Chapter 461: Cruel Truth

She possessed long, cascading dark hair. She possessed a sharp, elegant jawline.

She looked exactly like Lin Ji’an.

It was as if Ji’an was looking at a slightly older, softer, radiant version of her own reflection.

’Who is that? She is so beautiful, even looks like me! Holy lord, she looks like a doll straight out of a story!’ Ji’an’s transmigrator mind scrambled in panic and awe, forcing her eyes to remain locked straight ahead, only absorbing the vision through the corners of her vision.

’I’m from Earth! I don’t have memories of a high-fantasy delivery room! Why is the corridor playing this?!’

Kneeling by the side of the bed, his large, calloused hands gently holding the beautiful woman’s fragile fingers, was a man. His face was rugged, sharp, and wet with tears.

It was General Lin.

Her current body’s father.

But he looked twenty years younger, his hair entirely black, his eyes devoid of the cynical, hardened grief that defined him in the present.

Standing just behind the General, clutching a wooden toy sword and peering over the edge of the mattress with wide, dark, awe-struck eyes, was a tiny, five-year-old boy.

This was undoubtedly Lin Feng.

Her older brother. The boy whose face Shen Zechuan currently wore.

The beautiful woman in the bed shifted weakly. She looked down at the bundle resting against her chest.

It was a newborn baby girl.

The woman’s exhausted face split into a smile of such pure, universe-shattering maternal love that it physically hurt Ji’an’s chest to witness it.

"She is perfect, so beautiful and cute, my daughter," the beautiful woman whispered, her voice a soft, melodic chime that echoed through the dark corridor. She looked up at the weeping General. "Husband, her name shall be Ji’an. Lin Ji’an. She will be the light of our house."

The vision rippled.

Ji’an stumbled, her boot catching on an unseen groove in the floor.

’That’s my mother,’ the realization crashed down upon her, bringing with it a tidal wave of borrowed, bone-deep sorrow. ’That is the mother of the original host. The woman who died shortly after childbirth. But... if I am a transmigrator, if I just hijacked this body a year ago... why am I seeing the original soul’s foundational memories?!’

The corridor did not offer answers.

It only offered the scroll.

The golden light shifted, moving forward in time.

Ji’an watched the original host grow up.

She saw a little girl running through the manicured gardens of the Lin General’s Estate, chasing butterflies while Lin Feng patiently chased after her with a silk cloak to keep her warm.

She saw a pampered, innocent, wildly happy noble daughter.

This Ji’an didn’t hold a spatula.

This Ji’an had never scrubbed a grease trap.

This Ji’an was soft, delicate, and completely shielded from the brutal, blood-soaked realities of the cultivation world. She was the jewel of the capital, a maiden who spent her days learning calligraphy, playing the guqin, and smiling brightly at everyone she met.

The transmigrator Ji’an watched this alternate version of herself with a terrifying dissonance.

’She was so innocent,’ Ji’an thought, her grip tightening on her cast-iron weapon. ’She was just a normal girl. She didn’t want to fight beasts. She didn’t want to conquer sects.’

The scrolling visions accelerated, blurring past years of peaceful adolescence, until they slammed violently into a devastating nexus point.

The peripheral light shifted to the brilliant, blinding gold and blue of the Imperial Palace banquet hall.

The original Ji’an, now a stunningly beautiful sixteen-year-old maiden, was standing near a jade fountain, shyly hiding her smile behind a painted silk fan.

Approaching her, radiating an aura of pristine, icy-blue elegance and peerless aristocratic charm, was a young man.

Lu Jianheng.

The Heir to the Sword Peak.

Transmigrator Ji’an’s breath hitched.

’Jianheng? The idiot who recites moon-poetry and breaks his own legs for attention? What is he doing in her memories?’

The vision played out like the opening scene of a classic, sickeningly sweet romance novel.

Jianheng bowed flawlessly.

He offered a charming, self-deprecating smile. The original Ji’an blushed, her dark eyes wide and thoroughly captivated by the handsome, noble Sword Lord.

"The capital is too stifling for a spirit as bright as yours, Lady Lin," the phantom Jianheng murmured smoothly, his voice echoing in the dark corridor. "Come with me to the Celestial Sword Sect. Allow me to show you the true breadth of the heavens."

It looked like true love.

It looked like the fairy-tale beginning of a grand cultivation romance.

The original Ji’an, blinded by his charm and her own sheltered naivety, eagerly accepted. She packed her bags and left her doting father and her fiercely protective brother behind, riding off into the sky on the Sword Lord’s flying blade.

But as the scroll moved forward, the warm, romantic lighting of the vision began to curdle.

The Celestial Sword Sect was not a fairy tale.

To a girl with no martial foundation, it was nothing but a den of wolves.

Ji’an watched from the periphery as the original host struggled.

She was isolated. She was mocked by the orthodox disciples for her weak spirit root.

But she endured it all with a brave, trembling smile, because she believed Lu Jianheng loved her.

And then, the true horror began.

In the vision, the original Ji’an was standing in the shadows of the Sword Peak’s training courtyard, holding a carefully embroidered pouch of herbal tea she had made for Jianheng.

She rounded the corner, a bright smile on her face.

The smile instantly vanished.

Standing in the courtyard, completely ignoring Jianheng, was a man composed entirely of absolute zero.

Xie Wangchen.

The Ice Demon was younger, his silver hair tied back with a simple ribbon.

He exuded an aura of terrifying, unapproachable coldness.

Lu Jianheng was glaring at the Ice Demon with intense, bitter, deeply ingrained hatred.

"Keep your frost away from my pavilion, Wangchen," Jianheng spat venomously. "You are a feral dog. You do not belong among the orthodox peaks."

Wangchen didn’t even look at the Sword Lord.

His ruby eyes slid past Jianheng, locking directly onto the original Ji’an standing in the shadows. His gaze was flat, cold, and utterly dismissive.

The original Ji’an shivered, terrified of the Ice Demon.

To her sheltered, innocent mind, Xie Wangchen was a monster. He was the cold-blooded villain of the sect. She ran to Jianheng’s side, clutching his sleeve, seeking protection from the terrifying silver-haired prodigy.

Wangchen turned and walked away without a single word, leaving a trail of black frost in his wake.

Transmigrator Ji’an, walking the dark corridor, felt a bizarre, sickening twist in her gut.

’This doesn’t make sense,’ she thought frantically. ’Lu Jianheng is anything but a golden-retriever simp. He’s an idiot, but he’s not malicious. And Wangchen... Wangchen is an obsessed yandere. Why is the original memory playing out like a bad soap opera where Jianheng is the hero and Wangchen is the villain? Is this place trying to mess with my mind?’

’Even if Wangchen was a villain in the original story I read in my world, it was a BL story, so Wangchen should have feelings for Jianheng, no?’

The corridor answered her confusion with a brutal, violent shift in the narrative.

The scrolling light flickered aggressively.

The original Ji’an was no longer smiling.

She was standing outside the heavy oak doors of the Sword Peak’s council chambers, her hands trembling violently over her mouth, tears streaming down her pale face in reality-breaking horror.

Inside the chamber, the phantom Lu Jianheng was speaking to an elder.

But the voice that echoed out of the chamber was not the voice of the bumbling, poetic, lovesick boy that Transmigrator Ji’an knew.

It was a voice dripping with cold, calculating, and utterly sociopathic ambition.

"The Lin bloodline is the key," the phantom Jianheng sneered, pacing the room with an expression of ruthless cruelty. "Her Yin energy is uniquely malleable. She believes I am courting her. Let her believe the fairy tale a little longer. Once her core matures under the sect’s ambient pressure, I will extract her foundation during the dual-cultivation ritual to break my own bottleneck to the Nascent Soul realm. Her death will be a necessary sacrifice for the supremacy of the Sword Peak."

The revelation hit the dark corridor like a shockwave.

Transmigrator Ji’an stumbled, dropping to one knee, the heavy cast-iron spatula scraping against the invisible floor.