Chapter 345: Someone I Know
The rich, intoxicating aroma of searing wild mountain leeks, ginger, and diced crystal-mantis meat completely overpowered the ambient, damp smell of the pearlescent mist.
"More heat, Zechuan," Ji’an commanded, not looking away from the sizzling pan.
Sitting cross-legged on the obsidian floor directly across the fire pit, Shen Zechuan dutifully raised his finger as a highly controlled sliver of abyssal energy funneled oxygen directly into the coals, causing the flames to roar higher, kissing the bottom of the iron wok in a perfect, uniform sear.
"Is this adequate, Ji’an?" Zechuan asked, his dark, bottomless eyes entirely focused on the fire, his face glowing in the orange light.
"Perfect. Hold it there," Ji’an replied, tossing the wok one last time before pulling it off the heat.
She portioned the spicy, steaming stir-fry into two deep ceramic bowls, handing the larger portion to the abyssal prodigy.
Zechuan took the bowl with both hands, his face lighting up with that brilliant puppy smile. He didn’t wait for it to cool down as he picked up his chopsticks, scooped up a massive portion of the spicy meat and leeks, and shoved it directly into his mouth.
Ji’an sat down on a smooth stone, blowing on her own food, her silver-flecked eyes casually observing him.
And as she watched him eat, her culinary mind, trained to notice the most microscopic details, from the exact hue of a caramelizing onion to the subtle shift in a sauce’s viscosity, began to piece together a puzzle she had been trying to ignore.
’It’s not just the face,’ Ji’an realized, a cold, creeping sensation of unease settling in the pit of her stomach.
She watched Zechuan chew.
He didn’t just chew food like a normal person. He had a very specific, deeply ingrained habit. When a piece of ginger was slightly too large, he would subtly shift it to the left side of his jaw, his brow furrowing for exactly half a second before he swallowed.
Lin Feng did that, too.
She watched him pick up a piece of spicy crystal-mantis meat. Before eating it, he instinctively, unconsciously tapped the ends of his chopsticks twice against the edge of the ceramic bowl to align them perfectly.
Lin Feng did that every single morning at breakfast in the General’s Estate.
Ji’an’s eyes narrowed, her gaze tracking every micro-movement the Senior Apprentice made.
When they walked, Zechuan favored his right leg by a fraction of a millimeter, a phantom limp that didn’t correspond to any physical injury on his pristine, unblemished body. Lin Feng had a scar on his right thigh from a northern trench skirmish that caused him to walk with that cadence. When Zechuan was confused, he tilted his head exactly fifteen degrees to the left. When he was pleased, he rubbed the back of his neck with his left hand.
Their preference for extra egg in fried rice, their unyielding willingness to carry her heavy cast-iron cookware. The way they both patted the crown of her head with two firm, heavy taps.
’It is impossible for this to be a coincidence,’ Ji’an’s internal supercomputer whirred, the data compiling into a terrifying, undeniable conclusion. ’He isn’t just a guy who happens to look like a carbon copy of my brother. He has Lin Feng’s muscle memory. He has Lin Feng’s subconscious tics. But he doesn’t have Lin Feng’s memories, his scars, or his booming voice.’
The mystery was agonizing. It felt like an itch directly on her brain that she couldn’t scratch.
And the deeper she dug, the more the foundational lore of her own existence in this world began to unravel.
’What about my mother?’ Ji’an thought, her heart suddenly aching with a hollow emptiness.
Back in the Lin General’s Estate, it was an accepted, tragic fact that the Madam of the house had passed away on her sickbed when Ji’an was still a toddler. Ji’an had never met her. She only had the fragmented, blurry memories of the original host body to rely on.
’But if the World Will can copy-paste a Vanguard Commander, wipe his memory, dye his clothes white, and drop him into an abyssal rift for five years just to create a plot-relevant Senior Apprentice... what else is a lie?’ Ji’an panicked inwardly, her grip tightening on her chopsticks. ’Did my mother really die of illness? Did she die at all? Did my father know? Did she have twins? Am I even a Lin?!’
The sheer, suffocating weight of not knowing the truth was suddenly heavier than the four-hundred-pound wok she carried.
It hurt.
She was a transmigrator; she was supposed to know the plot.
But this was a gaping blind spot in the narrative, and it involved the only family she had learned to love in this brutal world.
She couldn’t wait.
She couldn’t just sit here in the pearlescent mist and wonder if the airhead eating stir-fry across from her was her biological twin brother, a soul fragment, or a cosmic glitch.
She needed answers.
Ji’an glanced at Zechuan.
He was entirely engrossed in the stir-fry, practically humming with culinary delight, completely oblivious to her internal existential crisis.
Moving with the smooth, practiced stealth of a chef stealing the last premium cut of wagyu beef, Ji’an subtly reached her left hand into the folds of her Szechuan Red robes, accessing the dimensional aperture of her spatial ring.
She retrieved a small, enchanted square of Communication Parchment and a self-inking jade stylus.
This was not a normal letter. It was an expensive, high-tier military artifact she had stolen from Lin Feng’s desk before leaving the capital just to prank him, though she didn’t know it would actually be useful someday.
Once written, the parchment would magically incinerate itself, instantly transmitting the message directly to the linked receptor in the Lin General’s Estate, bypassing all conventional sect surveillance arrays.
Hiding the parchment behind her ceramic bowl, Ji’an rapidly scribbled a message, her handwriting atrocious due to the awkward angle.
Dad, the tournament is a disaster. But I am fine. But I need to know something, because it’s urgent to me; please respond soon. Currently, I am staring at a man named Shen Zechuan. The sect leader’s apprentice. It wouldn’t have been something special, but what feels strange to me is that... He looks exactly like my Eldest brother. His face, his habits... everything feels familiar to me. However, he has no scars, no memories of the family, or me. Did Mom have twins? Did someone somehow steal one of the babies? Or is something happening that I’m not aware of? Do not lie to me. I cannot breathe in this dark. I expect a full, unredacted history of the Lin bloodline the second I exit this realm, or I am packing my woks and moving to the Demon Realm. - Ji’an.
She finished the final stroke, pressing her thumb against the corner of the parchment to seal it with her Qi. The paper instantly flared with a brief, silent flash of crimson light, turning to fine ash that blew away in the mist.
The message was sent. Now, she just had to survive the next forty-eight hours to get the reply.
"Uncle Ji’an! Look!"
The sudden, loud, incredibly enthusiastic voice snapped Ji’an violently out of her conspiratorial plotting.
She jerked her head up.
Shen Zechuan had set his empty bowl down. He was leaning across the fire pit, practically bouncing on his knees. In his large, pale hands, he was proudly presenting a vibrant, neon-purple flower that was currently dripping a highly corrosive, glowing green acid onto the obsidian floor.
"I found this behind the rock while you were eating!" Zechuan beamed, offering the deadly flora to her with the innocent, eager pride of a toddler handing their mother a weed. "It is very purple! I thought it matched the aesthetic of your red robes! Do you like it? Should I put it in your hair?"
Ji’an stared at the flower.
It was a Death-Bloom Lily. A single drop of its acid could melt through solid steel. Merely inhaling its pollen was known to cause permanent, irreversible neurological damage.
And the terrifying, abyssal prodigy of the Celestial Sword Sect was trying to use it as a hair accessory for her.
"Shen Zechuan," Ji’an breathed, abandoning her existential crisis, her survival instincts violently rebooting. "Put the flower down. Put it down very, very gently. Do not smell it. Do not lick it. It is not a decorative accessory; it is a biological weapon."
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