Li Ke's words instantly shattered the last of Mitsuri Kanroji's emotional defenses. She wrapped her arms around him in a vice-like hug, feeling as though her life's purpose had finally been fulfilled.
What was her true motivation for joining the Demon Slayer Corps in the first place?
It was simply to find someone who wouldn't judge her bottomless appetite or freak out over her unique, abnormal physique. Among the endless list of ideal husband traits she had just rattled off to Shinobu, those were the only two conditions that actually mattered to her.
As long as a man met those two criteria, she would have thrown herself into a relationship with him without a single shred of hesitation!
Since joining the ranks, she had certainly run into plenty of kind-hearted people who didn't actively insult her traits. Yet, she was painfully aware that those who genuinely accepted her were practically non-existent. To make matters worse, her loud, overly expressive personality naturally caused the vast majority of traditional society to distance themselves from her.
She was just far too uninhibited!
But with Li Ke, she didn't sense even a microscopic hint of that cold, alienating distance.
Li Ke actively enjoyed her high-energy bouncing. His combat strength vastly outclassed her own, he visibly possessed immense wealth, and his cooking was a gift from the heavens!
In a single afternoon, every single dream that had driven her to join the Demon Slayer Corps had been perfectly satisfied!
"Waaaaah!"
She let out a massive, emotional wail of pure joy. Li Ke, meanwhile, was left entirely in the dark, thoroughly bewildered by her sudden, volcanic eruption of tears.
"Wait, I literally haven't even made a proper move yet? This gluttonous girl just delivered herself straight to my doorstep on a silver platter?"
"Is her affection meter really this brokenly easy to max out?!"
Standing on the sidelines, Shinobu Kocho could only let out a long, helpless sigh.
In truth, she had secretly hoped that Obanai Iguro and Mitsuri would eventually find happiness together. She was well aware that if she had simply given Li Ke a heads-up beforehand—explaining that Obanai and Mitsuri already shared mutual, unspoken feelings for one another without realizing it—Li Ke would have politely kept his distance. In fact, knowing his personality, he likely would have worked alongside her to help play matchmaker for the two of them.
However... yesterday happened.
The exact microsecond she recalled her experience from the previous night—where she had intended to discuss local matters with Li Ke, only to be thoroughly skewered by his relentless drive until her breathing patterns were entirely shattered—she let out another defeated sigh.
Obanai might have recently begun to piece together his own affection for Mitsuri, but given his deeply guarded, defensive personality, there was absolute zero chance he would admit his feelings until they were staring down a literal life-or-death separation.
Conversely, Mitsuri possessed the emotional density of a brick wall. Relying on her to spontaneously decipher subtle, unstated romantic cues was a complete lost cause. Unless a guy was like Li Ke—completely throwing out all stuffy formalities to initiate a direct, unapologetic frontal assault—nothing was ever going to stick.
But at this point, any intervention was far too late. Before Mitsuri blurted out that public proposal, Li Ke might have actually let her walk away. Now that the invitation had been extended, escaping his perimeter was an absolute impossibility.
"Looks like I'll just have to scout around and arrange a few cheerful, caring girls for Obanai instead," Shinobu thought, sighing internally.
Since the tactical situation had already escalated to this point, her only remaining option was to ensure Obanai was surrounded by supportive companions who could break through his shell.
At the end of the day, when it came to a colleague like Obanai Iguro, Shinobu Kocho naturally defaulted to the mindset of a protective mother or an older sister.
It was an unavoidable consequence of her rank. Setting aside a select few, most of the Pillars she had to deal with on a daily basis were absolute problem children.
And deep down... she was also subconsciously trying to emulate her late sister's nurturing nature.
Under these circumstances, she couldn't help but worry about everyone else's emotional well-being. She genuinely understood what was driving Mitsuri's anxieties. She had witnessed the girl's inner conflicts and desperate longing for acceptance firsthand. But as for Li Ke...
To Li Ke, this was simply a case of an incredibly stunning girl abruptly and randomly proposing to him out of nowhere.
"Wait, wouldn't a sudden escalation like this normally scare Li Ke off?"
Shifting her perspective to the sheer absurdity of the situation, Shinobu couldn't help but stress over the potential fallout. But right as she turned a worried gaze toward him, Li Ke spoke up.
"Well, even though I don't entirely grasp why you're making this choice, I don't really have a single logical reason to reject a beautiful girl who wants to marry me."
Li Ke stared into Mitsuri's eyes, his tone completely straightforward.
"But let me lay my cards on the table first—I am definitely going to have multiple wives! While I fully intend to take absolute responsibility for every single one of them, a monogamous life is completely out of the question for me."
Hearing this, Shinobu let out a small sigh of relief. If he laid down such a massive, traditional dealbreaker, then surely Mitsuri...
"I don't care about any of that! Finally... someone actually doesn't look down on me! I am absolutely never letting you go!"
Instead of backing away, Mitsuri clamped her arms even tighter around Li Ke's neck, adopting a stubborn, head-in-the-sand posture.
Given her desperate craving for validation, her extreme reaction fit her psychological profile perfectly.
Shinobu: "..."
She officially abandoned all remaining hope for structural order.
Li Ke was still mildly disoriented by the sheer velocity of the development. The Love Pillar had collapsed into total submission so rapidly that it essentially amounted to her waving the white flag before he even initiated a proper siege.
But sensing the lush, incredible softness of Mitsuri's chest pressing firmly against his torso, and the sheer, physical comfort of holding her high-performance body in his arms, Li Ke paused his train of thought.
"You know what? I choose to permanently stop thinking."
When a premium-tier girl delivers herself straight into your lap, overanalyzing the mechanics of the universe is an absolute waste of brainpower.
"In that case, we should prepare to start making babies tonight," Li Ke declared with immense solemnity.
A deep, vibrant crimson instantly painted Mitsuri's face.
"M-Making babies... making babies is just..."
Mid-sentence, her intense embarrassment morphed into a look of absolute, genuine confusion.
"Wait, exactly how do you make a baby?"
She blinked up at Li Ke with completely innocent, clueless eyes, entirely uneducated on the matter.
Li Ke: "..."
Right at that awkward impasse, Shinobu finally managed to snap her administrative gears back into alignment. They had a logistical schedule to maintain, after all.
"Alright, danna. I genuinely apologize for derailing your momentum, but our departure is officially set for tomorrow morning."
The initial tactical plan had dictated an immediate departure, but the sheer, transcendent quality of Li Ke's cooking had completely wiped her operational memory, pushing their march back to dawn.
"Ah, so we're marching to your central headquarters tomorrow? Got it. Then we are absolutely consummating this marriage tonight!"
Li Ke nodded firmly. Since time was a factor, he needed to lock this down immediately. Wasting a single night risked letting some random canon love interest spawn out of the narrative to challenge his claim over her!
"About that... danna... I..."
Shinobu stepped forward, closing the distance. Her motivation wasn't driven by a desire to rescue Mitsuri from his clutches. Rather, ever since finishing her portion of the meal, she had been fighting a sudden, inexplicable surge of feverish heat across her body. Even her internal plumbing was acting entirely out of sorts—
It felt as though a slow, agonizingly warm current was tracing its way through her core, refusing to find a clear release and leaving her trapped in a state of intense, restless craving.
As a master pharmaceutical technician and a skilled apothecary, she didn't suspect Li Ke of spiking the food with a vulgar aphrodisiac; her senses were highly trained enough to verify that the ingredients were entirely clean of artificial poisons.
She simply chalked it up to the food being so profoundly delicious that her long-dormant romantic impulses had been forcefully awakened.
"Mitsuri, Li Ke belongs to me for tonight, okay?"
She offered Mitsuri a gentle, unyielding smile, fully intending to guide her partner straight back to her private quarters.
However, an unprecedented act of defiance shattered her plans!
"No way!"
Mitsuri clamped her arms tightly around Li Ke's neck, her expression dead serious.
"I—I know Shinobu held the line first, but I am absolutely not backing down here! A maiden's heart is actively erupting right now! I—I want to be with Lord Li Ke this very second!"
While Mitsuri remained completely oblivious to the biomechanics of reproduction, her instincts communicated a singular, undeniable truth: she desperately needed to remain anchor-locked inside Li Ke's embrace. Even though they had barely spent any time together, simply hugging him caused the suffocating anxiety, restlessness, and sudden, burning cravings inside her body to plummet drastically!
Consequently, she had zero intention of yielding her position!
Watching the chaotic standoff unfold, the mechanical explanation finally clicked in Li Ke's brain. Once again, the high-concept ingredients from the Food Wars! universe were wreaking absolute havoc on the local population!
"Ah... so it was just the psychological side effects of Erina's seasoning blends all along!"