“Number One! Number One, go soak Aetherial Spring 3! What are you spacing out for?”

“Sorry… my brain just glitched. I forgot…”

“Pay attention next time. Don’t make such a basic mistake again—you’re wasting everyone’s time.”

“Man, at this rate, when are we ever going to get past the second transition?”

“Look on the bright side. Once we’re past the second transition, there aren’t any more tough parts. Get through that, and we’ve basically cleared the fight.”

The noisy voices in Jiang Feng’s headset made his already foul mood even worse. He glanced down at the time and saw that it was past eleven.

Another three hours with no progress. Jiang Feng let out a long, weary sigh and said listlessly, “I think we should call it for tonight. Good work, everyone.”

“Good work, everyone. Good work.”

“Nice work, everyone. See you tomorrow.”

After saying goodbye to his teammates, Jiang Feng left voice chat and piloted his character out of Differential Closure and back to the Crystarium.

It was the twenty-fourth day he and his teammates had spent progging The Epic of Alexander (Ultimate), but the whole team was still stuck at P3’s second transition. They’d been unable to make progress for so long that everyone was getting dispirited, and the atmosphere in the group had grown increasingly oppressive. As the team leader, Jiang Feng felt a pressure he couldn’t quite put into words.

He shook his head helplessly, closed the game, and pulled up today’s recording, hoping to find some problems with the team by watching it back.

“Here, Number Four was a little off-position when guiding the Super Jump. And Number Five should’ve used Sprint and knockback prevention a bit earlier here… And here…”

Jiang Feng focused intently on finding every mistake his teammates had made and logging them in a spreadsheet. He planned to post it in the group chat so they could correct their errors. It was the only thing he could do for his teammates as their leader.

Just as he was carefully compiling the list of mistakes, something unexpected happened. His computer screen flickered strangely, then quickly dimmed. A few seconds later, it went completely black.

“Huh?” Jiang Feng paused, then muttered in confusion, “Did the power go out?”

That was his first thought, but when he turned around and saw the LED light still glowing, he was even more confused. Had his computer suddenly broken?

But when he turned back to look at the computer, the sight before him nearly scared him out of his wits.

The computer screen seemed to have transformed into a pitch-black black hole, from which an endless stream of deep, dark black light shone outward.

The sight defied everything he knew about the world, and Jiang Feng jumped in fright. His understanding of physics might have stopped at university, but he knew perfectly well that “black light” simply couldn’t exist.

And yet the computer was truly radiating black light. The whole room grew terribly dim beneath the darkness pouring from the black hole.

“WTF…?” Jiang Feng stared at the bizarre scene, dumbstruck. He swallowed hard and shifted his feet into a running stance, ready to turn and bolt the moment anything seemed even slightly wrong.

He figured he’d run into some kind of strange supernatural phenomenon. He was heartbroken over the computer he’d spent more than ten thousand yuan building, but at a time like this, his life came first.

As time passed, the black hole on the screen slowly expanded, gradually swallowing the entire computer.

“My computer!!!” Jiang Feng let out a pained howl. It felt like his heart was bleeding.

Little by little, the black hole expanded under Jiang Feng’s gaze until it was about a meter across. Then, without warning, an object shot out of it. The black hole vanished in an instant, and the whole room lit up again.

Seeing that things were going badly, Jiang Feng immediately prepared to turn and run. But when the object that had flown out caught the corner of his eye, his legs felt as if they’d been nailed to the floor. He couldn’t take another step. His gaze was fastened to the unknown object, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t look away.

It was a girl who looked about fifteen or sixteen. She stood suspended in midair, her waist-length black hair spilling down her back like ink. Her dark eyes were deep and shadowy, gleaming with an unsettling black light.

She wore nothing but a pure-black dress. Beneath its hem were a pair of slender, smooth legs as white as ivory and small, delicate feet. Her dainty hands were translucent, as if carved from jade.

But it was her face that left Jiang Feng too stunned to recover for a long, long time.

Even after searching through every memory he had, Jiang Feng couldn’t find a word or phrase that could describe a face like hers. The girl before him was like a perfect work of art, painstakingly sculpted by God over tens of thousands of years. She didn’t have a single flaw. She was so perfect that anyone would go mad with jealousy over God’s favoritism.

“O human, thou hast successfully summoned me. The contract is sealed. Now, tell me thy wish.”

The girl parted her rosy lips and smiled gently. Her voice was ethereal and soft, like a dream, like a poem. It seemed to string Jiang Feng’s heart to her every word, making it rise and fall with the sound of her voice.

Jiang Feng swallowed and finally tore his gaze away from the girl’s breathtaking beauty. Realizing how dazed he’d been, he gave an awkward smile and asked, “Summoning? Contract? A wish? What do you mean?”

“Art thou making a fool of me?” At Jiang Feng’s question, the girl’s expression clearly turned displeased. “Thou used a contract array to summon me, yet thou askest me such a question?”

The girl’s words left Jiang Feng even more bewildered than before. A contract array? What was that supposed to be—something you could eat?

He’d never even heard of such a thing. Thinking back, all he’d been doing was playing on his computer as usual, and then, for no apparent reason, his computer had turned into a black hole.

Could it be… that while he was playing, the path his mouse had traced by chance happened to form this so-called contract array?

If that was the case, then that was complete bullshit!

But no matter how ridiculous it sounded, the unforgettable black hole and the demon girl before him left Jiang Feng no choice but to accept a reality he found nearly impossible to believe: he really might have summoned some strange being by accident.

“Sigh.” Seeing that Jiang Feng was still utterly confused, the girl let out a helpless sigh. “It seems thou truly knowest nothing. How pitiful. Very well, I shall explain everything to thee.”

She cleared her throat, assumed a serious expression, and declared, “I am Lilian, a Nightmare Demon and the seventh daughter of Lilith, Queen of the Demon Realm.”

“A moment ago, thou used a contract array to form a soul contract with me and summon me into this world.”

“The contract states that I must grant thee one wish. In exchange, after thy death, thy soul shall become my property.”

“What? Are you sure you’re not joking?” Lilian’s words made Jiang Feng’s temple throb. He nearly spat blood. “My soul becomes your property? Why?”

“Hmph.” Lilian gave a disdainful snort. “The contract is sealed. No one can break it. I ask thee now: dost thou wish for me to grant thee one wish?”

“But let me make one thing clear: whether or not thou wantest me to grant thy wish, thy soul will belong to me after thy death.”

Jiang Feng’s face darkened. Clearly unhappy, he said, “That’s a one-sided contract.”

What kind of nonsense was this? He’d been sitting at home, minding his own business, and suddenly trouble had landed right on his head. What had he ever done to deserve having to sell his soul to a demon after he died?

Lilian glanced sideways at Jiang Feng and said indifferently, “I shall give thee ten final seconds to decide. After that, thou shalt be considered to have willingly given up thy wish.”

“Ten, nine…”

“Wait, wait! I want the wish. I do!” Jiang Feng said with a long face, close to tears.

According to Lilian, there was no way around selling his soul to a demon. So there was no reason for him to give up the wish he was getting in exchange for it.

After thinking it over carefully, Jiang Feng suddenly felt that it wasn’t so hard to accept after all. Selling his soul was something that would happen after he died. He could worry about what came after once he was dead. For now, he might as well enjoy himself. Any way he looked at it, he had nothing to lose.

Lilian nodded slightly. “Tell me thy wish.”

“Hold on. Let me think.”

Jiang Feng began to consider it calmly. Generally speaking, the three things men wanted most were money, power, and women.

He didn’t lack money. His life wasn’t exactly luxurious, but he had more than enough. He wasn’t the type to spend recklessly, either. He already had enough to live the kind of life he wanted.

He wasn’t especially interested in power, either. He hated trouble, and power naturally came with a matching investment of time and effort. When he thought about it that way, it didn’t seem worth it.

That left only one answer: women!

As the saying went, even heroes were ruled by desire. What chance did a little shut-in like him have?

“I want a girl who belongs to me alone.” Jiang Feng raised an eyebrow, his grin growing more and more wicked. “Someone I can do whatever I want with, and no one can ever take her away from me.”

A girl who belonged only to him, someone he could do whatever he wanted with… Just thinking about it was enough to make Jiang Feng want to jump for joy. He was sure no man could resist that temptation—except Billy Herrington, who possessed the Power of the King.

Lilian’s willow-like brows furrowed at Jiang Feng’s rather perverted wish, but she had no right to refuse. She could only sigh and say, “I understand.”

As Lilian finished speaking, an image like a holographic projection appeared out of thin air before Jiang Feng. It showed a girl in the prime of youth, floating in midair in a pale-white dress, her eyes closed.

“Thy thoughts can directly change her appearance,” Lilian added.

Jiang Feng nodded. With a single thought, the image before him began changing just as Lilian had said. It felt like playing a 3D character-creation game with a holographic projection.

Jiang Feng felt like he could spend a whole year just playing with this 3D character creator.

But after spending more than ten minutes tweaking her appearance, his face turned black as coal.

As it turned out, he had absolutely no talent for character creation. As a veteran employee of Future Technology, he’d clearly inherited everything from the company’s chairman, Wang Xiaoju.

It was just like customizing a character in an MMORPG. He’d aim for exactly the look he liked in every detail, but the final result would always look more monster than human. After carefully working on the face for more than ten minutes, all Jiang Feng could think to call the result was “weird.”

“Uh… I’m no good at this. Do you have some kind of template?” Jiang Feng asked, awkwardly scratching his cheek.

“No.”

Hearing that, Jiang Feng felt his head swell. This girl might be with him for the rest of his life. If he accidentally turned her into a dinosaur, he’d regret it forever—and a lifetime still wouldn’t be long enough.

Suddenly, an idea struck him. He grinned and said, “How about making her look like you?”

He might not have a template, but wasn’t there already a peerless beauty right in front of him?

“Huh?”

Lilian gave him a strange look, then glanced at him with some distaste. Even so, she obediently changed the holographic figure to look exactly like herself, as Jiang Feng had asked.

The power of the contract bound her, too. As long as something fell under the same wish, even as a related part of it, she had to do her best to make it happen.

“Make her hair white. Black doesn’t look good.” As a Chinese guy, Jiang Feng was a die-hard white-haired-girl fan.

“……” Lilian’s expression visibly stiffened.

Just how low was this human’s EQ? He’d actually said black hair wasn’t pretty right in front of her. Who insults someone to their face like that?

“Anything else you’d like to add?” Lilian asked, patiently.

“Hmm…” After a brief moment of thought, Jiang Feng said, “Her personality has to be really timid. The kind of coward who never dares to stand up to anyone. But just being timid would be boring, so give her a little tsundere attitude too.”

Since she was going to be his plaything, her personality couldn’t be too fierce. Ideally, she’d only put up a little token resistance. Timid with just a hint of tsundere was practically perfect.

Following that line of thought, Jiang Feng continued, “She should be a real crybaby. It’s the best when she starts crying over the smallest things—it makes her so much fun to tease. And she should be afraid of pain, and preferably thunder too. That’d make her pretty cute.”

“Her body should be really frail, too. She shouldn’t be able to do any physical labor, and her athletic ability should be practically zero. You know, the sickly-girl type.”

Convinced he was a genius, Jiang Feng nodded with satisfaction. Teasing a girl like that would be unbelievably satisfying.

With every new requirement Jiang Feng named, Lilian’s gaze grew more disdainful. By the end, she was looking at him with the disgust reserved for garbage.

“Oh, right! Could she be a vampire?” Jiang Feng said excitedly, struck by a brilliant idea. “Then she’d stay young forever!”

A forever-young loli who’s always legal sounded amazing!

“……That can be done.”

“If that’s possible, make her eyes red. It suits a vampire.”

Then Jiang Feng gave a sly smile and lowered his voice. “Could you give me a system, too? The kind you get in adult games—a training system I can use on her.”

“………………That can be done.” Lilian, with a dark look in her eyes, forcibly resisted the urge to turn around and leave.

Jiang Feng’s behavior had filled Lilian with genuine disgust. If he’d only listed all those requirements to indulge his own preferences, that would’ve been one thing. But somehow, he’d managed to step right on a fatal land mine: he wanted to mold the girl into Lilian’s image.

To Lilian, it was as if Jiang Feng were imagining defiling her body. The thought made her feel sick to her stomach.

Suddenly, Lilian wore a quiet, sinister smile. She’d thought of a way to grant Jiang Feng’s wish for “a girl who belongs only to him, whom no one can take away,” while also making him atone for everything he’d done today.

Without breaking the contract, she’d make this human learn what it meant to bring trouble upon himself.

“All right, that should do it. I don’t have any other requirements.” Jiang Feng sounded pleased. He was already imagining the blissful life he’d spend with her every day. What could be more carefree?

“Her name.”

“Oh, right! Her name—that’s the most important thing.”

After a moment’s thought, he decided to give this girl, who would belong to him forever, the username he liked using best across all his games and platforms.

“Let’s call her Xi Feng.”