Deviant: No Longer Human

"Why didn't you tell us...?"

Wang Mei hesitated, her fingers nervously twisting in the soft fabric of her dress. "I didn't know how..." she muttered, her voice barely audible.

Wang Xueying, who had been on the verge of a full-blown panic just moments ago, suddenly let out a long, exasperated sigh.

"So, we were worried for nothing... He didn't force you, then?" she asked, a mix of relief and frustration coloring her tone.

Wang Mei bit her lip, avoiding eye contact. She couldn't exactly say he forced her, but the truth wasn't so simple either.

So, she did what she could—she shook her head.

A small, almost reluctant nod might have slipped in there too.

Wang Xueying narrowed her eyes, fighting the urge to smack Wang Mei's butt and teach her a lesson.

Here she was, having almost given their mother a heart attack, and now it turned out to be nothing—or at least, nothing as dramatic as they'd feared.

She wanted to be mad, but Mei's guilty expression made it impossible.

Well, almost impossible.

Xinyue Zhilan, on the other hand, was holding it together—barely.

Her internal worry meter was off the charts, but outwardly, she kept her cool.

"So... will he come back? And you're not even of legal age for marriage..."

Her tone was calm, but the subtext was clear: Who exactly is this Eighth Prince, and what's his deal with my daughter?

She couldn't help but wonder if Mei was caught up in some evil stuff, or worse, if she was just a pawn.

Her thoughts spiraled—what kind of prince marries someone so young?

Then again, if Eight Prince was anything like what people said, marriage laws were probably the least of his concerns.

The man could probably marry a village and still sleep soundly.

"Mmm... He would definitely come back," Mei said with a confidence she didn't entirely feel.

She glanced at the certificate, trying to piece together a coherent explanation. "He said it would work, but... it's better not to register it, or the whole world would know."

In reality, Wang Xiao hadn't said that—she just threw it in, hoping to avoid attracting too much attention.

If it came from him, it should be valid. As for making it official, she figured their family could do without the front-page headlines.

Xinyue Zhilan studied her daughter with a critical eye, still wrestling with disbelief. "You two, stay inside," she instructed, her voice firm but with a hint of exhaustion.

After a deep sigh, she stepped out, leaving Mei and Xueying to process the situation.

A few minutes later, Xinyue Zhilan returned, clutching her phone like it was some ancient relic of wisdom.

Her expression was a mix of relief and, oddly enough, the look of someone who had just crossed a burning bridge.

"Don't tell this to anyone," she warned, glancing at Mei with a motherly mix of concern and the distinct suspicion that Mei might, in a moment of weakness, brag to her friends about accidentally getting hitched to a prince.

She didn't want to think about how that conversation might go.

Until she saw the Eighth Prince herself, she wasn't convinced that tying their family's name to his would bring anything but trouble.

As for the legality of the document, well, it was technically valid. The "Treaty of Guardians" granted Wang Xiao and his kind all sorts of ridiculous privileges—like immunity from human laws.

Xinyue Zhilan hadn't even known this treaty existed, which probably explained why no one ever took the guardians to court.

It wasn't just one-sided—it was practically written in crayon by the guardians themselves.

Apparently, the guardians could pick and choose which laws applied to them, changing the rules whenever it suited them.

Zhilan couldn't help but imagine a group of them sitting around a table, laughing as they scribbled down outrageous terms like, "Humans can only address us as 'Oh Mighty Gods' on Summits."

Sure, there was technically a way to bring a guardian to justice, but it involved taking the case to the yearly Mount Olympus meeting, which was as exclusive as it sounded.

Even then, the guardians handled their issues internally, with the efficiency of a corporate picnic.

It was all too one-sided, like a joke that no one was in on but them.

As she glanced at her daughters, Zhilan couldn't help but think, 'In a world where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.'

All she could do now was try to keep them out of trouble, and hope that this was the last time any of her daughter accidentally marries a prince.

Xinyue Zhilan's heart twisted with an all-too-familiar fear: the dread of losing yet another daughter to the mysterious and dangerously charming Prince.

The thought made her want to scream into a pillow.

Wang Mei was already defending that prince like some sort of old, devoted wife, and Xinyue Zhilan could barely stand it.

Her sweet, obedient daughter had been stolen—swept up by that Eighth Prince.

Xinyue Zhilan's gaze drifted over to Wang Xueying, silently pleading with the universe to keep her second daughter far, far away from that man.

She couldn't bear the thought of another one of her girls getting tangled up with him.

As for her oldest, Wang Jiarong, Zhilan had already made up her mind: she wasn't going to breathe a word of this mess to her.

The less Jiarong knew, the better.

That one still had a chance at a normal life—at least, that was the plan.

Little did Xinyue Zhilan know, one of her daughters had already gone way off script.

Wang Xueying, who had once been so focused on achieving inner peace—going so far as to practically become a 'Buddha' after Wang Xiao's disappearance—had now decided to go in a rather different direction.

With Wang Xiao back in the picture, she was cooking up a new plan: drug him, sneak into his bed, and force him to take responsibility.

So much for enlightenment.

Meanwhile, Wang Jiarong was having a hard time getting any sleep at all.

The image of a figure flying through the sky, spitting flames from his hands, had her tossing and turning.

It was like something out of a fantasy movie, and she couldn't stop thinking about it.

Who knew she'd be the one fantasizing about finding a hero like that?

The real kicker?

It wasn't the youngest and most impressionable daughter who had fallen for the heroic fantasy, but Jiarong—the oldest, the one who was supposed to be the most sensible and mature.

Now, she was daydreaming about a fiery romance with a sky-soaring hero, blissfully unaware that the figure she was obsessing over was actually her long-lost brother.

And amen, then there was Wang Xiao, completely clueless that his Eighth Prince persona had captured the imagination of the very sister he'd always considered the hardest to talk with.

To him, Jiarong had always been the serious sibling, no-nonsense type.

Little did he know, she was mentally casting herself as the lead in a romantic drama, with him as the unwitting star.

So, while Xinyue Zhilan fretted over losing her daughters to the Prince, the reality was far more chaotic and ridiculous than she could have ever imagined.

Each of her daughters was off on their own wild journey, and she had no idea that her well-meaning attempts at protection were like trying to catch water in a sieve.

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