I would never cling to life in disgrace! If you kill me, Spirit Hall will avenge me! Say no more!"

"Spirit Hall?" La Signora raised a brow and scoffed, her tone frivolous and arrogant. "Do you think you still have the right to represent Spirit Hall?"

"What use would Spirit Hall have for a piece of trash who couldn't even protect the Holy Maiden? You've only barely broken through to Titled Douluo. Surely Spirit Hall has no shortage of Titled Douluos like you?"

As her words fell, Kokomi picked up the thread at just the right moment, analyzing the situation with clear logic, every word stabbing straight into Ling Yuan's heart.

"Ling Yuan Douluo, you suffered grievous injuries and defeat, and vanished without a trace. Spirit Hall has always cared only about its interests. It never feeds idle mouths. In their eyes, defeated and stripped of power, you no longer have any value to exploit. At this point, no one will mobilize forces for you, much less stand up for you."

"..."

Ling Yuan Douluo opened her mouth, wanting to refute her, but no words came. The current Pope, Qian Xunji, was notorious for his cold-blooded ruthlessness. He had never particularly valued a Titled Douluo like her, who had barely managed her breakthrough with Spirit Hall's resources and had no hope of becoming a Super Douluo in her lifetime.

Ultimately, if he had valued her, he would not have assigned her to be the bodyguard of a Holy Maiden who was merely a Soul Emperor.

And now she had failed her mission, leaving the Holy Maiden...

Wait?! Where was the Holy Maiden?!

"Where's the Holy Maiden?! Did you kill her?!"

Ling Yuan Douluo demanded anxiously.

"Of course I killed her! What would I keep her for? Or do you think she could have escaped from me?" La Signora suddenly stepped forward, pinched Ling Yuan's cheek, and chuckled.

Ling Yuan Douluo's face instantly went deathly pale. If she returned to Spirit Hall now, she would even face punishment. She had thought protecting the Holy Maiden would be a simple assignment, never imagining...

"Ling Yuan Douluo, you're intelligent and beautiful, proud to your bones, loyal and unyielding, and you possess the cultivation and strength of a Titled Douluo. Why insist on hanging yourself from a single tree?"

Without her noticing, Kokomi had already moved beside Ling Yuan Douluo. Holding her small hand, she gently tried to persuade her.

"We're a newly risen New Faction. Look, that lady over there is Nahida, the God of Wisdom. We all admire you. Spirit Hall doesn't understand your potential, but we know how to make you truly strong! Even becoming a Super Douluo won't be just a dream!"

Ling Yuan Douluo had naturally noticed Nahida, and now she wavered slightly.

Kokomi began performing that time-honored leadership trick: painting a grand feast of promises!

"I belong to Spirit Hall, so naturally I must serve Spirit Hall... How could I change sides in the midst of battle..." Although Ling Yuan Douluo still resisted, her tone had softened considerably.

"That La Signora belongs to the Fatui! She's the one who wants to oppose Spirit Hall. We're the Sanctuary of Surasthana, an organization that very much hopes for peace! We won't put you in a difficult position! You might even have a chance to return to Spirit Hall as one of its higher-ups!"

Kokomi immediately issued a righteous declaration distancing them from La Signora.

"You... What's going on here?" Ling Yuan was bewildered.

"She wanted to kill you! Nahida and I stepped in and negotiated with her so she would hand you over to us! We truly think highly of you!"

Kokomi told lies as naturally as she breathed.

"Hmph! What use is this trash? I might as well cripple her body too! Making her a little maid wouldn't be bad!" La Signora folded her arms over her ample chest and said coldly.

"You!" Ling Yuan instantly panicked, her eyes reddening slightly as a hint of hurt surfaced in her watery gaze. She was a Titled Douluo! Rather than render her useless, they might as well kill her!

Seeing that Ling Yuan still hesitated, Kokomi said gently, "You don't need to rush into joining us. How about staying with us as our friend for now? You can take more time to consider it."

The two played off each other, one the villain and the other the kindly mediator. At last, Ling Yuan gave a slight nod, deciding to travel with them for the time being.