Chapter 460: Walk Alone

"You must walk this path alone."

"Okay. Walk alone. Got it," Ji’an muttered, bouncing slightly on her toes to keep her nerves in check. "Just a dark hallway. I’ve navigated walk-in freezers during a power outage. I can handle it."

"It is not just a dark hallway," Yan Zhaoge warned, reaching out and gripping her shoulder tightly. His fingers dug into her collarbone, emphasizing the absolute terror of his words.

"The Corridor of the Eclipse tests the anchor of your soul. As you walk, the darkness will attempt to drag you backward. It will not use physical force to do that. It will use your own mind."

He leaned closer, his voice an urgent, harsh whisper.

"It will manifest your deepest regrets. It will manifest your greatest fears. It will synthesize voices you thought you would never hear again. It will scream your name. It will beg for your help. It will sound exactly like the people you love being tortured in the dark behind you."

Ji’an’s eyes widened.

A cold, heavy dread settled in her stomach.

"No matter what you hear," Yan Zhaoge commanded, his grip tightening painfully on her shoulder. "No matter what you see out of the corner of your eye. No matter if you feel a hand grab your ankle, or a blade graze your neck... you must not stop walking."

He paused, ensuring she understood the gravity of the final rule.

"And above all else, Ji’an. Under absolutely no circumstances... do you look back."

"Don’t look back," Ji’an repeated, her voice barely a whisper.

It was like the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, weaponized into a high-fantasy security protocol.

"If you stop walking, the corridor will freeze you in stasis forever," Yan Zhaoge said grimly. "If you turn your head and look behind you, you acknowledge the illusions as reality. The darkness will anchor onto your soul, pull you into the void, and you will become another weeping phantom trapped in the walls for eternity."

He released her shoulder, stepping back.

"Keep your eyes fixed forward. Walk until you see the light of the astrolabe chamber. Do not hesitate. Do not falter."

Ji’an stood at the threshold of the pitch-black doorway.

She was a transmigrator.

She carried the memories of a life on Earth, the trauma of waking up in a dying body, the terror of navigating a blood-soaked novel, and the crushing guilt of a brother whose soul had been destroyed to save hers.

Her psychological baggage was an overstuffed, explosive suitcase. The Corridor of the Eclipse was going to have an absolute field day with her.

But as she looked into the void, the fear slowly, steadily morphed into a cold, hard, unyielding culinary resolve.

She had survived a commercial kitchen during the holiday rush.

She had survived a yandere Ice Demon.

She had survived an Overtime Boss.

She was not going to be defeated by a spooky hallway.

Ji’an adjusted her grip on her heavy cast-iron spatula. She rolled her shoulders back, adopting the arrogant, tyrannical posture of the Vanguard Leader.

"I don’t look back, Boss," Ji’an said firmly, her silver-flecked eyes burning with defiant fire. "A Chef never looks back at a burnt dish. We just plate the next course."

She offered him a sharp, confident smirk, masking the terror hammering against her ribs.

"I’ll see you on the other side. You better have my answers ready."

Without waiting for his response, without giving herself time to hesitate, Lin Ji’an stepped across the threshold.

The moment her boots hit the floor of the corridor, the heavy, invisible door slammed shut behind her with a deafening, final BOOM.

The idyllic meadow, the endless buffet, and the Overtime Boss vanished completely.

Ji’an was plunged into total, suffocating darkness.

There was no sound.

There was no light.

There was only the cold, stale wind blowing against her face, and the echo of her own heartbeat drumming in her ears.

She took a breath and raised her chin.

"Okay, spooky hallway," Ji’an whispered into the void, her voice trembling only slightly. "Let’s get this over with. Shall we?"

She took her first step into the dark.

And immediately, directly behind her left ear, a voice she hadn’t heard in years, a voice from a life she had left behind on Earth, spoke up.

"Ji’an? Why did you leave the stove on?"

Ji’an stiffened. Her blood turned to ice.

She didn’t stop. She didn’t turn around.

She kept walking.

The descent into the abyss had begun.

***

The suffocating darkness of the Corridor of the Eclipse hit Lin Ji’an the moment the heavy, invisible doorway sealed shut behind her.

It was not a natural darkness.

It possessed a crushing density, like wading through an ocean of cold, liquid tar. The silence was absolute, pressing against her eardrums until they throbbed in time with her racing pulse.

"Don’t look back," Yan Zhaoge’s final warning echoed in the forefront of her mind.

Ji’an tightened her white-knuckled grip on the handle of her heavy cast-iron spatula. She locked her neck muscles, staring straight ahead into the pitch-black void, and took a heavy step forward.

"Ji’an? Why did you leave the stove on?"

The voice hissed directly into her left ear.

It was the sharp, nasal, highly critical voice of Head Chef Marcus, her old boss from the three-star Michelin restaurant on Earth. A man who had been dead for five years.

A violent, icy shiver cascaded down her spine.

The urge to whip her head around, to defend her station, to scream that she had properly shut off the gas valves, was a primal, ingrained reflex.

She bit her tongue until she tasted copper. She forced her right foot forward.

Step.

"You’re wasting your potential, Ji’an. A chef’s life is nothing but burns and missed holidays." The disappointed, stern voice of the orphanage Headmistress whispered against her right cheek, smelling faintly of chalk dust and old paper.

Step.

The darkness directly in front of her began to shimmer.

Faint, ghostly ribbons of light peeled away from the void, unspooling along the peripheral edges of her vision like dual cinematic projectors casting images onto invisible walls.

The Corridor of the Eclipse was not just attacking her ears; it was using her soul’s anchor.

To her left and right, playing out in vivid, crisp detail just at the edge of her sightline, her memories began to scroll in reverse.

She saw herself standing in the sweltering heat of a commercial kitchen, plating a braised duck. She saw herself sitting in a cramped university library, exhausted, crying over a fluid dynamics textbook.

She saw the peeling paint of the orphanage walls.

The scroll of her life on Earth raced backward, a chaotic blur of culinary triumphs, lonely holidays, and the relentless, grinding struggle of a girl fighting to carve out a place in a world that didn’t care about her.

The emotional gravity of the corridor spiked violently.

The memories were magnetic.

They pulled at the corners of her eyes, begging her to turn her head, begging her to look directly at the life she had lost.

’It’s a trap,’ Ji’an chanted internally, her boots hitting the unseen floor with heavy, rhythmic thuds. ’It’s just prep work. You don’t look back at the onion peels in the trash. Keep walking.’

The scrolling ribbons of light accelerated, blurring into a continuous stream of colors, rushing backward through her early childhood on Earth until they reached the beginning.

And then, the scroll shuddered.

The ribbons of light violently hitched, sparking with static electricity. The images of Earth vanished, replaced by a momentary, blinding flash of white.

Ji’an’s breath caught.

She didn’t stop walking, but her brow furrowed in confusion.

The scroll did not end. It simply jumped tracks.

The faint light illuminating her peripheral vision softened, adopting a warm, golden, candle-lit hue. A new memory began to play.

But it wasn’t her memory.

Projected on the invisible walls surrounding her was a sprawling, opulent bedchamber draped in heavy crimson and gold silks.

The air in the vision felt thick with the coppery scent of blood and the sweet aroma of burnt medicinal herbs.

Lying in the center of a massive canopy bed was a woman.

Ji’an’s heart executed a lurch against her ribs.

The woman was incredibly, breathtakingly young, perhaps eighteen years old at most. Her face was pale, glistening with the sheen of physical exhaustion.

But despite the sweat and the agony etching her delicate features, her beauty was celestial, and familiar.