"Sean—" Ivy suddenly called out. Her voice startled Sean Shen so badly that he almost tossed the box in his hands, shoving it into his drawer at lightning speed. Still, his frantic moves didn’t escape her eagle-eyed stare.
"Ahem, what’s up?" Caught off guard by his sister’s ambush, Sean coughed awkwardly, plopped into his chair, and grabbed his book, pretending to be all cool and studious as usual.
Seeing through him, Ivy smirked and said, "Mom’s calling you from the kitchen. Something about... oh, she’s found a ‘good man’ she wants to introduce to Sunny..."
She hadn’t even finished her sentence before her bookworm brother Sean shot downstairs like a whirlwind. Watching him go, Ivy couldn’t help but laugh. Those two silly melons were obviously into each other, but neither wanted to be the first to poke through that paper wall. Still, she really liked Sunny as a future sister-in-law—so sweet and pure, totally a good match for her dorky brother. But wow, this romance was gonna be a long, hard grind!
Shaking her head at all this soap-opera romance drama (not her problem!), Ivy refocused on the real issue: if she could solve this emperor-level mess, then maybe the empress would finally leave her little love life alone! She quit overthinking, headed to the desk, opened the drawer, and pulled out the little cardboard box.
“What, did he hide some kind of treasure in here?” Ivy snickered, carefully opening the box. But the second she peeked inside, her heart nearly exploded. She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle her scream—her face getting paler by the second—because lying in the box was none other than the gray snake she’d kicked away!
The box had barely opened when the Serpent Elder weakly lifted his head for a breath of fresh air—only to lock eyes with that terrifying girl again. His soul nearly left his body. Not her again! Why was he running into this human disaster twice in one day?!
By now, Ivy was already standing a full meter away—on top of a chair, glaring down at the limp gray snake. She let out a cold laugh. "Seriously? You disgusting thing, still haunting me?"
"What? Disgusting? You ignorant mortal! Don’t you know I’m a highly respected Elder—the one and only Elder of the Soaring Phoenix Realm! You—you—"
"What, you gross old snake, sticking your tongue out like that—are you trying to eat me? I’m warning you, I don’t care how you tried to charm my dumb brother into keeping you, but now that I’ve caught you, heh heh..."
"You... what are you going to do?"
Ivy, completely missing the Elder’s anxiety, hopped off the chair, slipped on Sean’s baseball gloves, grabbed a white plastic bag, and—trembling—dumped the box’s contents right in.
Hmph, let’s see if you escape this time! Ivy snickered, hoisting the bag and marching off to the bathroom. At the toilet, she grinned wickedly: "Let’s see you eat and drink well now!" Then she dumped the bag into the bowl.
"You—you rotten girl! How could you put me in the toilet? I’m a dignified Elder!" the Elder wailed. "If I’d known, I wouldn’t have cultivated at all—now I’m worse off than a regular snake."
Watching the gray snake struggle in the bag, Ivy grinned and pressed the flush button. "Bye-bye!" she chirped. With a roar of water, the unlucky Elder and his pitiful screams were swept away.