Zhao Xian was not pursued all the way to the door of his apartment, no one rang his doorbell all night, and fortunately, he didn't have to report to the authorities that an individual in questionable attire tried to climb the wall to his window.
No, none of those deplorable things happened, yet the cosplayer didn't disappear either.
Zhao Xian realized this by chance the next morning when he stepped out of his house momentarily to take out the trash before breakfast: The person who had approached him the day before was not far from the entrance, sitting on the cement ground with his back against the building wall. The man was asleep, snoring somewhat even. And although some bushes partially hid him from the view of passersby, Zhao Xian still thought it was a miracle that no one had seen him earlier and sent him to sleep elsewhere.
He should really leave it be. Or perhaps call the police, to have them deal with what clearly seemed like a vagrant.
But Zhao Xian would have to be driving to work soon, so he didn't have the time or inclination to wait for the authorities to carry out the appropriate arrest. Moreover, he also didn't fancy ignoring the problem and finding the man in the same spot upon his return, many hours later.
No, Zhao Xian would end up choosing what he considered to be the second-best option. Which involved approaching the unconscious cosplayer and clearing his throat somewhat to wake him up, with clear intentions of having a very serious conversation with him.
This should have worked to wake the man up, as Zhao Xian got close enough to be heard over the traffic noise, but it didn't actually have any effect. The stranger continued to sleep soundly, and not even coughing louder or trying to call him by his name (Shen something, wasn't it?) seemed to make him react.
Zhao Xian was about to shake him by the shoulders, sensing that there would be no other more effective method to rouse him from his slumber, but it turned out not to be necessary: Shen Zhihao woke up on his own, startled by his own snoring, once he breathed too heavily.
"What's happening? Where am I?" he asked, alarmed, looking around abruptly until his gaze focused on the person in front of him, and only then did he seem to relax again. "Oh, it's you. Have you reconsidered my offer?"
"Have you been here all night?" Zhao Xian asked instead, completely ignoring Shen Zhihao's question.
Upon this, Shen Zhihao looked at him as if he were stupid and had just stated the obvious.
"Of course, where else would I stay?"
"I don't know. At your home or in a hotel?"
At this point, Zhao Xian might have doubted that this individual had a home of his own. But given the amount of money he had on him, he didn't believe, not for a moment, that he couldn't afford to rent a room at the nearest lodging.
"Don't talk nonsense," Shen Zhihao dismissed it instantly. "If I were to sleep anywhere else, how would I know when you would leave your amorphous tower?"
"It's a residential building," Zhao Xian clarified, but the other didn't seem to intend to listen to him, as he had already begun to complain.
"I should have brought some soldiers with me, to take turns on guard duty. But no, with the imminent threat in the kingdom, there were no troops to spare. Not even the least experienced and short cultivator was fit to be let go to another universe! Besides, do you have any idea how hard this ground is? And I had to sit my butt on it for more than ten hours, while you deigned to show up! Know that I haven't slept a wink because of your terrible lack of hospitality."
"I'm sorry," the sarcasm was there, albeit being ignored just as the fact that Shen Zhihao seemed to have been able to sleep, even if only for the time he was found unconscious next to the building. "By any chance, would you accept that I correct my mistake by inviting you to breakfast?"
"Such simple apologies will not mend the harm you've inflicted upon me. You would have to prostrate yourself before me, with your forehead to the ground for more than half an hour, until I even considered you worthy! And as for your breakfast offer, you should know that I would never deign to taste food from a univer..."
Shen Zhihao didn't get to complete his sentence, as that was the moment his stomach chose to start growling. Zhao Xian said nothing about it, just looked at him with some suspicion until Shen Zhihao himself deigned to relent, in a much more docile tone:
"Something for breakfast would be nice, please and thank you."
Zhao Xian smiled upon hearing that: It had become apparent that the stranger was just putting on an act, exaggerating his anger. And, seeing that it wasn't working for him, he quickly wanted to step back and make his request like a normal person.
"Then come with me," Zhao Xian said, turning around to head towards his entrance, without waiting for the other to follow.
"Uh, but can I...?"
"I'll allow you entry," After thinking for a few seconds, he added wearily, "Temporarily."
He hadn't planned on inviting him to breakfast, let alone into his apartment. But after a night of peaceful rest, Zhao Xian was in a good mood, and more importantly, after those brief interactions with Shen Zhihao, he felt that, although he was a bit crazy, the man wasn't dangerous.
Maybe it would have been better to meet at a nearby café, anyway.
Shen Zhihao had already gotten to his feet excitedly, like a puppy who, after a night punished sleeping in the yard, was finally allowed inside the house, and Zhao Xian didn't feel like retracting his offer.
If anything questionable happened, he would take care of it himself by throwing him out the window: He wasn't afraid.
"Let's assume I believe you," Zhao Xian had said once inside the apartment, having invited the stranger to sit in his kitchen, now with a couple of coffees and some toast in front of them, "that you are the supposed leader of a cultivation sect."
"But I am!" Shen Zhihao interjected, and perhaps realizing that he shouldn't have jumped to specify such a thing now that he had at least been heard, he added, "Sorry."
"As I was saying, let's assume this because I don't feel like arguing," he continued, "How am I, being the hero the oracle predicted, supposed to help?"
"Uh... Well, doing the typical, right? Since you are a mere mortal, without any power or cultivation experience, you will have to resort to brute force and stab anyone who dares to go against Yihan or me with a sword."
"I'm not sure I've ever used a sword."
"It's very easy to use, I assure you," Shen Zhihao was trying to sound convincing, but his disappointment could be heard in his voice; if it was true that he owned a cultivation sect, there was no doubt that he should be familiar with combat techniques and how difficult it was for students to learn to handle them with a minimum of skill, "Although, you don't necessarily have to use a sword... How about a bow and arrows? Or some daggers? Maybe, as you are the chosen one, once you set foot in my world, your hidden powers will be activated, and you will be able to defeat the enemy more effectively than all my sect companions combined."
"But I'm not the chosen one, I'm the backup of the chosen one, if anything."
"Works the same," Shen Zhihao dismissed, disregarding that detail. "You have his blood, so with just a third of the strength that belonged to your grandfather, you'd surely be able to massacre an entire city."
"Could I?"
"Um... Y-yes? B-but it's better if you didn't," he hastened to say, nervously. "I already have a reputation for being a tyrant: If I were to return home with a potential serial killer, my own people might lynch me... Although I'm not afraid of them, of course. I am the leader of Yihan, and as such, no matter how much they disagree with my decisions, they must always treat me with the utmost respect."
Zhao Xian smiled, visibly amused. As intimidating as the man insisted on appearing, the truth was that he didn't seem dangerous at all sitting there at his table, devouring toast without worrying too much about the crumbs falling onto his robes.
"Actually, you have terrible taste in this world, who would think to have bread with dirty water for breakfast? With this, you wouldn't survive even the first class of the day, I don't want to even think about what would happen if you had to go into battle."
"If you don't like it, you don't have to eat it," Zhao Xian pretended to take away the plate, but Shen Zhihao stopped him, pulling the dish towards himself and even blocking the view of what was left of his portion.
"Leave it, I'm making the sacrifice because I recognize the sense of hospitality and I don't want to make you feel bad for feeding me with things not suitable for humans... That, and because I'm hungry."
And he continued eating as if nothing, with a voracity that not even Zhao Xian demonstrated when ingesting his own breakfast.
There were indeed more traditional breakfasts involving soup and rice, but Zhao Xian usually prioritized saving time in the mornings, so he preferred to make something simpler. If Shen Zhihao had complained from the start, maybe he would have offered to prepare something different. But, seeing him now, with rosy cheeks and clearly enjoying his toast with jam despite what he said out loud, he thought it was better to let it be.
"Let's suppose then that I could help your sect," Zhao Xian tried again after a while in silence. "How do you plan to take me there? Because I imagine it will be far away."
"Oh, that's the easiest part of all, don't worry."
"Obviously, I'm going to worry, because I don't think the gasoline in my car (or in the whole world, for that matter) will be enough to cross entire galaxies."
"What is gasoline?"
"And I'm also not interested in dying to be reborn as someone new somewhere else," continued Zhao Xian, who obviously had read more transmigration novels for the good of his brain. "So you'll have to come up with another system."
"No, I came here through a magical portal that connects both worlds. Jiang Peng, this is, one of the most experienced cultivators in my sect, was the one who prepared it," Shen Zhihao explained, as if trying to make a small child understand a basic sum. "To return to my world, it's as easy as stepping one foot after the other through said portal."
"Easy, you say?"
"It tingles a bit when you touch the magic barrier. And I definitely wouldn't recommend doing it naked. But other than that, it's completely harmless."
"That reassures me," No, it didn't, and it wasn't going to happen. "Where did you say you left that portal?"
"Well, it's hardly something I can carry with me, right? It's obvious that I had to leave it a couple of streets away, among some bushes, next to a park."
"Open?"

"I didn't know there was private property in garden areas here, I certainly never saw a closed door... Oh! The portal, you mean? Of course, I left it open! I don't have the power to close it, only my companions from the other side can do that."
"Perhaps I'm ignorant, but isn't that dangerous? Anyone could find the portal and use it."
"Nah, who would be foolish enough to see a black hole floating in nothingness and think the best thing to do would be to touch it, or even try to pass through it? They could even risk disintegrating! I mean, what...? The portal is safe, I insist," Shen Zhihao insisted, although for a moment he seemed to have forgotten what he wanted to prove. "What I'm trying to say is that ordinary mortals can't know without trying it. And it's evident that they won't risk it, because they're not used to magic here."
"An accident could still happen. A child could accidentally pass through the portal without realizing it, in their eagerness to retrieve their ball. Didn't you say it's near a park? If it's the one I'm thinking of, that place is teeming with young children in the afternoons."
Shen Zhihao looked horrified, though he tried to maintain his composure as he said:
"I hope that doesn't happen. It would be embarrassing for everyone if a child appeared out of nowhere in Yinhan, when at least half the sect must be waiting for me behind that portal to greet me with the praise I deserve."
No, of course what seemed to worry Shen Zhihao was that the celebration would be wasted on the wrong person, not that an innocent would end up where they shouldn't.
Zhao Xian decided to ignore this for the moment. After all, there was no portal, no parallel universe, or anything like that. So it wasn't possible for someone to be kidnapped into an imaginary country at war.
"Why don't you take me there?" he inquired, with little enthusiasm, finishing his coffee.
"To Yinhan?"
"Finally?" seemed to be on the verge of adding. And yes, in a way it was: Zhao Xian wanted to close this topic, feeling that he had already extended his kindness enough to Shen Zhihao.
He would let him lead him to that supposed entrance to another universe, and once it was confirmed that it didn't exist, Zhao Xian would pat him on the shoulder and wish him luck on his adventure. Perhaps, if Shen Zhihao continued to behave as calmly as he had in the last half hour, Zhao Xian might even take pity on him and give him some coins to pay for the bus back to the psychiatric center.
Regardless, it had to be now or never.
"It'll have to be quick, I have to be at work at eight."
He didn't specify which job, and perhaps Shen Zhihao assumed he was referring to the new and accepted job as a hero who would overthrow the forces of evil in his realm. So, without waiting for Zhao Xian to insist, Shen Zhihao quickly offered to show him where that portal that had served him so well the day before was located.