“I’m serious. Completely and utterly serious,” Nan Gua said. “Will you marry me, Xi Gua Lo?”

“I... I just...”

She extended her palm out to show the shining, bright vine ring that she created with magic, but really she created with love. Those lucious lack of lips that showed on her non-face mask... Those curves on every part of her body, including hips of steel...

“Become part of the vines, Xixi,” she said. “Become vines.”

“All is vines,” said a disembodied voice of unknown origin. “Vines outside, hanging on trees. Providing the links to fruit. Letting people swing across them. So many uses, and all is vines.”

“I agree,” said Nan Gua. “All is vines. I am, quite literally, just a vine who has evolved to have extra organs, and I’m sure you know very well which organs I’m talking about.”

“Wait, who was—“

“The outside is vines, and the inside is vines,” said the disembodied voice. “Join the vines so that you, too, can have vines in your inside and out. Just like we all have. Vines in a viney world with the vinesters.”

“None of that makes any sense,” said Xi Gua Lo.

“It will all make sense when you marry me and join the Vinists,” said Nan Gua. “All is learned equally when the vines are embraced.”

“All of this just to learn Vine Magic?”

“We have to keep secrets,” she said.

“Very viney secrets,” the disembodied voice said. “Vine world. Vine happy. Vine sauce.”

“Are you Vinny? Uncle Joel?”

The disembodied voice disappeared and never again showed up the rest of the series. It was never again spoken of and its mysteries were not solved.

“So, marry me? Don’t marry me? Choose,” ordered Nan Gua.

“I’ll marry you,” he said. “But on one condition.”

“One condition... But I’m already going to spill the beans on a safely guarded Vine Magic secret that will allow you to gain immense powers. That’s a good condition already, I’d say...”

“Yeah, but if I marry you I get that secret just by being a part of the Vinists. This is a separate condition that is not directly related to the other condition which isn’t really a condition that much when you think about it.”

“I suppose you’re right. Well, what of it? What’s this condition you speak of?”

“I’d like to stop calling you Nan Gua.”

“Uh, why?” The woman soon to be formerly known as Nan Gua asked, the green skin glimmering off her arms like succulent strawberries waiting to be plucked from the not-vine because strawberries don’t actually grow on vines.

“Because I want to call you Wifey.”

“Wifey? With a Y at the end?”

“Yep.”

“And the reason for that?”

“It’s cute.”

“Oh.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Well...”

“Well what?”

She shrugged. “It’s a bit demeaning, don’t you think? Calling me by some pet name that reduces me to an object.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well...”

“You don’t want to be owned by me?” Xi Gua Lo asked. “Your big hubby Xixi?”

She gulped. “I... Well, that’s...”

“You don’t want to put a collar on and—“

“Enough. Call me Wifey. Do what you please. As long as we are married.”

“Fine. Great.” He took the ring from Wifey’s palm and slipped it onto his left hand ring finger. A perfect fit. “So now what?”

“Now we’re married,” said Wifey; a matching ring set materialized on her own left hand ring finger. “It’s pretty nifty how our magic can create an unbreakable vow like that.”

“Yeah! I love being married in a fantasy world!”

They started making out for wedding day—

Wait a minute!

We forgot an important plot point that came up just a couple chapters ago, because of how utterly the romance subplot just took over the entire story!

“You can take your mask off in front of me, right?!”

Wifey shook her head. “We didn’t go to any altars. Check that chapter for what I said and you’ll see how legalistically calculated my statement was.”

“Mmm, well, you know what? Maybe I should get a mask. Then we can be a husband and wife masked couple.”

“Of course,” she said. “You’re Vinist now, so you are actually required to have a mask. Men do not need to wear them in public due to their low status in Vinist society, but it is still encouraged, especially among the more egalitarians among us.”

“So, like, the meninists?”

“Yeah, basically. I’m a bit of a meninist myself,” said Wifey. “I support men’s rights movements. I’ve marched in the parades around the village and all of that. Equal rights for all.”

“That’s pretty sweet of you. But... You’ve got to teach me to use Vine Magic and make a mask so that I can be cool and conceal my face!”

“Okay,” she said, “but only after wedding night sex.”

“It’s ten in the morning.”

“Oh yeah. Wedding morning sex that sort of turns into wedding night sex over time?”

“Now that I can get behind.”

Thus commenced another R-18 chapter, dependent on how popular the story got on Royal Road by that point of course; I’m not giving these chapters out for free, you know! They’re important!