Chapter 445: Just a Drunkard

"In the Stargazing Tower... I am one of the few who holds a seat at the primary council. I am a decision-maker."

The words dropped into the small, enclosed space with the physical weight of a lead anvil falling into a pool of mercury.

’A decision-maker at the Stargazing Tower,’ Ji’an thought, her heart executing a sudden, violent lurch against her locket artifact. ’He is not some common riff-raff, really.’

Her mind that was sharp and perpetually suspicious, immediately began executing a frantic, multi-tiered dependency trace.

If Yan Zhaoge was a high-ranking authority within the Stargazing Tower, the very institution that housed the cosmic astrolabes used to chart fate and manipulate souls, then he was not an innocent bystander who had coincidentally bumped into her during a tour.

He was tied directly to the machinery that had dragged her away from her commercial kitchen on Earth, ripped her across dimensions, and shoved her into the dying body of a general’s disgraced daughter.

And if Yan Zhaoge was in on it...

If this ancient, pipe-smoking, array-weaving lunatic was an architect of her current misery...

What about Jiu Zui?

The thought struck Ji’an with the sudden, agonizing coldness of a dagger slipping between her ribs.

Master Jiu Zui was the one who had taken her in when she had nowhere else to go.

The alcoholic Sovereign of the Drunken Peak had given her a mountain, handed her legendary cookware like it was scrap metal, and sat by her side during every single terrifying, bone-shattering breakthrough, acting as her personal meat-shield against the Heavens.

He had let her cook, let her scream, and let her turn his sacred peak into an outdoor bistro.

’Was it all a setup?’ Ji’an’s thoughts spiraled into a dark abyss of paranoia. ’Did Jiu Zui know what I was from the very first second? Did he take me in because he was instructed to by the Tower? Was his lazy, drunken affection just... just an assignment? Was my whole life on the Drunken Peak just an observation pen for an escaped lab experiment?!’

Her breath hitched.

A faint, uncontrollable tremor ran through her fingers.

Her silver-flecked eyes darkened, a wall of cold, defensive ice rising up to shield her soul from the devastating weight of that potential betrayal.

Yan Zhaoge was watching her face.

The Overtime Boss did not miss the sudden dilation of her pupils.

He did not miss the way her hands curled into defensive fists, nor the bitter, guarded agony that flickered across her features.

For the first time since she had met him, Yan Zhaoge’s smirk vanished entirely.

His features softened, losing their cynical edge, replaced by a look of rare, almost paternal exasperation.

"Put away those filthy thoughts, you suspicious little gremlin," Yan Zhaoge sighed, reaching out with his free hand and aggressively flicking her directly in the center of her forehead with his index finger.

THWACK!

"Ow!" Ji’an yelped, clutching her forehead, her dramatic existential spiral violently interrupted by blunt-force physical trauma. "What was that for?!"

"For insulting your master’s character with that ridiculous, melodramatic face you’re making," Yan Zhaoge scolded, leaning back in his chair and taking another sip of wine. "Jiu Zui has absolutely nothing to do with the Stargazing Tower. In fact, if you mention the Tower in his presence, he will likely spit on your shoes, throw an empty flagon at your head, and spend the next three hours cursing the ancestors of every astrologer who ever lived."

Ji’an blinked, rubbing the red spot on her forehead, her defensive walls wobbling. "He’s... he’s not involved?"

"Involved?" Yan Zhaoge laughed, a genuine, booming sound that rattled the soundproof barrier. "The man considers sitting upright in a chair to be a form of unnecessary labor! Do you truly believe that drunken degenerate possesses the administrative stamina required to engage in high-level conspiracies?!"

He shook his head, looking down at his wine with a mixture of fond nostalgia and profound annoyance.

"Centuries ago, when I first secured my seat upon the Tower’s council, I actually attempted to recruit him. The Tower was expanding its operational parameters. We required an enforcer of absolute, unyielding martial authority, someone whose core could physically anchor the spatial coordinates of the higher realms. I personally delivered an official, golden-sealed invitation to make him a Grand Sovereign Elder of the Stargazing Tower."

"What did he do?" Ji’an asked, her voice quiet.

"He used the golden seal to crack open a crate of aged fermented plum-spirit," Yan Zhaoge deadpanned. "Then he used the celestial invitation parchment to wipe grease off his roasting spit, threw the charred remains into my face, and told me that if I ever interrupted his afternoon nap with ’astrological bureaucracy’ again, he would sever my spatial arrays and bury me upside down in a manure pit."

Yan Zhaoge looked directly into Ji’an’s eyes, his expression solemn and immovable.

"Jiu Zui took you in because you made good noodles, you had a spine made of cold iron, and he was lonely on that damn mountain, little Ji’an. He knows you are an anomaly, yes. He is blind, not stupid. But he protected you because you are his disciple, not because anyone ordered him to. Never doubt that old bastard’s heart. He has very few virtues, but his loyalty to his own people is like that of an immovable mountain."

A suffocating knot in Ji’an’s chest suddenly, completely dissolved.

She let out a long, shuddering exhale, slumping slightly against the woven floorboards. The relief was so intense, that she felt momentarily dizzy.

’Master is just a lazy drunk,’ she thought, a soft, ridiculous, incredibly watery smile breaking through her stress. ’He’s not a secret agent. He’s just my alcoholic deadbeat master who likes scallion pancakes. Thank God.’

But the relief only cleared away one corner of the dark, sprawling board.

The rest of the puzzle remained, colder and more terrifying than before.

"Okay," Ji’an said, her voice regaining its sharp, analytical edge as she leaned forward again, resting her elbows on her knees. "Master is clean. But you’re dodging the real question, Sovereign Zhaoge. If the Tower didn’t place me with my Master, Jiu Zui... how did I get here in the first place?"

She watched his face carefully.

She watched the micro-expressions.

"You haven’t said a single word about my family," Ji’an noted, her eyes narrowing into dangerous, calculating slits. "You haven’t mentioned the Lin General’s Estate. You haven’t mentioned my father. And you definitely haven’t mentioned my mother, or... or my brother."

At the mention of her family, Yan Zhaoge’s demeanor shifted again.

He did not deny it.

He did not scoff.

He simply looked down at the half-empty jade cup in his hand, his thumb tracing the smooth rim in absolute silence.

That silence was louder than a thunderclap.

It was an admission of guilt.

It was the heavy, unspoken confirmation of every single dark theory Ji’an had been harboring since she first woke up in this body.

Her family was not a collection of innocent background NPCs caught in the crossfire of a trashy cultivation novel.

’Lin Feng didn’t just climb the Stargazing Tower by accident,’ Ji’an realized, the cold dread settling deep into her marrow, turning her blood to slush. ’My brother didn’t just stumble into a forbidden ritual. The Lin family... my mother... they were involved with the Tower from the very beginning. The soul-summoning wasn’t a desperate gamble by a dying mortal. It was a planned, coordinated operation.’

And the face currently being worn by Shen Zechuan, the face of her older brother, wandering the earth as an empty, abyssal airhead who liked to blow snot-bubbles and juggle venomous toad glands, was the price they had paid to bring her here.

"Zhaoge," Ji’an whispered, her baritone voice trembling with a mixture of raw, furious grief and absolute demand. "Tell me."

"I cannot," Yan Zhaoge replied softly.

He didn’t sound arrogant.

He didn’t sound mocking. He sounded like a judge reading a verdict that he had no power to overturn.

"The karmic threads tied to the Lin bloodline are currently sealed beneath nine layers of celestial stasis," Yan Zhaoge explained, looking directly at her, his amber eyes reflecting the dim purple light of the barrier. "If I speak the names of the rituals, or the nature of your mother’s lineage, the seals will rupture prematurely. The causal feedback loop would not merely kill you, Ji’an."