Chapter 338: The Poker Face
She looked down at him.
She looked at the face that was so identical to Lin Feng’s, completely contorted in pathetic, desperate misery.
The absurdity of the situation finally breached her exhaustion.
"Shen Zechuan," Ji’an wheezed, unable to process the tonal whiplash. "You... you tore a hole in a psychic dimension... and you are currently wiping your nasal fluids on my favorite yellow apron."
"I DON’T CARE ABOUT THE APRON!" Zechuan howled, burying his face back into her stomach, crying even harder. "I WILL BUY YOU A MILLION APRONS IF YOU WANT! JUST BREATHE! BREATHE, YOU STUPID CHEF!"
The desperation in his voice sent a pang of pain straight through Ji’an’s heart.
’Why does he care so much?’ Ji’an’s mind reeled, completely overwhelmed. ’He met me just yesterday. I yelled at him. I used him as a footstool. I made him carry four hundred pounds of cast iron. By all logical metrics, he should have let the spider eat me.’
But he hadn’t.
He had shattered the boundaries of reality to drag her back from the brink of a peaceful death, purely because he was terrified of being alone without the grumpy cook who fed him stew.
The overwhelming, unconditional attachment didn’t make logical sense.
But it made undeniable emotional sense.
The dream of the bakery was beautiful.
The dream of growing old with Wangchen on a porch swing was everything she had ever wanted.
But it was a dream.
And the pathetic, snot-nosed, incredibly overpowered idiot currently clinging to her waist, begging her to live, was real.
Ji’an let out a long, shuddering, incredibly fond sigh.
The remaining exhaustion in her soul evaporated, replaced by a renewed, stubborn, fiercely protective fire.
She couldn’t leave him.
If she died, this airhead would probably accidentally absorb the entire continent while trying to figure out how to operate a microwave.
She reached down, her hands gently, firmly gripping the sides of Zechuan’s tear-stained face.
She lifted his head, forcing him to look at her.
"Alright. Alright, I’m awake," Ji’an said softly, her voice cracking slightly, wiping a smudge of tears from his cheek with her thumb. "I’m not going anywhere. Stop crying. You look like a drowned rat."
Zechuan sniffled loudly, his dark eyes wide and vulnerable. "You promise? You aren’t going to go back to sleep?"
"I promise," Ji’an smiled, a genuine, warm, fiercely loyal smile. "The kitchen is still open. I have to wake up. I have a tournament to survive, a hotpot to cook, and a very specific, silver-haired glacier to find."
The moment she spoke the vow, the illusion collapsed.
The bakery, the modern street, the porch swing, everything shattered into a billion fragments of iridescent glass.
Ji’an gasped, her silver-flecked eyes flying open in the real world.
She was lying flat on her back on the cold, polished obsidian floor of the Illusory Labyrinth.
The pearlescent mist swirled around her.
The air was freezing.
Above her, the massive, crystalline corpse of the Rank 7 Dream-Weaver Spider lay completely pulverized against the glass wall, a testament to Zechuan’s frantic, blunt-force panic.
And hovering directly over her, his hands gripping her shoulders, was the Senior Apprentice.
His pristine white robes were indeed ruined, covered in crystal dust and spider ichor.
But the ugly-crying and the snot-bubbles were gone.
As soon as Ji’an’s eyes opened and focused on him, the terrifying, pathetic vulnerability instantly vanished from his face.
The hollow, serene, melancholic mask of the Tragic Prince slammed back into place with terrifying speed.
His posture straightened.
His dark, bottomless eyes regained their untouchable void.
"Martial Uncle Lin," Shen Zechuan murmured, his voice returning to its smooth, chillingly polite baritone.
He released her shoulders and stood up, offering a shallow bow. "You fell victim to the neuro-toxin of the Dream-Weaver. I took the liberty of dispatching the beast. Are your meridians stabilized?"
Ji’an lay on the floor, staring up at him in absolute disbelief.
He was doing it again.
The Poker Face.
The Sect Leader’s mandated edgelord persona.
He had literally been bawling his eyes out and using her stomach as a tissue five seconds ago inside her mind-scape, and now he was acting like a polite, brooding stranger who had merely stepped on a bug.
Ji’an slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position.
She looked at his pristine, emotionless face.
And then, she noticed the faint, incredibly subtle, glistening trail of dried mucus directly beneath his left nostril.
A wicked, unhinged smirk spread across Ji’an’s face.
She didn’t call him out.
She didn’t humiliate him.
She decided to play his game.
"I am fine, Senior Apprentice Shen," Ji’an drawled, dramatically dusting off her Szechuan Red robes and standing up. She picked up her fallen spatula, casually resting it over her shoulder. "Your swift intervention is... deeply appreciated. The illusions of this realm are truly insidious."
She walked past him, bumping her shoulder playfully against his arm.
"Though," Ji’an added, pitching her voice loud enough to echo off the glass walls, a devious glint in her eye, "I must say, the illusions were quite vivid. For a moment, I could have sworn I saw the terrifying, abyssal conqueror of the demonic rifts crying so hard he blew a snot-bubble the size of a peach."
Shen Zechuan froze.
The flawless, melancholic mask of the Tragic Prince visibly cracked.
A violent, furious blush crept up his neck, turning the tips of his ears bright red.
His dark eyes widened in a mortified panic.
"That... that was merely a trick of the mist, Uncle Ji’an!" Zechuan stammered, his baritone completely breaking into a frantic, high-pitched squeak, entirely abandoning the Poker Face. He hastily, aggressively wiped his nose with his silk sleeve. "The abyss does not weep! The abyss is stoic and terrifying! The Sect Leader specifically assured me that my aura was intimidating!"
"Sure it is, buddy," Ji’an laughed, a bright, genuine, ringing sound that chased away the lingering shadows of the illusion. "You are absolutely terrifying. Now, pick up the wok."
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