Chapter 467: Hold On
"Hold on, Xiao-An," Lin Feng whispered, his voice cracking, pressing her hand to his forehead.
"Please, just hold on. I will find a way. The imperial physicians are fools. I will surely find a cure for you."
He gently set her hand down, standing up.
As he turned away from the bed, his expression hardened from grief into a terrifying, unyielding resolve.
He walked into the hallway of the estate, pacing the floorboards.
"Your sister carries a heavy burden," a memory of his mother’s voice echoed in his mind. "A burden the world cannot see. If the dark ever consumes her, Feng’er... you must look to the stars."
Lin Feng stopped pacing.
He looked up at the ceiling, as if piercing through the roof to stare directly at the cosmos.
"The Stargazing Tower," Lin Feng muttered, grabbing his heavy broadsword from the weapon rack. "They know everything. They chart the threads. If anyone can fix a shattered soul, it is the Seers."
The vision accelerated, blurring past Lin Feng’s grueling journey across the Azure Empire.
He rode through storms, fought through demonic beast territories, and climbed the treacherous peaks of the central continent until he reached the towering, monolithic structure of the Stargazing Tower.
The scene stabilized in the grand, outer vestibule of the Tower.
Lin Feng, battered, bleeding, and exhausted, knelt on the polished obsidian floor.
Towering above him were three Star-Seers, bureaucrats of the cosmos, draped in heavy, hooded robes of deep midnight blue adorned with silver constellations.
Their faces were obscured by the shadows of their hoods.
"You petition the Heavens for a mortal anomaly, Lin Feng," the center Seer intoned, a voice devoid of all empathy, sounding like grinding gears in a machine. "The soul of Lin Ji’an is undergoing critical structural failure. It is the natural consequence of her existence."
"Save her!" Lin Feng begged, slamming his forehead against the obsidian floor, abandoning all of his aristocratic and military pride. "I will give you my core! I will give you my life! Just fix her meridians!"
"We do not deal in flesh, mortal," the left Seer replied coldly. "Your sister’s suffering is not an illness. It is a penalty. She is paying for a mistake. An absurd, foundational error in her karmic ledger. The Heavens demand balance."
Transmigrator Ji’an, marching through the corridor, let out a loud, incredulous scoff.
"An absurd mistake?!" Ji’an yelled into the darkness.
"What mistake?! Undercooking a risotto?! Using margarine instead of butter?! What could an eighteen-year-old girl possibly have done to warrant nine consecutive lifetimes of getting murdered by toxic male leads?!"
The Seers in the vision did not answer the transmigrator’s fury.
"The Tower cannot intervene," the center Seer decreed with absolute finality. "Unless the anomaly surrenders her karmic thread willingly, the degradation will continue until her soul is erased from the cycle. Return to your estate, General. Prepare for a funeral."
The heavy brass doors of the vestibule slammed shut in Lin Feng’s face, echoing with a dull, booming finality.
Lin Feng remained kneeling on the cold stone.
The broadsword rested beside him. The most promising young general of the Azure Empire looked completely broken.
The Heavens themselves had told him his sister was doomed to rot.
He slowly pushed himself up, his eyes hollow, dragging his boots across the stone courtyard outside the Tower, preparing to begin the long ride home to watch his sister die.
"The bureaucrats of the Tower are useless when it comes to practical customer service, aren’t they?"
The voice drifted out from the shadows of a nearby courtyard pillar.
It was smooth, incredibly melodious, and possessed a rich, lazy cadence that commanded instant attention.
Lin Feng’s hand immediately dropped to the hilt of his broadsword, his military instincts flaring.
He spun around, drawing the blade.
Stepping out of the shadows was a man.
Transmigrator Ji’an, watching the peripheral vision, stopped walking. Her boot hovered an inch over the invisible floor of the dark corridor.
She stared at the man in the vision. She blinked, rubbed her eyes, and looked again.
The man was... breathtaking.
There was no other word for it.
He possessed a beauty that transcended gender, a celestial, ethereal, incredibly graceful aesthetic that made the surrounding architecture look dull by comparison.
He wore flowing robes of pale jade and silver. His long, dark hair was half-tied with a simple, elegant ribbon.
His face was flawless, possessing sharp, refined cheekbones, a delicate nose, and eyes that shimmered with a deep, sorrowful intelligence.
He moved with the fluid, effortless grace of a willow branch in the wind.
He looked like a deity who had stepped out of a high-end shampoo commercial.
"Who the hell is this K-pop idol celestial being?" Transmigrator Ji’an muttered, utterly perplexed. "Is this another secret protagonist? Another overpowered pretty boy the universe decided to throw into the mix?"
In the vision, Lin Feng kept his sword raised. "Who are you? Are you a Seer?"
The beautiful, ethereal stranger laughed, a soft, musical sound like wind chimes.
"Heavens forbid, no," the stranger smiled, pulling a delicate, intricately carved jade flask from his sleeve and taking a polite, elegant sip. "I am merely a wanderer who detests the rigidity of the stars. You seek to mend a shattered soul, young General. The Tower will not help you because they are the ones enforcing the penalty."
Lin Feng’s eyes widened. "Can you help her? Can you save my sister?"
The beautiful stranger’s smile faded. A look of deep melancholy settled over his flawless features.
"I cannot heal her," the stranger said softly. "When a soul begins to crack from its origin of friction, no mortal medicine can bind it. But... if you are truly sincere. If you are willing to embrace a heresy that defies the World Will itself... there is another way. A way to anchor her."
"I don’t care about heresy," Lin Feng declared instantly, without a second of hesitation. "I don’t care about my life, my core, or my soul. If it saves her, I will do it."
The stranger looked at the desperate brother, his eyes reflecting a respectful sorrow.
"The price is catastrophic, Lin Feng," the beautiful man warned. "You will not just lose your powers. You will lose yourself. You will become a vessel. An empty room."
"Take me to the ritual," Lin Feng demanded, his voice hard as iron.
The stranger nodded slowly. "Very well. Come with me. We have an appointment with a man who specializes in breaking the rules."
The vision shifted.
The beautiful stranger led Lin Feng away from the Stargazing Tower, using a highly advanced, untraceable spatial folding array.
They materialized in a cavern.
The air was blisteringly hot, smelling of sulfur and molten rock. It was a highly concealed underground forge.
Standing in the center of the forge, bathed in the orange light of a massive magma vent, was a younger Yan Zhaoge.
Transmigrator Ji’an gasped, leaning closer to the peripheral vision.
The Overtime Boss looked almost the same, draped in his chaotic, midnight-purple silk robes, though his face lacked the entrenched, centuries-old exhaustion she was familiar with.
He looked manic, brilliant, and incredibly dangerous.
He was currently writing complex, glowing runic equations directly into the air with his finger.
"You are late," young Yan Zhaoge drawled, not looking up from his equations as the beautiful stranger and Lin Feng entered the forge. "The spatial anchor is destabilizing. If we do not initiate the bypass soon, the Tower’s auditors will detect the thermal variance."
"Patience, Zhaoge," the beautiful stranger murmured, stepping into the light of the forge, moving with that effortless, ethereal grace. "The boy required a moment to finalize his resolve."
Young Yan Zhaoge finally turned around, wiping his hands on a rag. He looked at Lin Feng, then looked at the beautiful, immaculate, celestial stranger.
Yan Zhaoge smirked.
"You always were a bleeding heart, Jiu Zui."
The Corridor of the Eclipse went dead silent.
Transmigrator Ji’an stopped breathing.
The universe completely, violently blue-screened.
Her heavy cast-iron spatula slipped from her fingers. It hit the invisible floor of the dark corridor with a loud, resounding CLANG.
Ji’an did not move.
She stared into her peripheral vision.
She stared at the breathtakingly beautiful, ethereal, graceful, shampoo-commercial deity standing in the forge.
"Jiu Zui," the name echoed in her brain.
Jiu Zui... What?
Master Jiu Zui.
The Sovereign of the Drunken Peak.