Chapter 494: He Cut It

They were desperately diving out of the way as if trying to dodge an incoming meteor. His friends, infected by the sudden, inexplicable wave of pure panic, scattered like frightened pigeons.

"Excuse us!" Zechuan chirped happily, his goofy, innocent grin instantly returning as he smoothly rolled the wheelchair through the gap they had left.

Ji’an didn’t even blink, maintaining her serene, tragic smile.

The invisible Seers following them scrambled to keep up, frantically recording the event in their glowing ledgers.

"17:45 Hours. The anomaly visited the market. She looked at a glowing pear. She seemed bored. Her attendant caused a minor celestial to jump purely through eye contact. Threat level: Confusing. Requesting further instructions."

****

Far above the bustling commercial districts, rising like a monolithic spear of dark cosmic brass into the cerulean sky, was the central spire of the Stargazing Tower.

In the highest chamber of the spire, a room insulated from the chaotic noise of the mortal and celestial realms, the Head of the Tower stood before a floating, holographic projection of the karmic ledger.

The ancient, white-haired elder with the black, void-like eyes did not look like a victorious bureaucrat.

He looked stressed.

"Read the report again," the elder commanded, his telepathic voice carrying a sharp, dangerous edge of irritation.

Kneeling on the polished obsidian floor behind him, a high-ranking Seer bowed deeply, unrolling a scroll of glowing celestial script.

"Elder," the subordinate Seer recited, his voice trembling slightly. "For the past fourteen days, the anomaly Lin Ji’an has exhibited zero martial or magical activity. She has not attempted to channel her core, nor has she forged any weapons. She spends her days sitting in her courtyard. She occasionally visits the market, buys nothing, and returns. She smiles politely at all celestial citizens. The general populace has grown incredibly fond of her. They refer to her as the ’Tragic Fairy of the Outer Ring’."

The Head of the Tower closed his black eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose with two pale fingers.

"She is mocking us," the elder stated flatly.

"Elder?" the subordinate asked nervously. "She is a cripple. We shattered her meridians. Perhaps she has simply accepted her fate and is living out her days in peace, exactly as we offered?"

The Head of the Tower whipped around, his void-like eyes flaring with a terrifying, crushing gravity that physically pushed the kneeling Seer backward against the floor.

"You are a fool," the elder hissed, the facade cracking to reveal a deep, ancient paranoia. "Do you not remember the entity we are dealing with? This is the anomaly who marched through the Corridor of the Eclipse without shedding a single tear of surrender. She stood in the Grand Chamber and threatened to dismantle the astrolabe with a piece of cast-iron cookware. A creature forged in that level of spite does not simply retire to a garden to look at flowers!"

The elder began to pace the obsidian floor, his golden-threaded robes snapping aggressively.

"It is a competition of wits," the elder muttered, his mind working furiously to calculate the unseen angles of her strategy. "She knows we are watching. She knows that any aggressive move will validate our decision to execute her. So, she does nothing. She plays the victim and weaponizes her own fragility to turn the celestial populace against us. If we strike her now, we are the tyrants murdering a helpless, beautiful cripple. It is a flawless, infuriating defensive maneuver."

"What are your orders, Elder?" the subordinate asked, keeping his head bowed. "Shall we withdraw the surveillance?"

"Never!" the Head of the Tower snapped. "Keep the watchers on her. Monitor every breath she takes."

The elder paused, his pacing coming to a halt. He looked out the window of the spire, staring down at the city below. The anxiety gnawing at his ancient soul refused to settle. The timeline was stabilizing, yes. The Prosecutor was safely returned. But the presence of the glitch in his city made him feel nauseous.

He could not rest until the ledger was permanently, irrevocably balanced.

"We cannot attack the anomaly directly," the elder deduced, his voice dropping into a cold, clinical register. "But we must ensure that the anchor is truly, permanently severed. We must cement the Prosecutor’s cleansing. The Red Thread is cut, but the residual memory of her existence in his subconscious must be entirely overwritten before she decides to make a move."

He turned back to the kneeling Seer, his black eyes gleaming with ruthless, manipulative intent.

"Escalate the integration protocol," the elder commanded. "The Prosecutor has spent the last week in isolation, stabilizing his godhood. It is time to reintroduce him to the social dynamics of the Highest Realm. We must provide him with a new variable. A variable that perfectly aligns with his celestial status, to replace the chaotic, mortal stain of the anomaly."

The subordinate Seer looked up, understanding dawning in his glowing blue eyes. "You wish to deploy that person, Elder?"

"Yes," the Head of the Tower confirmed, a dark, satisfied smirk touching his lips. "Call for the Celestial Maiden Luo. Instruct her to make herself... available... to the Prosecutor. Have her accompany him on his patrols, manage his estate. Let her flawless, perfect, celestial grace suffocate any lingering, subconscious attachment he might have to that feral, spatula-wielding demon in the Outer Ring."

The elder turned back to the ledger, raising a hand to adjust a string of code.

"Let us see how long the Apex Anomaly maintains her polite, tragic smile when she realizes she has already been replaced."

****

Night in the Highest Realm was a breathtaking spectacle. The sky did not turn black; it shifted into a deep, vibrant violet, illuminated by the glowing, cascading rivers of stardust that served as the celestial moon.

The courtyard of Ji’an’s inn was bathed in a soft, ethereal silver light. The thermal arrays hummed quietly, keeping the night chill at bay.

The sliding paper doors of the inn were open.

Shen Zechuan was fast asleep on a plush pile of silk cushions in the corner of the main room, snoring softly, a half-eaten piece of jerky still clutched in his hand.

Lin Ji’an was not asleep.

She sat in her wheelchair in the center of the dark courtyard, entirely alone.

The serene, fragile, tragic maiden facade she had worn all day was completely gone.

In the privacy of the night, with the shadows concealing her face from the paranoid Seers hiding in the eaves, Lin Ji’an looked exactly like a warlord preparing for a siege.

Her back was straight. Her shoulders were squared. Her black eyes were wide open, staring down at her lap with a terrifying, unblinking intensity.

She slowly, deliberately raised her right hand.

She pulled back the wide, pristine white sleeve of Xie Wangchen’s frost-silk robe.

Wrapped tightly around her pale, delicate wrist was a glowing, jagged, bleeding circle of crimson light.

The severed Red Thread.

When Wangchen had cut the bond in the Stargazing Tower, he had severed it from his own soul. He had detached himself from the tether.

But the magic of a desperate, dying mother’s blood ritual was not so easily erased. The thread had snapped back, curling around Ji’an’s wrist like a glowing, magical scar.

It didn’t hurt physically. But it pulsed.

It beat with a slow rhythm, a constant, glowing reminder of the connection that had been amputated.

Ji’an stared at the glowing crimson cord.

She didn’t cry.

The tears had been exhausted in the Corridor of the Eclipse. Her emotional capacity for grief had been completely tapped out, replaced by a cold, hard, and focused resolve.

She reached out with her left hand.

She didn’t touch the thread, simply hovered her fingers over the glowing red light, feeling the faint, residual warmth of the magic.

’He cut it,’ Ji’an thought, her mind a organized, chillingly calm prep station. ’He stood in that cage, bleeding from his collarbones, and he put an ice shard through my chest to make me hate him. He played the villain so they wouldn’t execute me.’

The arrogant stupidity of his sacrifice made her jaw clench so tightly her teeth ground together.

’You idiot,’ Ji’an whispered silently to the ghost of the boy in the snow. ’You dramatic idiot. You thought you could just wipe your own memory, give up your soul to the bureaucracy, and I would just pack up my knives and go home?’