Li Wei ran.
He didn't know where he was going.
He just knew he had to get away from the beautiful, terrifying cosplayer who was shouting about his soul's duality.
And the police.
Definitely the police.
He ducked into the first familiar place he saw.
A beacon of warmth and spicy goodness in the cold, confusing night.
Old Man Tan's All-You-Can-Eat Hotpot Heaven.
His safe space.
His sanctuary.
The only place in the world that truly understood him.
**
He slid into his favorite booth in the back, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
The restaurant was mostly empty at this hour, just a few other late-night diners hunched over their steaming pots.
The air smelled of boiling broth, chili oil, and peace.
He could feel the knot of panic in his chest slowly begin to unwind.
This was fine.
Everything was fine.
The whole thing was probably just a bad dream. A stress hallucination.
Yeah. That was it.
He'd just have some hotpot, and everything would go back to normal.
**
The waitress appeared at his table.
Mei.
She was cute, with a sweet smile and pigtails that bounced when she walked.
She always gave him extra beef slices for free.
Li Wei was pretty sure he was in love with her.
"The usual, Li Wei?" she asked, her voice as sweet as plum sauce.
He nodded, his heart doing a little flutter. "The Bankruptcy Special, please."
She smiled, and for a second, the world felt right again.
Then her smile widened.
And it became just a little too sharp.
A little too predatory.
And her eyes started to glow.
A faint, dangerous red.
"Coming right up," she purred.
And then, from under her cute little waitress cap, two fluffy fox ears twitched.
**
Li Wei stared.
Blinked.
Stared again.
Nope. Still there.
Actual, literal fox ears.
His brain, already strained to its absolute limit, simply gave up.
It blue-screened.
Okay, he thought with a strange, detached calm. So the hallucination is getting more elaborate. Cool. Cool cool cool.
Mei returned, not with a pot of broth, but with two impossibly long, black chopsticks.
They shimmered with a faint, dark energy.
"Special delivery," she hissed, her sweet voice gone, replaced by something ancient and hungry.
She lunged across the table.
The flaming chopsticks aimed right for his throat.
**
Li Wei screamed.
It was a high-pitched, full-throated shriek of pure, unadulterated terror.
He threw himself backward, tumbling out of the booth and onto the floor.
The chopsticks stabbed into the vinyl seat where his neck had been, setting it on fire.
The other diners looked up.
And none of them seemed surprised.
The old man in the corner grumbled, and his skin shimmered, revealing green, scaly skin underneath.
The couple on a date by the window suddenly had horns.
The entire restaurant.
Every single customer.
They were all demons.
This wasn't a hallucination.
This was an ambush.
His safe space. His hotpot heaven. It was all a lie.
**
Feng Yue crashed through the front window in a shower of glass and righteous fury.
She had tracked him here, her senses screaming with the sudden spike of demonic energy.
She landed in a crouch, her phoenix-flame sword already in her hand, its fire casting dancing shadows across the room.
"Demons!" she roared. "You dare lay a hand on the..."
She paused.
She had been about to say "Chosen One."
But Li Wei was currently hiding under the table, whimpering.
"...on my idiot!" she finished, her voice laced with frustration.
**
The demons laughed.
A chorus of guttural, hellish chuckles.
"The Phoenix Princess herself," the fox-eared waitress sneered, pulling her flaming chopsticks from the burning booth. "Come to protect your little pet?"
Feng Yue's eyes narrowed. "He is not my pet. He is a crucial component in a cosmic prophecy that you are too simple-minded to comprehend."
Li Wei peeked out from under the table.
"I think I'm having an allergic reaction to this whole situation," he whimpered.
Feng Yue ignored him.
She braced herself for battle. It would be ten against one.
Difficult, but not impossible.
Then Li Wei did something so stupid, so utterly brainless, that it defied all logic and strategy.
He tried to save his hotpot.
The pot, full of boiling, spicy, Szechuan-pepper-infused broth, was teetering on the edge of the table.
"My soup!" he cried, scrambling out from his hiding spot.
He reached for it.
His hand slipped on a stray piece of lettuce.
His arm knocked against the table.
The heavy pot tipped.
And a gallon of boiling, demonically spicy soup went flying.
**
SPLAT.
It was a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated pain.
The boiling broth arced through the air in a beautiful, deadly parabola.
It hit the fox demon first.
She shrieked as the spicy oil found its way into her eyes, her ears, and her perfectly styled fur.
The scaley old man got a face full of beef slices and lotus root.
The horned couple were drenched.
The entire room erupted into screams of agony and rage.
Demons, who could probably withstand the fires of hell, were brought to their knees by extra-spicy hotpot.
Feng Yue just stood there, her flaming sword held loosely at her side, her jaw on the floor.
She had been prepared for a battle of gods and monsters.
She had not been prepared for culinary warfare.
**
And then she looked at Li Wei.
He was on the floor, covered in broth, staring at the carnage he had wrought.
His face was a mask of pure, abject terror.
His lip trembled.
A single tear rolled down his cheek, tracing a clean path through the chili oil.
"My... my extra beef slices," he whispered, his voice cracking with genuine heartbreak.
And in that moment, something inside Feng Yue shifted.
Her mission, her duty, her centuries of training... it all faded into the background.
She wasn't looking at an anomaly.
Or a weapon.
Or a key to a prophecy.
She was looking at a boy.
A terrified, clumsy, and impossibly stupid boy whose entire world had just been set on fire.
A boy who was crying over spilled soup while surrounded by demons.
And her heart, a heart that had been forged in phoenix fire and hardened by duty, ached with a strange, unfamiliar emotion.
Sympathy.
You idiot, she thought, the internal scream softening for the first time. You beautiful, impossible idiot.
**
The chaos was absolute.
Demons were slipping in puddles of broth.
The fire from the burning booth was spreading.
Li Wei was still crying.
And then, a new voice cut through the noise.
It was calm.
It was quiet.
It was utterly, terrifyingly, disappointed.
"Really?"
Everyone froze.
The door to the kitchen swung open.
A man stood there, wiping his hands on a clean white apron.
He was unassuming. Balding. With a kind, tired face.
It was Old Man Tan. The owner.
He looked at the burning booth.
He looked at the screaming demons.
He looked at the sobbing Li Wei on his floor.
He sighed.
It was the sigh of a man who had seen too much.
He calmly walked over to the cash register, took off his apron, and folded it neatly.
Underneath, his chest wasn't covered by a shirt.
It was covered in shimmering, interlocking scales of pure, brilliant gold.
He turned, his kind eyes now holding the ancient, weary power of the ocean depths.
"Nobody," the dragon prince said, his voice dangerously soft, "disturbs my customers' digestion."
"Especially not during happy hour."
📣 [SYSTEM NOTICE: AUTHOR SUPPORT INTERFACE]
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