Chosen: Beyond Fate

Alright, that was complete nonsense.

He wasn’t kind enough to point out exactly what the problem was. Even if he couldn’t win, watching his opponent scramble in confusion and unable to find a single flaw suited his taste far better.

Indeed, this impostor’s height, appearance, spirit-matter fluctuations, even aura were all perfect without a single flaw. No, he was practically identical to the real An Ran.

But even if An Ran had changed his preferred streamer content to variety shows and dramas, or switched his usual shampoo and soap, there was one thing he couldn’t change—his matrix.

Since the mission began, Ji Jue had never once seen An Ran use his matrix. The An family’s Hurling Pot Method was indeed formidable and full of endless variations. Until not long ago, after Ji Jue combed through all the remaining video records in the villa, he finally confirmed that An Ran had never used a matrix at all!

Sword qi transformation? An Ran had probably never heard of it or knew anything about it.

Sure, maybe that’s true, but I’m supposed to believe it just because you say so?

Outside the villa, Xiao Jiu, transformed into a hummingbird, shared her vision with Ji Jue. Piercing through the darkness and stripping away the fog, she effortlessly locked onto the corpse floating in the pond.

Using the Security Bureau database access Ji Jue had freeloaded from Tong Hua, the identity was quickly confirmed. He was a notorious killer from the Tide City Wasteland Assembly, the White Deer Chosen One, Slaughterblood! As early as four years ago, he had already broken through the Metamorphosis Realm and stepped into the Rebirth Realm.

At the very least, a level six Chosen One had died soundlessly in the pond. There was a gaping hole punched clean through his heart, yet his face showed neither fear nor despair. Instead, it carried a satisfied smile, as though, before dying, he had witnessed some great miracle.

The outcome between hunter and prey had long since been decided. But with such an astonishing kill, why had the White Deer shown An Ran no favor?

Unless, in the White Deer’s eyes, an opponent like this was never truly an opponent to the “An Ran” before them; he was just something that could be dealt with casually. Nothing more than that!

Ji Jue’s sigh filled the silence. “Do you still remember what I told you? Trust is sometimes a very fragile thing, but suspicion is powerful. Besides, after all this time, no matter how stupid I am, I’m not going to mistake my own friend.”

A habit? Body wash? The matrix? Or perhaps victory and defeat? Those things were nothing more than clues. At most, they were merely triggers for suspicion. Habits could change. Body wash could be switched out. Even the matrix could malfunction.

Besides, even if An Ran had killed Slaughterblood right in front of Ji Jue, he would only have applauded in amazement, celebrating how much stronger his friend had become.

The real, decisive proof that had confirmed every suspicion and assumption like dust finally settling on the ground was, instead, the “proof” the other party had just revealed before his eyes, the nail.

Though Ji Jue had never mentioned this, he had secretly studied it in private. Back when he was helping install the prosthetic limb, he casually touched it once. Just once. Later, under the excuse of version upgrades or debugging, he gradually figured out the exact structure and condition of the thing.

All this time, aside from working himself to death in the workshop, he had constantly been thinking about how to remove that damn thing without triggering the alarm. From cracking the alert module to the methods and procedures for safe removal, he could practically write a whole thesis on it by now!

And the result?!

You seriously brought over a fake prop to fool me? Who the hell are you trying to trick?!

“What’s going on? What’s going on? What’s going on?!” Heavy footsteps echoed from the end of the hallway as Tom came sprinting over and poked his head in. “What, there’s infighting because of uneven loot distribution?”

There’s more work to do!

At first he wanted to yell, “Pay extra and I’ll fight for you,” but the moment he saw the situation inside, he froze in shock and blurted out, “Holy shit! Bro, you’ve really got balls! You actually dared scam money off a White Deer hunter from the An family?!”

Sure, once the birds are gone, the bow gets put away[1], but this was one bow you absolutely could not stash away!

You stab one little hunter tonight, and before dawn the An family would spawn a whole nest of them to wipe you out, believe it or not.

In less than a second, he had already started thinking about how to distance himself from Ji Jue.

Never met him. Don’t know him. No idea who he is.

“Fuck it, I don’t even want the remaining payment anymore!”

He was ready to leave immediately. Whether unfortunate or fortunate, the two people in the room did not even spare him a glance. They treated him like air, staring only at each other.

“When did it start?” Ji Jue asked curiously, “Tonight? Or after entering the villa? No, even earlier than that. Earlier still. Not just when we ran into the mercenary warped by corruption. Even before that... I see now...”

He let out a faint sigh of realization. “So from the moment we met that afternoon, you already weren’t An Ran anymore?”

“An Ran” smiled as he clapped. “You got all of it right. As expected of Mr. Ji.”

“I already told you, don’t call me that.” Ji Jue spat out the last remnants of his patience with irritation and raised his hand.

His right hand held nothing at all, yet within the darkness beneath the ceiling, inside the walls, and under the floorboards of the room, one red light after another blinked on from hidden plastic explosives.

The entire room had long since become Ji Jue’s trap, a dead zone with no chance of survival. He had imagined countless possible scenarios, but never once had he thought it would be used like this.

“You only get one chance to answer, so think carefully before you do. My friend, An Ran, where exactly is he?!” Ji Jue asked his final question, no longer hiding the icy coldness and killing intent in his eyes.

The boy tilted his head, eyes full of admiration and praise, clapping softly with a sigh. “Hm? But I already told you. I am An Ran. As expected of Mr. Ji. I understand now why An Ran likes you so much.”

Ji Jue froze. Before the sentence had even fully ended, the figure before him had already vanished from sight, and the voice came instead from right beside his ear, sounding impossibly close. The boy was directly in front of him.

Then, just like that, the boy rose onto his tiptoes, and something soft with a faint trace of coolness landed against Ji Jue’s cheek. It was his lips.

“Because...” That gentle breath brushed against his ear as he whispered, “I think I’m starting to like you too.”

Everything seemed to freeze solid. Ji Jue slowly turned his head with immense difficulty, staring at the smiling figure before him with hands clasped behind his back. He staggered backward a step, filled with terror, confusion, shock, despair, suffocation.

“What the hell are you doing?! What the hell are you doing?!”

The instant he snapped back to reality, he frantically raised his sleeve and scrubbed at his face like mad. His heart had already sunk completely into an icy abyss, dead beyond recovery, as though from this moment onward there would never again be joy or sorrow in his life.

Was this the ultimate humiliation?!

Ji Jue was practically on the verge of tears. His nineteen, no, twenty years of purity was gone in a single night...

I’ve been tainted! What the hell? What is going on?!

When had the world become so insane that he could no longer understand any of it?

Ji Jue’s eyes lost focus. Completely bewildered, his head was filled with nothing but the urge to slam it into a wall. He could not make sense of any of this anymore.

Finally, in utter despair, he demanded, “Who the hell are you?!”

“Hm? You still haven’t figured it out, Mr. Ji? Or are you just unwilling to think of that possibility?” An Ran tilted his head in confusion and blinked. His expression slowly turned teasing. “I’m the evil lady you said you’d help An Ran beat up with guaranteed victory.”

He raised a hand and removed the hairband from behind his head, tossing it aside. Black hair spilled free in the breeze, spreading loose. The neat, sharp short hair that had framed his ears now carried a completely different charm from An Ran’s. Muscles and bones stretched subtly as the figure grew half a head taller out of nowhere, becoming more slender and elegant.

As the person’s brow relaxed, the originally androgynous face shifted slightly, revealing unmistakably feminine features and a beauty even more striking than An Ran’s.

Just like that, the girl named An Ning[2] lifted her head, her smile sly and playful.

“You talked so much trash about me behind my back, but face-to-face you still couldn’t recognize me. Isn’t that a little rude?”

Her words were met with long, endless silence. Ji Jue stood there, frozen, as though he could hear the sound of his own brain boiling.

CPU overload.

Unable to comprehend the situation and the changes before him, Ji Jue opened his mouth several times, wanting to speak, yet no words came out. He simply could not understand any of it.

“What a pity...” An Ning smiled regretfully. “Since you’ve exposed me, there’s no helping it now.”

In the middle of a dull errand to kill time, amid long and tedious waiting, she had decided on a whim to visit the little brother who had run away from home and give him some harsh and straightforward family education. And, on a sudden impulse, she had taken her younger brother’s identity, freely walking through the city in An Ran’s appearance.

At first, she had only wanted to mock the boring life he had chosen, but she had never expected him to be secretly hiding such an interesting surprise from his sister.

The girl looked back with a smile. Her shining eyes seemed to reflect the light of the moon and stars as she gave her final farewell. “Goodbye, Mr. Ji. Will you miss me?”

Like a phantom that had never truly existed, she fell backward into the bright moonlight outside the window, drifting away like a kite carried off by the sea breeze before vanishing into the night sky among the stars. She left only the stunned Ji Jue behind, completely dumbfounded.

After a long while, the wide-eyed Tom finally recovered and stared at him in disbelief.

“You...”

“I...” Ji Jue nodded blankly.

“He... she...” Tom was so choked up he could barely speak. He waved his hands around helplessly, as if he wanted to say something but had no idea how to put it into words. Then he saw Ji Jue wave him off.

“Don’t say anything. As long as you keep your mouth shut, the mission gets a hundred percent positive review. I’ll have Mr. Lin send you a bonus.” He turned and walked away. “Let me be alone for a while.”

Only Tom was left in the room, staring at the blinking explosives as they stared silently back at him.

It took nearly half an hour before Ji Jue, sitting beside the pond, finally regained his senses. Recalling what she said, that Mr. Zhang had been the first to discover her, he immediately pulled out his phone. Forgetting that it was the middle of the night and old people needed their rest, he immediately sent a text.

Jie Jue: ?

Very quickly, the message was marked as read. Then, after waiting forever, a reply finally arrived. It was a gif of an old auntie making a heart gesture at the screen, with bright red text floating out from a bouquet of roses that said, “Wishing you a wonderful day!”

Ji Jue’s vision went dark. He did not even need Deus Ex Machina to spy through Mr. Zhang’s camera to imagine how delighted that old man was grinning right now!

You people from North Mountain District really are hiding dragons and crouching tigers[3]!

Tong Hua was nothing compared to Mr. Zhang. Mr. Zhang was the real savage when it came to enjoying drama! So he had secretly watched the whole spectacle unfold this entire time without saying a word!

No wonder Ms. Wen had smiled so happily when arranging for An Ran to stay with him. So this was what they had all been waiting for, huh?

Ji Jue let out a sigh. At this point, asking “why didn’t you tell me” was completely meaningless anyway. Besides, with An Ran’s sister acting as his personal bodyguard, even if the entire villa exploded, he probably wouldn’t have lost a single hair. What danger could there possibly have been?

Thinking of this, he finally sent An Ran a message too.

Ji Jue: Are you okay?

Very quickly, it showed as read. But after the “typing...” indicator lingered for a long time, all that came back was a crying cat emoji.

Then came a flood of explanations.

An Ran: My sister forced me! I can’t beat her! Mr. Ji, believe me, I didn’t mean to deceive you! Sorry, please don’t be angry!

Ji Jue smiled. After confirming An Ran was safe, he sent another text.

Ji Jue: It’s fine. I was just startled. I’m glad that you’re okay. I almost pulled the trigger wire and blew things up with your sister earlier. Thank her for sparing my life.

An Ran fell silent. After a long while, another crying cat emoji appeared. There was simply nothing more to say.

Ji Jue found himself oddly comforted.

Much later, after the screen had gone dark, Ji Jue finally felt the exhaustion in both body and mind. Leaning back into the recliner, he could not help but let out a long sigh of relief.

“So she wasn’t a guy after all...”

He gazed at the moon and scattered stars in the night sky, yet for some reason he kept thinking about the figure of the girl as she departed, and those eyes that looked as though they reflected the stars themselves.

1. This is a classic Chinese idiom. It is used as a metaphor for discarding or sidelining those who have contributed and achieved merit once a task or goal has been successfully completed. ☜

2. 安凝 means a combination of “peace/safety” (安) and “calm/solidifying/stillness” (凝).

To me, the name conveys the idea of quiet peace and composed stillness, like something or someone that is stable, calm, and emotionally restrained. ☜

3. This is a Chinese idiom that is used as a metaphor for hidden talents or undiscovered experts. ☜