Chapter 477: Cure Your Existence!

Yan Zhaoge, who had been watching the hug with mild amusement, blinked, taking a cautious step backward. “Jiu Zui, calm your Qi. You are shedding spiritual pressure onto the server arrays.”

“What did you do to her?” Jiu Zui asked, his voice trembling with psychotic rage. He didn’t let go of Ji’an, simply shifting his weight to stand protectively in front of her.

“I did nothing!” Yan Zhaoge protested, holding his hands up in a gesture of innocence. “I merely provided the transportation! She walked the Corridor of the Eclipse of her own volition!”

“LIES!” Jiu Zui roared, his beard bristling, spittle flying from his lips. “MY DISCIPLE DOES NOT HUG! MY DISCIPLE DOES NOT CRY LIKE A BABY! SHE IS A MONSTER OF PURE SPITE AND CARBOHYDRATES! IF SHE IS HUGGING ME, IT MEANS YOU HAVE SUBJECTED HER TO A PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE SO PROFOUND IT HAS SHATTERED HER BRAIN!”

“Jiu Zui, be reasonable!” Yan Zhaoge argued, his purple robes billowing as he summoned a shield, recognizing the immediate danger. “The Corridor shows the soul its own truth! I did not curate the content! I am merely the IT guy!”

“I WILL CURE YOUR EXISTENCE!”

Jiu Zui didn’t draw a sword.

He was the Sovereign of the Drunken Peak; his weapons were unconventional, highly volatile, and heavily fermented.

With a flick of his wrist, Jiu Zui summoned three glowing clay gourds of Dragon-Bone Fire-Wine from his spatial ring. These were not beverages.

They were highly unstable, magically compressed incendiary explosives masquerading as alcohol.

“EAT FERMENTATION, YOU PURPLE-ROBED PARASITE!” Jiu Zui bellowed, hurling the three massive gourds directly at Yan Zhaoge’s head with the speed and kinetic force of artillery shells.

Yan Zhaoge’s eyes widened in genuine alarm.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The gourds detonated against Yan Zhaoge’s shield, erupting into roaring fireballs of blue and green alcoholic flame. The shockwave shook the astrolabe chamber, rattling the cosmic glass floor and sending waves of searing heat washing across the stars.

“Are you insane?!” Yan Zhaoge yelled, leaping backward through the flames, frantically swatting at a patch of burning alcohol that had splashed onto his immaculate silk sleeve. “Do you have any idea how much this silk costs?! It is spun from the webbing of the Midnight-Lotus Spider! You cannot dry-clean this!”

“I’LL SPIN YOUR INTESTINES INTO A JUMP ROPE!” Jiu Zui screamed, unhinged.

He raised both hands, tracing a complex, high-tier runic formation in the air with blinding speed. The air around him shimmered, smelling of yeast and absolute destruction.

“DAO OF THE DRUNKEN FIST: EIGHTEEN-BARREL METEOR SHOWER!”

Dozens of glowing, ethereal wine barrels materialised in the air above Jiu Zui’s head, each one humming with the density of a collapsing star. With a furious thrust of his hands, he launched the barrage of magical barrels directly at the Overtime Boss.

Yan Zhaoge gritted his teeth, his lazy, arrogant demeanor completely obliterated by the sheer absurdity of the attack.

“You feral, uncultured badger!” Yan Zhaoge roared, channeling his own peak-stage Sovereign Qi. He summoned a swirling vortex of purple thermal energy, a black hole of heat designed to incinerate the incoming projectiles. “ASHTHEN-WAKE: INCINERATION VORTEX!”

The ethereal wine barrels slammed into the purple vortex.

The resulting collision of fermented Dao magic and high-tier thermal dynamics created a catastrophic, blinding light show of exploding booze and superheated steam. The astrolabe chamber vibrated violently, the spinning brass rings groaning under the concussive pressure.

It was a battle between two of the most powerful beings in the Azure Empire, and it looked like a slapstick bar brawl taking place inside a planetarium.

“I’m going to turn you into a coaster today!” Jiu Zui yelled, preparing to summon an even larger, more destructive gourd.

“Master, stop!”

A small hand grabbed the back of Jiu Zui’s tattered robes, yanking hard.

Jiu Zui’s casting motion halted. He stumbled backward, the magical array sputtering and dying in his hands.

He turned around, his chest heaving, his wild eyes wide with panicked concern.

Lin Ji’an was standing behind him.

She had finally let go of his waist. She was wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve, sniffing loudly, her nose red and her silver hair a chaotic mess.

She looked exhausted, but the hysterical, drowning panic in her eyes was gone. The ridiculous, chaotic, protective explosion of violence from her master had successfully acted as a psychological reset button.

You couldn’t remain trapped in a spiral of existential, generational trauma when your alcoholic father figure was trying to blow up the CEO of the universe with magical wine barrels.

“Brat,” Jiu Zui breathed, immediately dropping his aggressive posture, reaching out to hover his hands nervously around her shoulders. “Are you injured? Did that purple peacock scramble your meridians? Just point to where it hurts, and I will extract his spine to use as a backscratcher.”

“He didn’t do anything to me, old man,” Ji’an sniffled, offering a small, wobbly, incredibly fond smile. She reached out and batted his hovering hands away. “I’m fine. The universe just showed me the receipts, that’s all. I know what you did. I know what all of you did.”

Jiu Zui froze.

The color drained completely from his weathered, dirt-streaked face.

He looked at her, his eyes widening in comprehension.

She knew. She had seen the First Timeline.

She had seen the Karmic Siphon, his past, his sacrifice, and the horrific cost of her own existence.

He slowly lowered his hands, suddenly looking incredibly old, frail, and deeply ashamed.

He couldn’t meet her gaze.

He looked down at the glass floor, his shoulders slumping under the invisible weight of centuries of guilt.

“You weren’t supposed to know,” Jiu Zui whispered, his voice cracking, devoid of all its usual bluster. He sounded like a broken, tired old man who had spent his entire life trying to hide a terrible secret from his own child. “You were supposed to just cook, just be a brat who yelled at me for drinking too much. You weren’t supposed to carry the weight of our failures, Ji’an. We… we tried to fix it. But we just made a mess.”

He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for her hatred.

Bracing himself for her to scream at him for orchestrating the tragedies, for lying to her, for turning her brother into a void.

Instead, he felt a solid, heavy THWACK against his shoulder.

Jiu Zui flinched, opening his eyes in surprise.

Ji’an had bent down, picked up her cast-iron spatula, and gently, but firmly, tapped him on the shoulder with it.

“You’re an idiot, Master,” Ji’an said. Her voice wasn’t angry. It was thick with emotion, resonating with a quiet, unyielding, fiercely loyal affection.

She looked at him, her silver-flecked eyes shining with unshed tears, but her posture was straight and unbending.

“You gave up your glowing fairy-aesthetic, ruined your liver, and lived in a shack for centuries just to make sure I had a place to sleep where the sky wouldn’t fall on me,” Ji’an stated, her voice trembling slightly, but gaining strength with every word. “You didn’t make a mess. You kept the kitchen running when the entire staff walked out. You’re the best damn Sous-Chef in this miserable universe, and I am not going to let you apologize for saving my life.”

Jiu Zui stared at her.

His lips parted, but no sound came out.

He reached out, his large, trembling hand gently grasping the back of her neck. He didn’t offer a clumsy pat this time.

He pulled her forward, pressing his forehead firmly against hers, closing his eyes as a shuddering breath escaped his lungs.

“You are too stubborn for your own good, brat,” Jiu Zui whispered, a watery, broken laugh escaping his throat. “You have the worst temper I have ever seen. You over-salt your broth, and your knife skills are aggressive.”

“My broth is perfectly seasoned, you uncultured drunk,” Ji’an sniffled, closing her eyes, leaning into the touch.

“It’s passable,” Jiu Zui conceded softly.

He pulled back, wiping his eyes roughly with his sleeve, clearing his throat to banish the vulnerability. He stood up straight, his spine realigning, the aura of the Sovereign of the Drunken Peak flaring with a newfound brilliance.

He looked at Ji’an, his eyes burning with uncompromising resolve.

“Listen to me, Lin Ji’an,” Jiu Zui commanded, his voice dropping the drunken slur, resonating with the crisp, terrifying authority of a man who had once commanded the respect of the heavens.