Chapter 484: Are You so Selfish?

"You tortured him for seventeen lifetimes, and he still chose me over your stupid throne. Your crucible didn’t break his love. It just made him willing to murder you for it."

The Head of the Tower did not deny it.

"Which is why we offer you this choice, Lin Ji’an," the elder said, his voice dropping back into a calm, hypnotic cadence.

He gestured to the unconscious, bleeding god in the cage.

"Look at him. Look at what your existence does to him."

The words hit Ji’an like physical daggers.

"He is a deity of the Highest Realm. He was born to rule the stars, to command the Heavens, to live in eternal glory. But because of you, he is a feral, rabid beast. He grovels in the mud, bleeds in the snow. He is consumed by a madness that tortures him every waking second of his life."

The elder’s black eyes bored directly into Ji’an’s soul, deploying the most devastating weapon in the Stargazing Tower’s arsenal: guilt.

"Are you truly so selfish, mortal?" the elder whispered, his telepathic voice dripping with insidious, poisonous logic. "Are you so greedy that you would bind a god to a miserable, agonising fate just to sate your own desire for companionship? You claim to care for him. You claim to protect your own."

The elder extended a hand toward her.

"If you truly care for him... set him free. Sever the Red Thread. Allow us to take him back to the Highest Realm, where we can cleanse his mind, heal his fractured soul, and restore him to his rightful throne. He will forget the pain. He will forget the madness. He will be whole. The Supreme being of the Universe!"

The silence in the chamber was deafening.

Jiu Zui’s grip on Ji’an’s collar loosened slightly, his silver eyes wide with apprehension.

He looked at his disciple. He knew her spine was made of iron, but he also knew that her loyalty to her people was her ultimate weakness.

The Seers had perfectly targeted her sense of responsibility.

Yan Zhaoge watched her closely, his amber eyes narrowed, calculating the odds of her breaking under the psychological pressure.

Ji’an stood perfectly still.

She looked at the cage.

She looked at Xie Wangchen.

She saw the boy who had caught a sword for her, who had frozen a brothel to protect her honor, who had kneeled by her bed and wept because he thought he had failed her in lives he couldn’t even remember.

’He’s a god,’ Ji’an thought, the tears silently tracing fresh tracks through the soot on her cheeks. ’He’s not supposed to be carrying my bags. He’s not supposed to be freezing my soup. He’s supposed to be ruling the universe.’

The logic of the Seers was flawless.

It was a perfect, impenetrable argument.

If she cut the thread, she survived. She got to live a normal life. And Wangchen got to be a god. He wouldn’t be tortured by his own mind anymore, no need to watch her die. He would be healed, and would be happy.

All it would cost was his memory of her.

"Sever the thread, Lin Ji’an," the Head of the Tower urged softly, sensing her hesitation, pushing the advantage. "Do the noble thing. Spare him the misery of loving you."

Ji’an slowly reached her left hand across her body.

She gripped her right wrist.

She could feel the phantom pulse of the Red Thread beneath her skin. The magical tether that had bound them across seventeen lifetimes.

The curse that had started this entire nightmare.

Jiu Zui took a panicked step forward. "Brat, don’t listen to them! They’re manipulating you! If they wipe his mind, they kill who he is! That isn’t saving him!"

Yan Zhaoge raised his starmetal pipe, preparing to intervene if she actually attempted to channel her Qi to sever the bond. "Do not be an idiot, Chef. A broken god is not a happy god."

Ji’an didn’t look at them.

She kept her eyes fixed on the unconscious, bleeding Ice Demon in the cage.

She gripped her wrist tighter. Her Body Fusion core flared.

A brilliant, glowing crimson thread materialised into reality, wrapping around her wrist, pulsing with a deep heartbeat that synchronised perfectly with her own.

The Head of the Tower leaned forward, his black eyes gleaming in anticipation of the victory. The centuries-long anomaly was finally correcting itself.

Ji’an stared at the glowing Red Thread.

She thought about nobility, sacrifice, the classic, tragic heroines of the novels who always gave up their love for the "greater good," walking away into the sunset with a broken heart while their lover ascended to glory.

And then, Lin Ji’an’s silver-flecked eyes narrowed into sharp, lethal, predatory slits.

She let go of her wrist.

She didn’t cut the thread.

She bent her knees, reached down, and picked up her heavy cast-iron spatula from the cosmic glass floor.

The Heart Fire roared back to life, igniting the spatula with a blinding, ferocious white heat that pushed back the freezing aura of the cage.

Ji’an stood up straight. She didn’t look like a tragic heroine.

She looked like a tyrant.

"You know, old man," Ji’an said, her voice dropping into a low, vibrating baritone that echoed with unapologetic malice. "You made a really good argument. It was very logical. Very noble."

She rested the glowing hot spatula casually over her shoulder, tilting her head, offering the Head of the Tower a smile that was so deeply wicked it made Yan Zhaoge’s own foxy smirk look amateur.

"But you misunderstood the person you are talking to," Ji’an sneered, taking a slow, aggressive step toward the ranks of the Star-Seers.

"I am not a noble, self-sacrificing maiden," Ji’an declared, her voice rising in volume, echoing off the spinning brass rings above them. "I am the Head Chef of the Drunken Peak. I am a blue-collar, overtime-working, aggressive, territorial, selfish control freak."

She pointed the glowing spatula directly at the cage.

"You think I care that he’s supposed to be the Prosecutor of the Heavens?!" Ji’an roared, her eyes blazing with possessive fury. "I don’t give a damn if he’s the Emperor of the Universe! He’s MY prep cook! He is MY Ice Demon! He belongs in MY kitchen, chopping MY onions, and complaining about the ambient temperature of MY mountain!"

The Head of the Tower stiffened, his statuesque composure finally cracking, genuine shock rippling across his marble features. "You would doom him to madness for your own selfishness?!"

"He isn’t mad because of the thread, you parasite!" Ji’an screamed, her voice tearing through the chamber like a hurricane. "He is mad because YOU tortured him! He is broken because YOU made him watch me die! You don’t get to abuse a dog for seventeen years and then blame the leash for his aggression!"

She stepped forward again, her Body Fusion core humming with such intense kinetic pressure that the cosmic glass floor beneath her boots began to spiderweb with hairline fractures.

"You want to wipe his mind?" Ji’an asked, a dark, terrifying, feral laugh escaping her lips. "You want to take away the memories of the snow? You want to take away the boy who caught a sword for me because I gave him a flower?"

She gripped the spatula with both hands, adopting a brutal, two-handed battering stance.

"I am not cutting the thread," Lin Ji’an promised, her voice a lethal, absolute vow that resonated through the very fabric of the cosmos. "I am going to keep my yandere, homicidal, overprotective refrigerator. And if you try to take him back to your shiny Highest Realm..."

She glared at the entire assembled High Council, her silver hair whipping around her face in the violent cosmic winds.

"...I am going to break every single bone in your celestial bodies, melt this astrolabe down for scrap metal, and serve your arrogant, sanctimonious souls as a side dish!"

Jiu Zui let out a booming, ecstatic roar of laughter, raising his silver sword high. "THAT’S MY DISCIPLE! NO REFUNDS! NO EXCHANGES! WE’RE KEEPING THE ICE DEMON!"

Yan Zhaoge chuckled darkly, shaking his head, casually drawing a deep drag from his unlit starmetal pipe. The tip of the pipe ignited with a purple supernova. "Selfish, territorial, and entirely unreasonable. I truly adore her management style."

The Head of the Tower realized the negotiation had failed.