Chapter 463: Lady Xie

Her boot hovered over the invisible floor.

The physical resistance of the corridor spiked. The darkness surged forward, clawing at her shoulders, whispering violently in her ears.

"Turn back! It’s too heavy! You cannot carry this debt!" the shadows screamed in the voice of the dead original host.

’Seventeen times,’ Ji’an thought, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

If this was the First Timeline... how many times had the universe reset?

How many times had Wangchen died for her? How many times had he failed?

The agonizing guilt, the feral, overprotective obsession of the current Ice Demon... it wasn’t a quirk.

Her boot hovered over the invisible floor.

The physical resistance of the corridor spiked to critical mass. The darkness surged forward, clawing at her shoulders, whispering violently in her ears.

"Turn back! It’s too heavy! You cannot carry this debt!" the shadows screamed in the voice of the dead original host.

’Seventeen times,’ Ji’an thought, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

If this was the First Timeline... how many times had the universe reset?

How many times had Wangchen died for her? How many times had he failed?

The agonizing guilt, the feral, overprotective yandere obsession of the current Ice Demon... it wasn’t a quirk. It was the deeply buried, subconscious trauma of a soul that had watched her die over and over again across fractured timelines.

She understood everything now.

She understood why Lu Jianheng was a bumbling idiot in the current timeline, the World Will was actively degrading the intelligence of the original villain to allow the anomaly a chance to survive.

She understood why Wangchen was such a psychopath, because he was carrying the phantom weight of infinite failures.

The darkness pulled at her, dragging her backward.

"Look back, Ji’an," Lu Jianheng’s cold, manipulative voice hissed from the void behind her. "Look at the blood in the snow. It is your fault."

Ji’an closed her eyes.

She thought of the broken Ice Demon, kneeling by her bed in the guest barracks. She thought of the golden retriever, desperately trying to protect her. She thought of the abyss currently occupying her brother’s body.

She was not a tragic heroine. She was not a victim.

She was Lin Ji’an.

"I don’t look back," Ji’an whispered.

She slammed her boot down onto the floor, planting her foot with absolute, earth-shattering resolve.

She channeled every single ounce of her power into her muscles. She didn’t use Qi to fight the darkness; she used raw kinetic mass.

"I DO NOT LOOK BACK!" Ji’an roared, her voice ripping through the silence of the corridor like a thunderclap.

She raised her heavy cast-iron spatula.

"I AM THE HEAD CHEF!" Ji’an screamed, her silver hair flaring with brilliant, blinding light as she charged forward into the dark, using the crushing gravity of the corridor as resistance training. "I AM GOING TO FIX THIS STUPID, BROKEN MENU! I AM GOING TO BEAT THE UNIVERSE UNTIL IT IS TENDER! AND IF LU JIANHENG EVER TRIES TO RECITE POETRY TO ME AGAIN, I AM GOING TO SHOVE THIS SPATULA DOWN HIS THROAT!"

The darkness shrieked, tearing at her clothes, desperately trying to drag her into the void.

But she didn’t stop. She marched forward, tears streaming down her face, fueled by a mixture of cosmic grief and psychotic rage.

Step. Step. Step.Lady

The Corridor of the Eclipse was not a passive security system. It was an active, malicious, aggressive psychological meat-grinder.

Lin Ji’an marched forward through the suffocating darkness, her heavy red leather boots hitting the invisible floorboards with the rhythmic precision of a butcher tenderizing a particularly stubborn cut of brisket.

The void screamed around her.

It clawed at her shoulders.

It whispered the dying breaths of Xie Wangchen from the First Timeline directly into her ear, attempting to drag her soul backward into the abyss of eternal stasis.

"Look back," the darkness hissed, sounding exactly like the aristocratic, manipulative sneer of Lu Jianheng. "Look at the blood. It is your fault. You are a failure."

"I am a Head Chef," Ji’an roared back into the void, gripping her cast-iron spatula so tightly her knuckles were stark white. "And I don’t take critiques from a mere hallway! I am not looking back! I am moving on to the next course!"

She slammed her foot down, channeling her Qi. The stubborn density of her willpower collided with the magical pressure of the corridor.

The darkness shrieked, a high-pitched sound of tearing silk.

And then, the scrolling ribbons of light in her peripheral vision, the ghostly projections that had just shown her the tragedy of the First Timeline, suddenly halted.

The light flickered aggressively.

It crackled with static, like an ancient television desperately trying to find a signal. The sepia-toned depression of her first death dissolved into a blinding flash of pure, white light.

Ji’an didn’t stop walking, but she narrowed her silver-flecked eyes, bracing herself for the next psychological assault.

’It’s resetting,’ her transmigrator mind analyzed, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. ’Yan Zhaoge said I was tired of returning. Seventeen times. The universe is like a broken cassette tape, and the Corridor is about to play track number two.’

The blinding white light slowly faded, softening into a warm, gentle, incredibly opulent golden glow.

The peripheral vision stabilized.

Ji’an was no longer looking at a snowy courtyard or a blood-soaked battlefield.

She was looking at a nursery.

It was a masterfully crafted room draped in the finest, pale-pink water-silks. The air in the vision felt thick, warm, and smelling faintly of crushed medicinal orchids and sweet, warmed milk.

Lying in the center of a carved sandalwood bed was the incredibly beautiful woman Ji’an had seen in the previous timeline’s birth scene.

Her mother. The original Lady Lin.

She looked exhausted, her dark hair plastered to her forehead with sweat, but her eyes were filled with a radiant love as she looked down at the tiny, swaddled newborn baby girl resting against her chest.

’Okay, so we’re back at the spawn point,’ Ji’an noted dryly, forcing her legs to keep moving through the dark. ’Second Timeline. Let’s see what kind of garbage the universe cooks up for me this time.’

But this vision was already diverging from the first.

General Lin and a five-year-old Lin Feng were nowhere to be seen. Instead, sitting gracefully on the edge of the sandalwood mattress, holding a delicate porcelain cup of steaming medicinal tea, was another woman.

Ji’an’s breath hitched.

If Lady Lin possessed a warm, radiant, celestial beauty, the woman sitting beside her possessed a beauty that was terrifyingly cold.

She was striking.

Her features were sharp, aristocratic, and flawless.

She had piercing, intense ruby-red eyes, and a cascading waterfall of pure, shimmering silver hair that fell over her pale blue, frost-embroidered robes.

In her arms, swaddled tightly in a blanket of thick, white spiritual fur, was a baby boy. The baby wasn’t crying. It was simply staring at the ceiling with an expression of grumpiness.

’Oh my god,’ Ji’an’s internal monologue flatlined, staring at the silver-haired woman and the grumpy infant.

’That’s Wangchen! That is literally Baby Wangchen! And that woman... that has to be his mother. They have the exact same ’I-will-freeze-your-bloodline’ resting face! Ahhhh! So cute!’

Ji’an couldn’t help but sequel at the baby Wangchen because he looked simply too cute for her heart!

The two women did not act like formal, aristocratic rivals.

They acted more like sisters. They leaned against each other, sharing a quiet, intimate moment of exhaustion and camaraderie. Lady Lin let out a soft, melodic laugh, reaching over to gently brush a finger against the grumpy baby boy’s pale cheek.

"He is so quiet, Yue’er," Lady Lin smiled, her voice echoing softly into the dark corridor. "He has his father’s eyes, but he definitely inherited your... glacial temperament."

The silver-haired woman named Yue’er offered a faint, sad smile, looking down at the baby in her arms. "He is too quiet, Sister Lin. He does not cry. He merely watches. I fear the frost in his core is already taking hold. I would have felt more at ease if he acted like normal babies, cry and laugh from time to time."

Yue’er set the teacup down on the bedside table.

The warm, sisterly atmosphere in the room suddenly shifted, growing heavy, cold, and suffocatingly dark.

The silver-haired woman looked at Lady Lin.