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Lin Ruolan POV
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I walked silently a few steps behind him, as protocol dictated, my hand automatically ensuring the simple cloth sword bag containing the impossible Spirit Sword didn't bump against my side. The weight of it felt both physical and metaphysical – heavier than mundane steel should be, humming with a faint, strange energy that seemed to resonate against my own Stage Six Qi, a constant, unnerving reminder of the inexplicable events of the past two days.
My mind was a chaotic storm, a whirlwind of conflicting emotions, fragmented memories, and logical inconsistencies that refused to resolve themselves into any coherent understanding of reality.
Just moments ago, inside that opulent, dusty office of the City Lord, I had witnessed my Young Master – the same Young Master Jiang Li who, less than three days ago, was infamous throughout Qingshan as drunken, arrogant, cultivation trash – stand calmly before a Foundation Establishment City Lord, report a murder linked to his own near-fatal poisoning, reject the City Lord's attempts to placate him, dictate the terms of the investigation, and then, with breathtaking audacity, announce a personal bounty of one thousand low-grade spirit stones and two thousand gold taels for the head of the killer.
One thousand spirit stones!
Enough to start a minor cultivator clan, funding it for years!
And then, when the rightfully skeptical City Lord questioned his means, the Young Master had simply tapped a plain jade bracelet – a bracelet I knew was entirely ordinary – and claimed it was a storage artifact filled with wealth far exceeding the bounty.
And the City Lord, a genuine Foundation Establishment expert – and someone who should be capable of projecting his divine sense to inspect things remotely in a half-mile radius at the very least -- had believed him!
How? How was any of this possible?
My carefully constructed composure, the professional mask honed over years of serving the demanding Jiang family, felt stretched thin, threatening to crack under the strain. My thoughts spiraled backwards, replaying the dizzying sequence of events since that terrifying night...
The cold.
That was the first, overwhelming memory.
Seeing him on his bed, flushed with drink but unnaturally, deathly cold to the touch. His Qi, usually just weak and stagnant, was scattering rapidly, dissipating like smoke – a catastrophic sign.
Panic, cold and sharp, had seized me. Standing instructions from the Matriarch echoed in my mind: 'Ensure his basic needs are met. Report any meaningful change. Prevent disgrace.' His death, especially under my watch, would be the ultimate disgrace, the ultimate failure.
The Three Suns poultice, the standard emergency measure provided by the main family, clutched desperately in my trembling hands. Applying it to his chest, praying to the Heavens I barely believed in, feeling only the terrifying cold deepen, his breathing becoming shallower, fainter... until it stopped entirely. Utter stillness.
The faint spark of his Qi vanished completely.
He was dead.
Terror, absolute and soul-crushing, had consumed me then. Not just for my own failure, my own life clearly forfeit now, but for my family. My parents, my younger sister Liu'er back in Yuhang City, her sweet face swimming before my tear-blurred eyes – all of them bound by generations of vassalage to the Jiangs.
The Matriarch's wrath wouldn't stop with me. Negligence leading to the death of her son (the 'trash' son though he might be)? It would likely mean the annihilation for the entire Lin lineage. Erasure. A fate whispered about in servant corridors, a chilling warning against failure.
The frantic dash through the pre-dawn streets to Alchemist Chen's residence, banging on his door, babbling incoherently about Qi deviation, desperate for any hope. Chen's initial reluctance, his exorbitant fees even in an emergency, his slow, methodical walk back to the residence...
And then... the impossible. Jiang Li was alive! Awake. He dismissed the lethal Silent Meridian Frost – a name Alchemist Chen recognized as a horrific cultivator poison – as a mere 'annoyance'. And his cultivation... suddenly, inexplicably, it was radiating the stable, potent aura of Stage Four of Qi Gathering. He did not merely recover… but advanced by two entire minor stages, bypassing the difficult bottleneck between early and mid-stages of Qi Gathering entirely!
My mind had simply refused to process it.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Followed by overwhelming, debilitating relief that my family was safe. That I was safe. His subsequent interrogation, his strange magnanimity in not blaming me, his request for discretion regarding his 'improvement' – I had agreed instantly, fervently, my loyalty pledged anew, born not just of duty but of profound, life-saving gratitude.
But the strangeness had only escalated.
The servant assembly.
The outrageous promises of wealth.
The chests overflowing with freshly minted gold (but where did all of that gold come from)?
Then, the market spree – the reckless, theatrical spending that echoed the old Jiang Li's wastefulness, yet felt different this time…
And the sword... that rusty piece of scrap metal from the junk vendor's stall. His ridiculous performance, claiming 'divine sense', weaving fantastical tales... and yet, as he spoke, I felt it.
A change.
A hum.
A warmth where none existed before.
Holding it afterwards... the weight, the balance, the intricate, glowing formations unlike any I had ever seen, patterns that seemed both ancient and somehow... fundamentally wrong, like a perfect imitation created by someone who understood the idea of a spirit sword but not the underlying principles of its creation.
Yet it was undeniably a genuine spirit artifact.
How did this junk vendor have it? How was it missed before?
Some kind of illusion technique? Possible, certainly – but how did Jiang Li see through it so easily?
A hidden activation mechanism triggered by his Qi? A ridiculously advanced concealment formation on the blade itself that dissolved?
All explanations felt inadequate... and yet the truth I could feel against the palm of my hand was undeniable.
Then the Myriad Treasures Pavilion. Buying out entire floors with casual disdain. And the spirit stones... we hadn't possessed so many spirit stones! The lockbox held barely 50 low-grade ones, a pittance I managed carefully.
Yet he scattered them like pebbles, claimed possession of hundreds more in pouches carried by the guards – and somehow, it was true.
And the resources... casually gifting me, his steward, cultivator resources worth a fortune, items that could genuinely help me break through my Stage Six bottleneck towards Stage Seven – a barrier that had held me back for years! His explanation? That his 'enlightenment' had 'accelerated things' beyond the need for such 'crude aids'.
What did that even mean?
And the feast last night... the unrestrained joy of the servants, their belief in him solidifying into something approaching worship. Jin Bao, that slippery eel, already maneuvering for power based on the Young Master's favor.
And this morning... finding him with those courtesans. A stab of disappointment – perhaps the old, frivolous Jiang Li wasn't entirely gone. But then, the subtle shift in his aura as he dressed... stronger again. Firmer. Deeper.
Stage Five.
He had advanced another minor stage overnight, after a night of drinking and debauchery! It defied all cultivation logic!
Demonic techniques?
No, the courtesans were unharmed, merely sleeping peacefully, and – at least in theory -- draining a couple mortals would have yielded pitiful energy, not enough for such a leap.
Was he possessed?
No, the Qi signature was undeniably his own, just... amplified.
It was this contradiction, this impossibility residing within the familiar, that scared me most. The person I saw before me was undeniably Jiang Li, and yet he was also... someone else entirely.
Then Mei'er. Her cold, still body. His seemingly genuine fury at her death. His vow for justice for a mortal girl... another jarring contrast to the youth I thought I knew.
And now... this. The City Lord's terror. The thousand-spirit-stone bounty.
And the lie about the "storage bracelet."
My thoughts crashed back into the present moment as we walked along the flagstone path leading back towards the Jiang residence. The storage bracelet. That was the final, undeniable impossibility that my mind could no longer contain, no longer rationalize away.
I stopped walking abruptly.
The guards behind me halted, confused.
The Young Master paused a few steps ahead, turning back, one eyebrow raised slightly in silent question, his expression calm, perhaps even slightly amused by my sudden stop.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, struggling for the composure my station demanded, but the need for answers, for some anchor -- any anchor -- in the swirling vortex of impossibility that my life had become, overrode years of ingrained deference.
"Young Master..." My voice trembled slightly, despite my best efforts.
Fear, confusion, awe, desperation – it all warred within me.
"Forgive this servant's repeated impudence... truly, my understanding is lacking... but..." I gestured towards the simple jade bracelet now secured firmly on his wrist.
"The storage bracelet."
He waited patiently, his expression unreadable, letting me struggle with the words.
"This morning," I forced myself to continue, meeting his calm gaze, my own eyes likely reflecting the turmoil within, "when I attended you... you possessed no such artifact. I manage your personal inventory, Young Master, your effects... I know this."
My voice gained a slight edge of desperation. "And the contents you claim... the bounty alone requires one thousand spirit stones... you implied you have more inside? As a Steward, I manage the household accounts; such sums, especially in spirit stones, are simply not available here! The main family... they do not even know of the attempt on your life yet! How could they authorize such an expense? Even if you are..."
I trailed off, unable to voice the implication of 'favored heir' he had projected so confidently.
"F-forgive me, Master," my voice cracked slightly, the formal title slipping out again in my distress, "but... how?"
He didn't answer directly. Instead, a calm, enigmatic smile touched his lips, the smile of someone holding all the cards, watching his opponent squirm. He smoothly removed the simple-looking jade bracelet from his wrist. It looked utterly mundane, perhaps made of a slightly better quality jade than average – but it was no spirit jade. It had no visible formations, nor obvious inlaid spiritual materials.
"You doubt your own eyes, Steward Lin?" he asked softly, his voice gentle yet carrying an edge of amusement.
"After everything you've witnessed these past two days? The gold? The sword?" He held the bracelet out to me.
"Perhaps direct confirmation is required once more. Come, see for yourself. Trust in your own senses."
Hesitantly, my hands trembling slightly, I reached out and took the bracelet from him. It felt cool to the touch, smooth jade, yet... there was something more to it. A faint, almost imperceptible hum of energy pulsed from within, and intricate spiritual markings seemed to appear and fade on its surface under my focused gaze, patterns that should be far too complex for simple jade to sustain.
I took another shaky breath, gathering my Qi, and tentatively infused a thin thread of my own Stage Six spiritual energy into the bracelet, expecting to meet the resistance of mundane material or, at best, the faint spatial ripple of a low-grade storage pouch disguised as jewelry.
Instead, my Qi flowed in with impossible, startling ease, as if the bracelet recognized me as an authorized holder. It welcomed my probe. And the space it revealed... my breath caught in my throat, my eyes widening in sheer disbelief.
It wasn't the cramped pocket dimension of a typical storage pouch or even a standard low-grade storage bracelet, which might hold a few cubic meters of space at most. This space was… vast, stable, extending far beyond what seemed physically possible for such a simple, unadorned piece of jade – I could feel easily dozens of cubic meters of space, perhaps more!
I wasn't an expert artifact refiner, far from it, but I knew enough from serving the Jiang family, from seeing the artifacts they possessed, to recognize that sustaining such a large, stable spatial pocket should require intricate formations meticulously carved into rare spiritual metals like Void Silver, Spirit Jade, or Star Iron. Further, something like this should be powered by inlaid, high-purity spirit crystals – not plain, undecorated, ordinary jade!
This artifact broke every convention I understood about spatial storage. It felt fundamentally wrong, alien, like something imagined by a drunken mortal who knew of storage artifacts but not of the complex principles and materials required for how they actually worked...
And within that impossibly vast, impossibly stable, impossibly easy-to-access space, my spiritual sense perceived the contents clearly, laid out with almost shocking neatness: neat stacks upon stacks of low-grade spirit stones, far, far more numerous than the fifty from the lockbox, easily numbering in the thousands – two thousand, my mind calculated numbly – radiating their faint, collective spiritual energy like a field of dormant stars. Beside them, piled high like offerings to a mad emperor, were mountains of gleaming gold taels.
It was all real.
The impossible bracelet was real.
The impossible wealth inside was real.
The cumulative weight of every impossible event I've seen over the past few days finally shattered my carefully constructed composure, my entire understanding of the world, of cultivation, of reality itself.
My mind simply... broke.
I dropped the bracelet as if it had burned my hand, stumbling back a step, gasping for air that suddenly felt too thin.
Then, the tension snapped.
It didn't come out as screams or tears, not at first. Instead, a choked sound escaped my throat, followed by another, and then I was laughing. Uncontrollable, hysterical laughter that sounded disturbingly, terrifyingly like sobbing, echoing strangely in the quiet street. Tears streamed down my face, hot and stinging, as my mind struggled, and failed, to reconcile the impossible with the undeniable reality confronting me.
"It's real..." I gasped between fits of laughter and sobs. "The gold... the sword... the stones... the bracelet... None of it makes any sense... How...? How...?"
My carefully ordered world, governed by the known laws of Qi, cultivation, and commerce, had completely, irrevocably unraveled at the seams.
He stepped forward calmly amidst my breakdown. He gently picked up the fallen bracelet from the flagstones, examined it thoughtfully for a moment with that same enigmatic smile, then secured it back firmly on his own wrist. He then addressed me directly, his voice gentle but firm, cutting through the fog of my hysteria. He placed a hand, surprisingly steady and warm, on my shoulder, forcing me to meet his gaze, grounding me slightly in the terrifying new reality.
"Steward Lin. Compose yourself." His voice was calm, reassuring, yet held an undercurrent of undeniable command that pierced through my panic.
"Breathe." He waited a moment, his gaze steady, until my ragged breathing began to even out slightly, the hysterical laughter subsiding into shuddering sobs.
"I told you that things have changed," he continued softly, his voice reasonable, offering an explanation, however thin.
"The poison... the closeness to death... it wasn't just an illness, Steward Lin, it was a crucible. It burned away impurities. It… unlocked something within me."
He tapped his chest lightly. "A connection? A dormant potential hidden deep within the Jiang bloodline? I cannot explain it fully myself yet; perhaps I will never fully understand the mechanism. But trust this: everything I have said; everything you have seen – all of it is real. The power, the wealth... believe me when I say, this is only the beginning."
He held my gaze, his eyes intense now, serious.
"The path ahead will be dangerous. Far more dangerous than you can likely imagine. There are enemies who wish me dead, employing methods we are only beginning to uncover. There will be challenges, difficult questions from my family in Yuhang City, unwanted attention from powerful sects and individuals we cannot yet comprehend."
He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in, painting a picture of shared peril.
"I will need someone by my side whom I can trust implicitly. Someone capable, discreet, and absolutely loyal, who will follow my instructions without question, even when," he emphasized the words, "they seem illogical or impossible."
He gestured back towards the city, then perhaps towards the now-fortified residence.
"Great changes are coming to this household, to this city, perhaps even beyond. My power," he stated with quiet, unshakeable conviction that resonated deep within my shaken soul, "will continue to grow in ways that will astound you in the coming days and weeks. The wealth you have seen thus far will seem like a mere pittance compared to what we will soon command."
He held my gaze, demanding an answer.
"All I require of you… is that you trust me, stay focused, remain loyal, and help me navigate what is to come. Can I count on you, Steward Lin?"
I looked at him – truly looked at him then, perhaps for the very first time since his 'recovery', seeing past the memory of the petulant, arrogant youth he was, searching the depths of his now calm, steady eyes. I saw the confidence that had replaced the old insecurity, a confidence rooted not just in bluster, but in the undeniable, reality-bending results he had produced.
My world was shattered, yes. The rules I knew, the logic I relied upon, were broken beyond repair. The very foundations of my understanding of cultivation, wealth, and possibility had crumbled. But standing amidst the wreckage, he offered a new, albeit terrifying, reality – one filled with impossible power, unimaginable wealth, deadly danger, but also, perhaps, justice for the wronged, and… undeniable opportunity.
I thought instantly, desperately, of my family, of my young sister Liu'er safe, for now, back in Yuhang City, their future, their very survival, now tied inextricably, irrevocably, to this unpredictable young master and his impossible fortune. I thought of my own stalled cultivation, the Stage Six bottleneck I'd been stuck at for years, the quiet desperation, the dwindling hope... and the pile of valuable resources he had so casually gifted me just yesterday, resources that could finally allow me to break through, to grasp for Stage Seven, to gain some measure of real power for myself. My mind raced, weighing the terrifying risks – his unpredictability, the powerful enemies he clearly possessed, the sheer madness of believing in the impossible – against the undeniable evidence of his power, the apparent sincerity of his vow for justice, and the potential rewards for both my family and myself.
Logic screamed caution. Retreat! Report this madness to the Main Branch immediately!
But logic had utterly failed me over the past few days.
What was left for me now, but to have faith in the impossible?
I took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing myself to push down the lingering hysteria, to gather the scattered fragments of my composure, to make a choice. Calculated resolve, the desperate pragmatism of a survivor clinging to the only solid thing in a dissolving world, hardened within me. I met his intense gaze directly, my own eyes clear now, reflecting a conscious decision made, a deliberate leap of faith into the terrifying unknown. I bowed deeply, formally, my voice steady now, imbued with a new, unwavering conviction that surprised even myself.
"Yes… Master. This servant understands."
The words felt heavy, momentous, sealing my fate, tying my destiny, and my family's, to his.
"My loyalty is yours. Absolutely. I… will trust in you."
And may the Heavens -- or whatever strange powers were involved here -- have mercy upon us both.