A Broken Art Style, a Screwed-Up World

The flying sword passed through layer upon layer of clouds, and the view suddenly opened up before them.

The Mystic Sect's mountain gate stood majestically above the clouds. Bluestone steps led from the foot of the mountain straight into the sky, with ancient pines spreading their branches like canopies on either side. Waterfalls and streams glimmered like scattered silver in the morning light.

Before Kexi could marvel at the immortal splendor, Yangyang and Suisui landed with him held between them.

Someone was already waiting on the bluestone platform before the mountain gate.

White hair.

A high ponytail.

A red-and-white dress, with a long, entirely silver-white blade hanging at her waist.

The mountain breeze lifted her silver-white hair and the tassel on her blade. Together with her strikingly cold, nearly expressionless face, she made a picture simply standing there.

Kexi's heart skipped a beat.

That iconic look-could she be the revered Eternal Burning Sakura Priestess?

Suisui put away the flying sword, covered her mouth with her fan, and leaned close to whisper in his ear. "This is Chisa, our eldest senior sister. Have you forgotten even her? She turned the whole back mountain upside down looking for you and didn't sleep a wink for three days."

Kexi felt a warmth in his heart and was about to step forward and greet her properly.

Chisa had already opened her mouth, speaking in a thick Japanese-colonel accent.

"Kouxi, you've come back, you have. Do you know what kind of person you are? You're a baka."

Little one, do you have a lot of questions?

Kexi's eyes widened, and his mouth fell open in an O.

What was with that thick Japanese-colonel accent?

Paired with her utterly serious, icy face, the contrast was so jarring that Kexi stood rooted to the spot as if struck by lightning.

"Um, eldest senior sister, long time no see-" Kexi steeled himself and finished the greeting, the smile on his face stiff as though coated in cement.

"You were too impulsive, you were. Master, she didn't have the intension of punishing you, she didn't."

Chisa looked solemn, and there was genuine concern in her voice, but that thick Japanese-colonel accent was really rather jarring.

"Next time, you cannut do this again. If there's any matta, the big shots can discuss it together."

Kexi broke down inside.

What the hell was that about big shots discussing it together? It was supposed to be "everyone can discuss it together"!

Oh, chory! Christopher, you really wrote me a script, didn't you! Give me back my cold, cute, airheaded Chisa!

But before he could digest the shock, another figure came running out of the mountain gate.

It was a young girl in a little pink-and-white dress, her hair in twin ponytails. Her skirt bounced as she ran, making her look from a distance like a little butterfly fluttering its wings.

"Jinhsi, slow down!" Seeing how fast she was running, Yangyang called out at once, afraid she might fall.

Kexi was startled again. Jinhsi's here too?

Jinhsi ran swiftly, practically bouncing down the steps. She grabbed Chisa's arm, then peeked out from behind her, blinking. When she saw Kexi, her eyes lit up.

"Brother Xi! I came out, see! You'we back!"

Kexi was dumbfounded all over again.

Brother Xi? What kind of Xi? Why Brother Xi? And what the hell was "I came out, see"?

He opened his mouth and let out a faint, raspy voice. "...What did you call me?"

"Brother Xi!" Jinhsi looked up at him and smiled, bright and innocent. She turned and shouted toward the mountain gate, her voice carrying across the entire front plaza. "Sistah! Sistah Suisui! Brother Xi's back! He's awight! I told you he'd be awight!"

Her shout startled a flock of birds out of the pine forest.

Kexi closed his eyes in anguish.

"Oh, for fuck's sake..."

He muttered to himself, his voice hollow with the emptiness of someone who had seen through the mortal world. "Christopher, what on earth did you do... What the hell did you eat while you were writing this script..."

The dignified magistrate. In this world, she was actually a little cousin who spoke Mandarin with a Zhuang accent and said things like "I came out, see."

How was he supposed to look Jinhsi in the eye from now on? Whenever he saw her, would he blurt out, "Cousin, I came out, see"?

Just imagining it made him want to crawl into a crack in the ground, dig out a three-bedroom apartment, and live there for the rest of his life.

Kexi felt as though someone had pulled his soul out of his body, thrown it on the ground, stomped on it twice, then stuffed it back in the wrong way around.

He stood on the bluestone platform at the mountain gate.

To his left was Yangyang, his junior senior sister.

To his right was Suisui, his fourth senior sister, waving her little fan with the look of someone enjoying a show.

In front of him was Chisa, his eldest senior sister, expressionless and cold-eyed, giving him a lecture in a pure Japanese-colonel accent.

And hanging onto her leg was Jinhsi, his junior sister, blinking starry eyes and eagerly calling him "Brother Xi" in Mandarin with a Zhuang accent.

The scene was even more absurd than Cantarella hanging him up in the hall of Porto-Vino Castle for a public execution.

He would rather go back and face that white stocking.

"Brother Xi! Why awe you standing thewe?"

Jinhsi tilted her head at him, her twin ponytails swaying with the movement. "Did you huwt youw bwain jumping off the cliff? I'm telling you, I was so wowwied about you while you wewe gone! I went to the back mountain to look fow you evewy day, and I even fell down. Look, look-"

She rolled up her sleeve, revealing a scrape the size of a fingernail on her elbow. Her expression was as solemn as if she were showing off a military medal. "I even bwoke the skin!"

Kexi looked at the scrape on her elbow, which was smaller than his fingernail, and the expectant "praise me" expression on her face. He stayed silent for a long moment, then slowly raised his hand and patted her head.

"...Thanks for the effort, cousin."

"I'm youw junia sistah, not youw cousin!" Jinhsi puffed out her cheeks to correct him, but her head rubbed against his palm of its own accord, like a kitten being stroked.

Chisa held her blade, her brows slightly furrowed, and added with an utterly serious look on her icy face, "Kouxi, while you were gone, little junior sister secretly went to the back mountain to look for you every day. Her second senior sister caught her and brought her back several times. She was very worried about you, she was."

"Eldest senia sistah! Don't tell him that!" Jinhsi's face flushed red. She let go of Chisa's arm and reached up to cover her mouth.

But given her height, she could only reach Chisa's chin even when she jumped. She made several flailing attempts without managing to cover her mouth, and her twin ponytails were almost standing on end in her distress.

Watching the scene, Kexi couldn't help the corners of his mouth from lifting.

Though the accents were outrageous and the character settings were a mess, they really did care about him.

But then again, where had the original owner's consciousness gone after he transmigrated into this body? How did the logic of this script work? Before he could think it through, Suisui's little fan tapped him on the forehead again.

"Smack."

"What are you daydreaming for? Let's go. Master's still waiting for you in Clear Heart Hall." Suisui waved her fan and leaned close to lower her voice, her tone full of schadenfreude. "You'd better think carefully about how to explain that spirit fruit to Master. She hasn't been in a very good temper these past few days-of course, anyone would be in a bad temper after their disciple slipped them that kind of drug."

A chill ran down Kexi's back, and his steps suddenly grew heavy.

But he was going to get the blade whether he stuck his neck out or pulled it back. He had already made it to the mountain gate; he couldn't very well jump off a cliff again.

Besides, even if he did jump, his senior and junior sisters would probably just pick him up again.

Then Jinhsi would tell him in her Zhuang-accented Mandarin, "Brother Xi, you jumped again."

Chisa would scold him with a cold face, "Why did you jump off a cliff again, you did?" Just imagining it made him feel he never wanted to see another cliff in his life.

The bluestone steps were long and solemn.

Kexi walked in the middle, with Yangyang on his left and Jinhsi on his right, followed by Suisui waving her fan and Chisa holding her blade.

In any xianxia novel, this setup would have been the script of a winner in life.

If one ignored the fact that he was about to face the female master he had drugged.

They reached Clear Heart Hall.

The hall doors were shut tight, and no sound came from inside.

Three sticks of incense burned in the censer before the hall, their smoke rising straight into the windless sky.

Kexi stood before the doors and took a deep breath.

"Master, your disciple Kexi... has returned."