Chapter 469: Servant
The Corridor of the Eclipse was a living, breathing entity of pure, concentrated despair, and Lin Ji’an was treating it like a hostile health inspector trying to shut down her kitchen during the dinner rush.
She did not yield. She did not stop.
She swung her cast-iron spatula through the suffocating, pitch-black void, her Body Fusion core roaring like an open furnace.
The darkness shrieked, physically clawing at her Szechuan Red trousers, attempting to drag her backward into the agonizing, soul-shattering revelations of the first nine timelines.
“Your brother is an empty husk because of you,” the shadows hissed, adopting the cold, bureaucratic tone of the Star-Seers.
“Your master threw away his celestial grace to become a drunken hermit for you. You are a parasite on the timeline, Lin Ji’an. Lie down. Let the cycle end.”
“I am the Apex Anomaly, you dramatic hallway!” Ji’an roared, her voice echoing infinitely into the dark, her silver hair glowing with a fierce, luminescent light. “And my brother didn’t sacrifice his soul so I could lie down and cry in the dark! He paid for my ticket to the end of this ride, and I am going to get my money’s worth!”
She stomped her boot down, channeling the volcanic Heart Fire she had learned from Elder Ignis.
Her left hand flared cherry-red, illuminating the pitch-black corridor with thermal glow.
The darkness recoiled from the heat.
The scrolling ribbons of light on the periphery of her vision, which had gone completely dark after the devastating revelation of the Ninth Timeline, suddenly sparked back to life.
The static cleared.
The ambient light of the corridor shifted from the harsh, sterile white of the Divine Zenith Pavilion to a soft, muted, slightly melancholy gray.
The Tenth Timeline.
Ji’an gritted her teeth, keeping her eyes fixed forward, absorbing the narrative through her peripheral vision.
‘Course number ten,’ Ji’an’s transmigrator mind braced itself. ‘Let’s see how the universe decided to butcher the menu this time.’
The vision opened not with a tragedy, but with a quiet, fragile miracle.
The courtyards of the Lin General’s Estate materialized in the ghostly light. But unlike the previous timelines, where the original Lady Lin had died shortly after giving birth to Ji’an, this timeline had experienced a slight, momentary butterfly effect.
Lady Lin had survived.
She lived just long enough to see the original Ji’an grow into a quiet, serious toddler. And she lived long enough to give birth to a third child.
The vision showed a pale, fragile Lady Lin lying in her bedchamber, holding a tiny, crying newborn boy.
Lin Xuan. Her youngest brother.
But the miracle was short-lived. The toll of childbirth, combined with the lingering, systemic curse of the Stargazing Tower that plagued her bloodline, finally claimed Lady Lin. She passed away holding her children, leaving the General’s Estate drowning in mourning.
Transmigrator Ji’an watched the funeral procession in the peripheral vision, a heavy knot forming in her stomach.
But as the vision accelerated, showing the original Ji’an growing up, a terrifying, tragic detail became apparent.
In the Tenth Timeline, the original Ji’an was not the bright, innocent, smiling jewel of the capital that she had been in the first two lives.
She was incredibly cold.
As a child, she didn’t laugh.
As a teenager, she didn’t smile.
She moved with a stiff, robotic pragmatism. Her dark eyes were flat, devoid of the vibrant, emotional fire that usually defined the human experience.
Transmigrator Ji’an, marching through the corridor, felt a sickening wave of realization wash over her.
‘The soul degradation,’ she thought, her breath hitching. ‘Lin Feng is absorbing the cosmic friction of the resets… but it’s not a perfect shield. The foundational damage is still bleeding through. By the tenth reset, her soul is literally cracking under the strain. She’s suffering from severe emotional detachment. She’s hollow.’
It was a devastating side effect.
The Tenth Timeline Ji’an wasn’t trying to be an aloof ice queen; she just lacked the spiritual cohesion required to feel complex emotions.
But the universe, bound by the rigid, unyielding magic of the Red Thread, was not going to let her emotional apathy stop the plot.
The vision shifted to the servant quarters of the Lin Estate.
General Lin, seeking to provide his youngest son, Lin Xuan, with a dedicated personal attendant and bodyguard, had purchased a group of young orphans from the outer provinces.
The original Ji’an, now sixteen and radiating an aura of impenetrable, unfeeling frost, was walking through the courtyard when the new servants were brought in.
She didn’t care.
She didn’t look at them. She walked past the line of shivering, terrified children without a single change in her blank expression.
And then, she stopped.
The original Ji’an slowly turned her head.
Kneeling at the end of the line, dressed in coarse, gray servant’s rags, was a boy slightly older than her.
He was incredibly thin.
He was covered in dirt. But despite the filth, his hair was a cascading, shimmering waterfall of pure, luminescent silver.
It was Xie Wangchen.
Transmigrator Ji’an nearly dropped her spatula.
“What the hell is he doing here?!” Ji’an yelled at the vision. “He’s the Sovereign of the Eternal Cloud Peak! He’s the Ice Demon! How did he end up as a footboy in my family’s courtyard?!”
The answer, whispered by the crushing logic of the corridor, was the soul-binding ritual.
The Ritual of the Crimson Thread.
Yue’er, Wangchen’s mother, had tied their fates together in the Second Timeline.
That magic transcended the resets. The universe was fundamentally, structurally forced to push Xie Wangchen into Lin Ji’an’s orbit, regardless of the socio-economic variables of the specific timeline.
If he didn’t meet her as a terrifying prodigy, the threads of fate would aggressively drag him across the continent, strip him of his titles, and drop him onto his knees in her backyard just to fulfill the magical mandate.
In the vision, the young, servant-class Wangchen looked up.
His ruby eyes were dead.
They were the eyes of a child who had already experienced the absolute worst horrors the mortal world had to offer.
𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦
But the moment his gaze locked onto the original Ji’an… the dead, red voids shattered.
It was instantaneous.
The spark of absolute, yandere devotion ignited in his chest. The Red Thread pulsed invisibly between them.
He didn’t know why, but looking at the cold, unfeeling noble daughter standing in the courtyard, he knew with absolute certainty that he belonged to her.
The original Ji’an stared at him.
Her emotionally stunted soul couldn’t process the profound, magical connection.
She just tilted her head, her blank eyes locking onto his head.
“His hair is very shiny,” the Tenth Timeline Ji’an stated flatly, in a monotone. “Assign him to Xuan’er. Tell him to wash it regularly. I enjoy looking at shiny things.”
Transmigrator Ji’an let out a loud, hysterical bark of laughter that echoed in the dark corridor.
“She literally just assigned the most dangerous, homicidal immortal in the Azure Empire to babysitting duty because she likes his aesthetic!” Ji’an wheezed, wiping a tear from her eye. “Oh, my god. The absolute indignity of the Ice Demon being treated like a decorative lawn ornament.”
But Wangchen didn’t care about the indignity.
The vision showed the silver-haired boy eagerly, desperately throwing himself into his servant duties.
He scrubbed the floors, washed the laundry in freezing water. He took care of the toddler Lin Xuan with the terrifying efficiency of a trained assassin, freezing anyone who dared to speak ill of the Lin family.
And every single day, he would stand in the shadows of the courtyard, watching the original Ji’an with that silent devotion.
The original Ji’an never spoke to him.
She would occasionally walk past, her blank eyes drawn to the shimmering silver of his hair, and she would simply stare at it for a few seconds before walking away, completely ignoring the intense, burning worship radiating from his ruby eyes.
“He is a dog starving for a bone,” the shadows of the corridor whispered, mocking the Ice Demon’s plight. “And she does not even know he is hungry.”
“He’s an idiot who needs a hobby,” Transmigrator Ji’an corrected, though her heart ached for him. “But at least he’s not getting stabbed in the snow this time. Servant duty is a step up from martyrdom.”
But the Tenth Timeline was, unfortunately, not a domestic drama.