Chapter 491: How Cruel!

He had expected a monster covered in soot and blood, radiating homicidal intent.

Instead, he found himself pointing a halberd at a paralysed, devastatingly beautiful young woman sitting quietly in a wheelchair.

She looked fragile, yet elegant.

With her pale skin, her cascading dark hair, and her serene, angelic smile, she looked like a delicate porcelain doll that had accidentally been dropped into a war zone.

"This is not a welcome, anomaly," the Commander barked, though his voice lacked the absolute, thundering conviction it had possessed a moment ago. He gripped his spear tighter, trying to ignore the sudden, inexplicable spike in his own heart rate. "This is an act of containment. We are demonstrating hostility. We know who you are. We know of your atrocities in the lower realm. Do not attempt to bewitch us with feigned ignorance."

Ji’an’s soft smile deepened, reaching her dark eyes.

She didn’t argue or deny the accusations.

Instead, she let out a delicate, musical, incredibly charming snort of amusement.

"Atrocities?" Ji’an repeated, her voice dripping with a lazy, witty disbelief. She leaned back slightly in her wheelchair, crossing her arms loosely over her stomach, looking at the Commander as if he had just told a particularly endearing, foolish joke. "Commander, I ran a kitchen on a mountain, yelled at line cooks and made braised pork. If ensuring proper food safety standards is an atrocity, then I suppose I am guilty as charged."

She tilted her head to the other side, her gaze softening into a look of melancholic vulnerability that was utterly weaponized.

"And as for coming here to cause trouble?" Ji’an continued, her voice dropping into a quiet, intimate register that forced the surrounding soldiers to lean in slightly just to hear her. "Tell me, Commander. If you were me... if a person you trusted looked you in the eye, drove a shard of ice through your chest, severed your bond for personal gain, and left you crippled on the floor so they could ascend to glory..."

She paused, letting the heavy, tragic, unspoken reality of Xie Wangchen’s betrayal hang in the crisp celestial air.

She reached up, her delicate fingers lightly touching the center of her own chest, right over her heart.

"Would you really waste your time chasing after them?" Ji’an asked, her dark eyes shimmering with unshed tears of heartbreak. "Would you really drag your broken body across the universe just to throw yourself at the feet of a man who discarded you like a used rag?"

The silence in the plaza was absolute.

The celestial soldiers stood frozen. The halberds and spears hovering near her neck began to waver, dipping slightly toward the ground.

The overwhelming power of her beauty, combined with the tragic, heartbreaking narrative of the wronged, abandoned maiden, was an emotional nuclear bomb.

She was subconsciously bewitching them. The glitching disguise artifact of her youth was gone; her true, mature form had bloomed into something that defied celestial comprehension.

Her every subtle movement, the tilt of her head, the flutter of her eyelashes, the soft, melancholic curve of her lips, was lighting a wildfire in the hearts of every single man and woman within a fifty-foot radius.

The bystanders hiding in the colonnades began to whisper fiercely among themselves.

"Did you hear that? The Prosecutor abandoned her!"

"So then the rumors weren’t true?"

"She is crippled! The poor, beautiful fairy... he used her and left her to die!"

"How cruel! She is so serene, so graceful... how could anyone drive an ice shard into such a flawless heart?!"

The PR campaign of the century was currently executing itself flawlessly, and Ji’an hadn’t even had to raise her voice.

The Commander’s face flushed a brilliant shade of crimson beneath his silver visor. His strict, bureaucratic discipline was completely disintegrating under the suffocating weight of her charm.

"I..." the Commander stammered, losing his train of thought, his eyes locked onto her pale, delicate hands. "I... that is to say..."

"I ascended naturally, Commander," Ji’an murmured softly, offering him a brave, wobbly, breathtakingly innocent smile. "My cultivation simply reached its peak. I could not remain in the lower realm any longer. I have no grand ambitions here, and no desire for revenge. I am tired of the blood and the noise."

She smoothed the white silk over her legs with a graceful, resigned sigh.

"I simply plan to find a quiet corner of this beautiful city," Ji’an lied with the precision of a sociopath, "open a small, peaceful inn, and pass the time away. I just want to bake bread, Commander. Surely, the Highest Realm is grand enough to spare a single, quiet kitchen for a broken girl?"

It was a total, critical hit.

The Commander lowered his spear completely.

The rest of the soldiers followed suit, their weapons clattering against the pearl-stone plaza as they hastily backed away, looking deeply ashamed of themselves for threatening this radiant, tragic angel of pastry.

They had no legal grounds to detain her.

The High Council had granted her amnesty five years ago. She had committed no crimes in the Highest Realm.

And more importantly, if they arrested this beautiful, crippled, weeping maiden in front of a crowd of sympathetic celestial citizens, there would be riots in the streets before nightfall.

"You... you are free to pass, Lady Lin," the Commander choked out, his voice thick with unrequited admiration and deep guilt. He bowed, a deep, respectful bow of apology. "Welcome to the Highest Realm. If... if you should require assistance navigating the zoning laws for your inn... you may call upon the enforcement division."

Ji’an’s smile brightened, shifting from melancholic tragedy to a dazzling, sunlit beam of pure gratitude.

"You are too kind, Commander," Ji’an purred, inclining her head gracefully. "I will be sure to save a table for you and your men once the ovens are fired up."

The Commander’s heart practically exploded.

He took a hasty step backward, clearing the path, completely seduced by a woman who fully intended to burn his entire government to the ground.

"Zechuan," Ji’an murmured softly, not breaking her serene, angelic smile. "Let us proceed."

"Okay, Dear Ji’an!" Zechuan chirped.

The abyssal prodigy gripped the handles of the wheelchair and began to push her forward, the wheels gliding smoothly over the pearl-stone.

As they rolled past the ranks of the blushing, awestruck celestial soldiers, Shen Zechuan slowly turned his head.

The cheerful, goofy, jerky-eating airhead vanished for a fraction of a second.

Zechuan’s eyes, the twin voids of pure, primordial abyss, locked onto the Commander and the guards. A suffocating, terrifying pressure, heavier and darker than any celestial magic, washed over the soldiers.

Zechuan didn’t smile. He didn’t even blink.

He just stared at them with the cold, dead promise of a predator protecting its master.

’If you have funny thoughts about my sister,’ Zechuan’s void-like gaze silently conveyed, causing the Commander’s blood to freeze in his veins, ’I will turn your soul inside out and eat your memories.’

As soon as they were past the guards, Zechuan’s face instantly reverted to a bright, goofy grin.

He popped another piece of dried lotus root into his mouth and happily pushed the wheelchair toward the grand archways leading into the commercial district.

Ji’an leaned back in her chair, a dark, lazy, satisfied smirk finally breaking through her angelic facade now that they were out of earshot.

’Well, that was easy,’ Ji’an thought, amused by the efficacy of her new persona. ’I don’t even have to swing a spatula anymore. I just tilt my head and the bureaucracy collapses. Zhaoge was right; this realm is full of sheltered, unimaginative softies.’

As they passed through the towering, jade-carved gates of the district, a figure detached itself from the milling crowd of pedestrians and rushed toward them.

It was a young man, perhaps a few centuries old, dressed in crisp, flowing robes of light, breathable purple silk.

He carried a glowing jade ledger tucked under his arm, and he was currently sweating with an anxiety that it looked like he was standing in a sauna.

"Lady Lin! Lady Lin, over here!" the young man hissed, waving frantically, his eyes darting around as if expecting the High Council to drop an anvil on his head at any moment.

Zechuan pushed the wheelchair up to the sweating young man.

Ji’an looked him up and down.

Light purple robes. A jade ledger.