# CHAPTER 4: THE CREAMY JADE CONTINGENCY
A bell tolled across the Hidden Leaf Sect. It was not the deep, resonant bronze toll of a spiritual awakening; it was a high-pitched, crystalline *ping* that vibrated in Su Lan's molars. It was the sound of a system notification manifesting in physical reality.
The High Elder stood, the canyons of his face deepening as his wrinkled brow twitched with anticipation. "The time of the Great Selection has arrived! Let the candidates for the Sect Leader's personal tutelage come forward! Let the Heavens witness the perfection of the Hidden Leaf's blossoms!"
Su Lan leaned against her pillar, her head throbbing. "Blossoms," she muttered, adjusting the heavy silk of her sleeves. "Here comes the greenhouse. I hope they've been watered, or the narrative wilt will be unbearable."
[EVENT START: THE JADE BEAUTY RECALL.]
[ERROR: NARRATIVE INTEGRITY AT 65%.]
[REASON: HOST'S RECENT EDITS HAVE CORRUPTED THE 'CHARACTER DIFFERENTIATION' FILES. THE SYSTEM IS STRUGGLING TO RENDER INDIVIDUAL PERSONALITIES.]
The doors at the far end of the hall swung open with a synchronized thud. A mist of cherry blossoms—far too many to be natural, appearing out of thin air like a particle effect—blew into the room, obscuring the floor. And then, they marched in.
Twenty women.
They moved in perfect, terrifying synchronization. Each one wore identical white gossamer silks that trailed exactly three inches behind their heels. Each one had raven hair that cascaded to their waists in the exact same "effortless" wave. And their skin...
"My eyes," a disciple near Su Lan gasped, shielding his face with a wide sleeve. "They... they glow! Is this a new cultivation technique?"
It was true. The women didn't just have pale skin; they were radiating a soft, neon-white light that threatened to overexpose the entire hall. The prose had demanded "creamy jade," and the world, struggling with Su Lan's previous interference, had overcompensated. They looked less like maidens and more like a row of sentient fluorescent tubes.
[WARNING: DUPLICATE ASSETS DETECTED.]
[SYSTEM PROPOSAL: TO PRESERVE PROCESSING POWER, ALL 20 CANDIDATES WILL BE MERGED INTO 'THE ULTIMATE JADE AMALGAMATION' IN 5 MINUTES.]
Su Lan sat up straight, her fan snapping open with a crack like a whip. "An amalgamation? You mean a twenty-headed trope monster? Absolutely not. I refuse to moderate a story with that much body horror. Think of the formatting nightmare."
She watched the women. They had reached the center of the hall and curtsied at the exact same angle, their movements lacking the friction of human bone and muscle.
"Greetings, Honorable Elders," they chirped. Twenty voices, one pitch, one soul. It sounded like a choir of porcelain dolls.
The High Elder blinked, his gaze sweeping over the glowing line. "Ah... yes. Such... consistency. Truly, the Hidden Leaf Sect is blessed with... a very specific type of beauty. It is almost as if the Heavens used a stamp."
Sa-Su-Ke, who had been watching Su Lan with an intensity that made her skin prickle, stepped closer to her. He didn't look at the glowing women. He looked at the way Su Lan was squinting at them, her eyes darting like she was looking for a typo in a life-or-death contract.
"Something is wrong," Sa-Su-Ke murmured, his voice a low vibration near her ear. "Their Qi... it is identical. It is as if one soul has been stretched across twenty bodies until it has become transparent."
"It's worse than that, Senior Brother," Su Lan whispered back, her voice tight with professional irritation. "It's a copy-paste error. The author got lazy with the descriptions, and now the world doesn't know how to tell them apart. If they stay like this, they'll collapse into a single pile of generic adjectives."
"The... 'Author'?" Sa-Su-Ke's brow arched, his dark eyes narrowing.
Su Lan ignored him. She stepped forward, her emerald silks cutting through the sea of white gossamer like a blade of grass through snow. She had 0 Ink Drops. She had no "Sarcasm Shield." She only had her red pen—and her mouth.
"Elder!" she called out, her voice ringing clear over the hushed murmurs of the bewildered crowd. "The Selection cannot proceed. These women are not candidates. They are a formatting error."
The hall went silent. The twenty Jade Beauties turned their heads in perfect unison to look at her. It was like being stared at by twenty identical, high-intensity flashlights.
"Junior Sister Su Lan," the Elder barked, his face turning a familiar shade of purple. "What is the meaning of this? These are the finest maidens of the surrounding provinces! Their purity is unmatched!"
"They are identical, Elder," Su Lan said, walking toward the line of glowing women. She stopped in front of the fifth one. "Tell me, Sister, what is your favorite hobby?"
"I enjoy playing the zither and mourning the fallen petals of spring," the woman chirped.
Su Lan moved to the tenth one. "And you? Surely you have a different passion?"
"I enjoy playing the zither and mourning the fallen petals of spring," the tenth woman replied, her smile not moving a single unnecessary muscle.
Su Lan looked at the Elder. "See? If I wanted to hear the same line on repeat, I would have stayed in the mortal realm and listened to a broken record. System! If I cannot delete them, I will audit them!"
[AUDIT MODE ACTIVATED (COST: 0 DROPS).]
[NOTE: AUDIT MODE DOES NOT CHANGE REALITY. IT ONLY REVEALS THE TRUTH.]
Suddenly, floating text appeared above each woman's head in Su Lan's vision.
[GENERIC BEAUTY A]
[GENERIC BEAUTY A]
[GENERIC BEAUTY A (VARIANT: SLIGHTLY TALLER)]
[GENERIC BEAUTY A]
Su Lan scanned the line, her heart sinking. If she didn't find a "Character A" with a unique trait, the merge would begin. And then she saw her.
Candidate number eighteen.
The floating text above her head was flickering, struggling against the duplicate code.
[GENERIC BEAUTY A]... [ERROR]... [NAME: LIU ROU]... [TRAIT: HIDDEN SPICE TOLERANCE].
Su Lan stopped. Liu Rou looked exactly like the others, but there was a tiny, microscopic smudge of red chili oil on the hem of her sleeve—a defiant stain on the pristine white silk. It was a flaw. A beautiful, narrative-saving flaw.
"This one," Su Lan pointed her fan at Liu Rou. "She is the only one here who is real. The rest of you..."
Su Lan turned to the other nineteen beauties, her gaze cold. "Your descriptions are so hollow I can hear the wind whistling through your backstories. You aren't characters; you're placeholders. You're the 'lorem ipsum' of the cultivation world! You exist only to fill space!"
[CRITICAL ROAST DETECTED.]
[THEME: NARRATIVE REDUNDANCY.]
[CRINGE LEVEL DROPPING: 80% -> 60%.]
The nineteen identical women began to flicker. Their jade-glow dimmed, their forms becoming translucent.
"Elder," Su Lan said, her voice dripping with professional disdain. "If you accept twenty women who all 'mourn petals' and 'play zithers,' you aren't running a Sect Selection. You're running a storage pavilion for identical goods. Dismiss the duplicates before the Heavens realize how much paper we're wasting on them."
The air shimmered. One by one, the nineteen duplicates turned into white mist and vanished. In the center of the hall, Liu Rou remained. Her hand darted to her sleeve, shoving something deeper into the silk as a faint, spicy aroma wafted through the air.
[INK DROPS EARNED: 50.]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 51.]
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: AUDIT SUCCESSFUL. THE TIMELINE HAS RECOVERED... FOR NOW.]
Su Lan exhaled, her shoulders sagging. The adrenaline left her, replaced by the familiar, soul-crushing exhaustion. She was still broke, and she still didn't have her coffee.
Sa-Su-Ke walked up to her, his shadow falling over her. He looked at the girl, Liu Rou, then back at Su Lan.
"You found the one who was hidden," he said, his voice uncharacteristically soft, lacking its usual edge of brooding steel. "How did you see through the light?"
Su Lan looked at the 51 Ink Drops in her vision. "I didn't look at the light, Senior Brother. I looked for the mistake. It's the only thing in this world that's ever honest."
Sa-Su-Ke stared at her for a long beat. Then, he did something that caused the Cringe Meter to spike and then immediately plummet in a violent zigzag.
He reached out and tucked a stray hair behind Su Lan's ear. His fingers were cold, but his touch was steady.
"Then you," he whispered, "must be the most honest person I have ever met."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: SA-SU-KE HAS ACTIVATED THE 'UNEXPECTED TENDERNESS' TROPE.]
[CRINGE LEVEL: 40% (STABLE).]
[WARNING: ROMANTIC SUBPLOT DETECTED. WOULD YOU LIKE TO EDIT THIS?]
Su Lan's eye twitched. "Edit it," she hissed under her breath. "Delete it. Burn it with fire."
[REPLY: INSUFFICIENT DROPS FOR ROMANCE DELETION. COST: 500 DROPS.]
"Of course," Su Lan groaned. "The universe will let me stop a massacre, but it won't let me stop a flirtation. I really, really need that tea."