"So this is basically a 'we're completely doomed without you' situation," Li Ke complained without filtering his thoughts. "They dump a massive, broken mess right in my lap, expect me to fix it, and don't even offer any real benefits!"
Kanae Kocho rolled her eyes at his blunt remark.
"Our Lord literally offered you his wife and his four daughters. What more could you possibly want?"
From her perspective, Kagaya had shown an incredible amount of sincerity. The offer included a massive family fortune, his daughters, and an instant elevation to supreme status and rank. Furthermore, with Amane Ubuyashiki's explicit backing, every single Hashira in the Demon Slayer Corps would instantly fall in line and recognize Li Ke's authority.
Yet, Li Ke acted as if he genuinely despised the entire arrangement.
"I don't care about any of that wealth or status, okay?" Li Ke said, laying out his actual thoughts. "Even if his wife marries me, it's just a fake marriage in name only. On top of that, his four daughters are only eight years old! The only thing I have ever cared about is beautiful, charming women. This deal has absolutely zero practical value to me!"
If it were a genuine arrangement involving women he could actually be with, he would have jumped at the chance. But the reality was that they were dumping five completely off-limits people on him!
He might have been able to channel his inner Cao Cao and figure something out with Amane Ubuyashiki eventually, but the remaining four daughters were a one-way ticket to a firing squad if he laid a single finger on them!
Who could possibly deal with that kind of headache?
"Wow, I genuinely didn't look at it from that perspective..." Kanae muttered, pressing a hand to her forehead. "Is chasing women seriously your only life pursuit?"
"Well, I also care about becoming stronger, but your Demon Slayer Corps can't help me with that either," Li Ke replied, shrugging his shoulders to emphasize how useless the faction was to his personal growth.
"..."
Kanae let out a long sigh. Staring at his completely unashamed, righteously confident face, she spoke with utter speechlessness.
"So, as long as there are enough beautiful women by your side, you'll agree to absolutely anything?"
She was completely at a loss for words. A guy like Li Ke left her entirely unsure of how to even evaluate his character.
"Pretty much. But I won't do anything that violates my core principles. This specific proposal crossed the line because it directly violated my strict dedication to pure love!"
Li Ke balled his right hand into a tight fist. Sure, he was a shameless philanderer who built a massive harem and loved fooling around with various girls, but deep down, he considered himself a pure-hearted warrior! He was just like those people who smoke, drink, get tattoos, frequent nightclubs, dye their hair, and hang out with thugs, yet still claim to be genuinely good people at heart!
"..."
Kanae covered her face with both hands, letting out a massive, exhausted groan. She finally understood the absolute truth: Li Ke was simply the biggest pervert in the entire universe!
"My sister and I are truly unfortunate to have met you," she muttered.
After delivering that remark, Kanae fell into a deep silence. She was visibly hesitating. After all, Li Ke was a truly wicked man! Her younger sister, Shinobu, had been pushed to the absolute brink of death multiple times without him ever showing signs of slowing down. While Shinobu herself seemed incredibly happy with the arrangement, watching her own little sister get pushed into a near-death state in that specific manner so many times left her feeling deeply conflicted as an older sister.
She knew Shinobu was sacrificing herself entirely for her sake.
"What if you add me to the deal?"
Kanae gently smoothed back her long hair. The exact moment the words left her lips, a brilliant flush of crimson crept across her face.
"You? Are you actually serious?"
Li Ke stared at Kanae, completely caught off guard by her sudden proposal.
Mitsuri Kanroji already belonged to him completely, so using his own woman as currency to secure a bargain was something he would never agree to.
But Kanae Kocho was an entirely different story...
"I don't really have a choice, do I? You bully my little sister every single day," Kanae Kocho said, looking at Li Ke with absolute earnestness. "There have been several times where I could literally see Shinobu's soul floating out of her body. How could I not worry as her older sister? More importantly, Shinobu sacrificed everything for my sake, and the Demon Slayer Corps is our home."
Her internal feelings were incredibly complex. Her genuine favorability toward Li Ke was quite ordinary at best. While Li Ke had reunited the sisters and shifted Shinobu's desperate, self-destructive mindset back toward a normal life, Kanae still felt a lingering bitterness over the fact that he had used her resurrection as a bargaining chip to claim her sister's body.
Yet right now, an organization like the Demon Slayer Corps could only be salvaged by someone with Li Ke's overwhelming dominance. Furthermore, she absolutely had to look out for her little sister. After all...
Kanae cast a fleeting glance toward Li Ke's lower body, a micro-expression of sheer dread flashing across her face.
That thing was terrifyingly powerful!
She was a pure, inexperienced maiden. While she possessed theoretical knowledge about such matters, she had never witnessed actual combat firsthand until Li Ke and Shinobu's private encounters. Because she had stayed by her sister's side as a phantom, she had repeatedly witnessed the horrifying fact that Shinobu's soul was practically leaving her body from sheer exhaustion.
As an older sister, there wasn't much else she could do to help except step in to share the burden. From the looks of it, a sweet, naive girl like Mitsuri Kanroji would easily be overwhelmed and taken out of commission by him in no time anyway.
Besides, after her own little sister had paid such a staggeringly high price for her life, how could she possibly marry some random stranger down the line and comfortably enjoy the fruits of Shinobu's immense sacrifice?
"So, your plan is to offer yourself up as a condition to make me save the Demon Slayer Corps?" Li Ke summarized bluntly.
"Essentially. Though it's not a cold condition, but rather a request from a future family member," Kanae replied, staring directly into his eyes.
Knowing full well that Li Ke would never budge without tasting some immediate sweetness, she elegantly smoothed down her clothing and stepped right up to him. She lifted her chin, presenting her strikingly beautiful face directly before his eyes.
Slowly, she closed her eyes, waiting for Li Ke to claim his prize.
Looking at the defenseless Kanae standing before him, Li Ke shook his head silently. The fanatical obsession these people held for the Demon Slayer Corps was, in reality, a burning obsession with executing Muzan Kibutsuji. The countless atrocities Muzan had committed over the past millennium had pushed these swordsmen to the absolute brink of insanity.
Li Ke realized a dark truth: even if those external memory parasites hadn't broken the organization apart, if he had stood before the entire Corps and demanded that every beautiful girl marry him—or even that Amane Ubuyashiki hand herself and her daughters over as his personal playthings—the leadership would have ultimately agreed without a second thought.
To them, killing Muzan was the only thing that mattered. Physical bodies and personal dignity meant absolutely nothing. As long as they could permanently terminate Muzan Kibutsuji and end this miserable cycle of bloodshed, they were entirely willing to throw anything into the fire.
Throwing away their lives on the battlefield was standard procedure. Some were even perfectly content to let a demon devour them, just so the beast would ingest their poison and drag both of them straight to hell together. They would deliberately cultivate their own bodies for the sole purpose of being consumed as a weapon.
The Hashira of the Demon Slayer Corps were undeniably good people at heart, but the primary engine driving every single one of them forward was pure, unadulterated hatred.
"Fine, who told me to be so soft-hearted?"
Li Ke pinched Kanae Kocho's cheek, then gave her a kiss on her face.
"As for your first kiss, I'm in no rush. We'll wait until the day you are truly resurrected, Kanae. After all, your time right now is about up."
As Li Ke spoke, Kanae's body began to dissolve into points of golden light. If he had tried to kiss her on the lips just now, he would have ended up kissing empty air.
"Hehehe..."
Kanae flashed a mischievous smile. Although she was absolutely certain she hadn't fallen in love with Li Ke yet, as someone she would be living with in the future, she couldn't help but play a little joke on him.
Just like that, Kanae's figure vanished from before his eyes. But Li Ke knew this girl's ghost was still lingering around.
This strange sensation felt a bit weird to Li Ke, who had watched ghost movies all the time as a kid. But the kind of ghost movies he watched after growing up made him develop a completely different sort of interest.
Come to think of it, can the ghosts in this world push things? Having enough strength to push a haircomb would be enough.
If they could push a comb, that was basically equivalent to the force of a gentle lick of a tongue. He could handle the rest himself, or ask Shinobu and Mitsuri for help. But he was genuinely curious about what it would feel like to do it with a female ghost.
However, as if she had sensed his thoughts—or perhaps because she wanted to hurry back to her little sister's side—the moment Li Ke activated his Observation Haki again, the scene was completely empty. There wasn't a single soul around.
"Well, this really is lonely..."
Having his arms completely empty with nothing to hold made Li Ke feel highly unaccustomed. Left with no choice, he wrapped himself tighter in the blanket and went to sleep alone.
Yet...
In the middle of his deep slumber, Li Ke felt a fragrant, soft body slip into his embrace. This body was on the shorter side, but it was undeniably an adult's, not to mention her breasts were incredibly large!
In his groggy state, Li Ke mistook her for Shinobu Kochou.
So, caught between sleep and waking, he slid his hand straight into the person's cleavage.
The soft flesh, along with the small, adorable nipples that gradually stiffened under his half-asleep fondling, and her smooth, delicate skin all made the half-awake Li Ke feel incredibly comfortable.
He subconsciously held the person even closer. Aiming his already primed "long spear" right against the other person's buttocks, he began to rub against her.
This wasn't just self-gratification; it was a physical hint using his body to signal taking things a step further. For a girl who had already tasted the forbidden fruit, rubbing against her with that hardened spot was far more effective than any sweet words!
Because she would know exactly what it was meant for!
Li Ke could also feel that the breathing of the person in his arms was becoming faster and heavier. His half-dazed mind grew increasingly urgent, but in his sleepy stupor, he couldn't force himself to fully wake up, nor could he control his body properly.
Therefore, he simply rubbed against her small, exquisite buttocks more intensely, while feeling the softness in his hands suddenly shrink bit by bit.
The breasts got smaller?!
Li Ke snapped his eyes open in pure shock, looking down at the breasts in his hands.
But at that exact moment, the breasts—which had just shrunk down to a single handful—instantly began to expand rapidly all over again.
Li Ke couldn't help but widen his eyes. Only after adjusting to the physical sensation of the breasts did he finally confirm one absolute truth.
This wasn't Shinobu or Mitsuri!
Li Ke immediately whipped out his smartphone and turned on the screen's light. In the next breath, a young girl with tightly closed eyes, a crimson face, and ragged, heavy breathing appeared right in front of him!
It was Nezuko!
Not only that, but Nezuko's body was currently radiating a terrifyingly high heat. Her physical form was constantly fluctuating, caught in a wild cycle of growing larger and shrinking smaller. The reason why her buttocks felt voluptuous one moment and small and delicate the next was precisely because of this!
"What are you even doing in my room?! Is my bed some kind of public marketplace today?!"
Li Ke couldn't help but complain out loud. His room was seriously way too crowded tonight!
"Besides, if your brother sees you here with me, he'll probably lose his mind and fight me to the death!"
Looking at Nezuko, whose clothes had already been mostly stripped off by him earlier, Li Ke felt a bit guilty. He quickly pulled her clothes back up, covering her chest and hiding those breasts that kept repeating a cycle of expanding and shrinking. Only then did he fully wake up from the lingering sensation of her body, turning his mind to the most critical question.
"Wait, why exactly did Nezuko show up in my room?"
Staring at Nezuko as she rapidly grew larger and smaller, Li Ke forcefully drove all those distracting thoughts about her fluctuating sizes out of his head, directly activating his Observation Haki.
In the next breath, the physical world became empty, stripping away all secrets. The turbulent changes inside Nezuko's body immediately revealed the root cause to him.
Hunger.
A relentless, overwhelming message of pure starvation was continuously broadcasting from deep within Nezuko's body.
She was incredibly hungry; she desperately needed a massive influx of energy to complete her current evolution and transformation! [1]
"Ah... so that's how it is, huh?"
Li Ke patted Nezuko's head. With his Observation Haki wide open, he could feel that Nezuko was currently at a critical turning point. If he gave her a strong push right now, she would successfully transcend this stage. But if he didn't help her, she would have to slowly gather the necessary energy on her own, trapping her in a painful, endlessly repeating cycle of this transformation process.
"When it comes to energy... she doesn't actually want to eat me, does she?"
Li Ke muttered under his breath. However, he knew deep down that what Nezuko truly craved was his immense spiritual and life-force energies. Within the entire Demon Slayer Corps, he possessed the most vibrant, overflowing energy by a landslide. It was only natural that her instincts had guided her straight to him.
Staring at Nezuko's slightly parted little mouth and her sleeping face, Li Ke couldn't help but think of a certain anime trope—the "sleeping beauty" style scenario...
"No, no, no. Let's save that kind of play for Mitsuri Kanroji instead. Mitsuri probably wouldn't get angry. As for Nezuko, let's just give her a little bit of regular help for now. After all, she is a beautiful girl that I can actually be with in the future."
Li Ke extended his hand, acting out of a sudden burst of kindness and helpfulness as he began channeling a steady stream of his own life-force and spiritual energy straight into Nezuko's body.
As for why he was suddenly being so incredibly warm-hearted and helpful right now?
Because this was completely different from Amane Ubuyashiki!
Nezuko was a girl he could actually be with!