Chapter 493: Turn Around

"If she dies on our watch, the Head Elder will turn our souls into paperweights!"

"She is breathing, you idiot; she just possesses immaculate diaphragmatic control," the senior Seer hissed back, aggressively wiping the sweat from his brow. "Do not break stealth! She is trying to lure us out! This is a trap! A predator does not simply lie in the sun unless it is waiting for the prey to step on a landmine!"

Down in the courtyard, aware of the panicked bureaucrats hiding in her eaves, Ji’an allowed a soft, serene, completely innocent smile to curl the corners of her lips.

’Look at them sweat,’ Ji’an’s internal monologue purred, entertained by the psychological torture she was inflicting upon the Heavens simply by existing. ’They are terrified of me. They expect the Iron Wok Demon. They expect the Vanguard Leader. But you can’t arrest a girl for enjoying her patio. The health department can’t cite you if you haven’t turned on the stoves.’

And the stoves were indeed, tragically, cold.

Yan Zhaoge’s inside man, Junior Manager Xiao, had not exaggerated.

The commercial kitchen attached to her new inn was a marvel of culinary engineering. It possessed thermal arrays that drew heat directly from the ley-lines, massive obsidian prep tables, and high-stasis refrigeration units capable of freezing a side of beef in three seconds.

But Ji’an hadn’t touched a single spatula since she arrived.

Cooking was an action. Cooking was a statement of intent.

The moment she fired up those arrays, the Stargazing Tower would analyse her menu, track her ingredient purchases, and attempt to deduce her strategic objectives based on her flavor profiles.

So, she simply refused to prep. She was running a restaurant that served absolutely nothing.

"Ji’an!"

The sliding paper doors of the inn slammed open with a loud, cheerful thwack.

Shen Zechuan bounded onto the veranda, carrying a towering stack of elaborately wrapped pastry boxes. The abyssal prodigy was wearing a neat, crisp gray tunic, looking exactly like a diligent, innocent errand boy.

"I have returned from the market!" Zechuan announced happily, skipping down the wooden steps and jogging over to her wheelchair. "I bought the celestial mooncakes! And the starlight-infused dumplings! And a man tried to charge me five hundred spirit stones for a single peach, so I looked at him very closely until his hair turned white and he gave me the entire cart for free!"

Ji’an’s serene smile widened into genuine, maternal fondness. "You shouldn’t terrorize the local merchants, Zechuan. We are trying to maintain a low profile."

"I didn’t terrorize him! I just showed him the void!" Zechuan beamed, oblivious to the ethical implications of using primordial abyss-magic for petty theft. He began aggressively unpacking the boxes on the small jade table next to her chair. "Do you want a dumpling? They sparkle! But they taste like wet clouds and disappointment."

"The Highest Realm lacks a fundamental understanding of sodium," Ji’an sighed softly, accepting a sparkling dumpling from him.

She took a delicate, lady-like bite. She chewed slowly, her face a mask of elegant neutrality, while her culinary brain rejected the flavor.

’It’s literally just steamed condensation and sugar,’ Ji’an thought, horrified by the blandness. ’These people are immortal, they have infinite resources, and they eat like they are recovering from gastric bypass surgery. No wonder Wangchen is so angry all the time. He’s been starved of umami for his entire existence.’

"Shall we go for a roll, Zechuan?" Ji’an asked, setting the half-eaten dumpling down on the jade plate with a polite, melancholic sigh. "The courtyard is lovely, but I fear my legs are growing stiff. A bit of sightseeing in the market might lift my spirits."

"Okay!" Zechuan chirped, immediately grabbing the handles of the wheelchair.

The three hidden Seers in the eaves nearly had a collective stroke.

"She is moving! The anomaly is mobilizing!" the senior Seer shrieked telepathically. "Track her! Do not let her out of your sight! If she goes near the central spire, initiate the lockdown protocols!"

The excursion into the bustling commercial district of the Highest Realm was a masterclass in charm.

As Shen Zechuan pushed the wheelchair down the pristine, pearl-stone avenues, the crowds of wealthy, immortal citizens naturally parted.

The celestial realm was a place of perfection, a place where injuries, scars, and disabilities were erased by high-tier healing magic. To see a woman in a wheelchair was an anomaly in itself.

But to see this woman in a wheelchair was a cultural event.

Ji’an did not look bitter or angry.

She sat with her back perfectly straight, her hands folded, her chin tilted slightly upward. The sunlight caught the cascading midnight silk of her hair, highlighting the flawless, pale, tragic beauty of her features.

She looked like a fallen goddess, a celestial fairy who had sacrificed her wings for the sins of the world, quietly bearing her burden with a brave, devastating smile.

"Oh, Heavens," a passing female immortal gasped, clutching a glowing silk fan to her chest. "Look at her. She is so fragile. So ethereal. The tragedy in her eyes... it makes my soul weep."

"Who is this fairy?" a wealthy, golden-robed merchant murmured, stopping dead in his tracks, ignoring his floating carriage. "I have traversed the nine celestial districts, and I have never seen a beauty so profound. She looks as though a single harsh word might shatter her."

Ji’an offered the staring merchant a polite, gentle, slightly shy smile.

The merchant literally swooned, grabbing onto a nearby jade lamppost to prevent himself from collapsing, his face flushing a brilliant crimson.

"I would burn down my own warehouses just to buy her a pair of shoes," the merchant whispered frantically to his attendant.

’I am destroying them,’ Ji’an thought, her serene smile never wavering as she basked in the chaos she was causing simply by maintaining eye contact. ’I’m not even trying. I’m just sitting here, and I have completely destabilized the local economy. This ’innocent noble daughter’ setting is an incredibly overpowered aesthetic when applied to a population of emotionally repressed immortals.’

But the sightseeing tour was remarkably short.

They rolled past a series of high-end celestial boutiques, a floating tea house, and a market square selling imported, glowing spirit-fruits.

Ji’an looked at the vibrant, bustling utopia around her. She saw the perfect architecture and the perfect people.

And she was bored.

"This place is sterile," Ji’an murmured softly to Zechuan, her voice dropping the polite, sweet tone, reverting to her flat, cynical Head Chef cadence. "There’s no grease, no shouting. The produce looks like it was grown in a laboratory, and the air smells like an aggressive air freshener. I give it a zero out of ten."

"The jerky here is very chewy, but it lacks the chili flakes you use," Zechuan agreed, happily chewing on a piece of dried meat. "And everyone walks very slowly. It is annoying."

"Turn us around, Zechuan," Ji’an commanded softly, raising a delicate hand to cover a remarkably aesthetic yawn. "I have gathered enough reconnaissance for today. The layout is a grid, the guards patrol in predictable fifteen-minute intervals, and the local cuisine is a tragedy that needs to be actively suppressed. Take me home."

"Yes, Ji’an!" Zechuan cheerfully executed a flawless, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree pivot with the heavy wheelchair.

As he turned, a group of young, incredibly handsome, arrogant-looking celestial nobles blocked the path. They were dressed in flashy, embroidered robes, clearly intending to introduce themselves to the tragic, beautiful maiden and offer their "protection."

"Fairy maiden!" the lead noble announced, stepping forward with a practiced, sleazy smile, snapping open a jade fan. "The streets of the Outer Ring can be quite overwhelming for one in your... delicate condition. Allow me and my brothers to escort you to a—"

Shen Zechuan didn’t stop pushing the wheelchair or slow down. He turned his head, locking his eyes directly onto the lead noble.

The void opened.

For a fraction of a second, the arrogant noble did not see a cheerful boy pushing a wheelchair.

He saw the infinite, crushing, terrifying darkness of a universe devoid of light, screaming with the silent agony of crushed stars. A suffocating, blood-freezing pressure slammed into the noble’s chest, dropping the temperature around him by forty degrees.

’Move,’ Zechuan’s dead, empty eyes commanded silently.

The noble let out a high-pitched, undignified shriek of terror and scrambled backward, tripping over his own flashy robes.