From Lin Mo Chen's point of view, the situation was catastrophic.
If it were up to him, he would have spent his entire second life without exchanging a single word with Lin Xuan, because any transmigrator with a shred of common sense knew better than to get involved with the protagonist—whether by helping him, offending him, or even lingering too long in his presence. The safest way to survive was simple: stay out of his story entirely.
And yet, he was now standing half a step away from him, with a stupid smile frozen on his face and the jade beauty watching him as if he had just interrupted a sacred scene.
He couldn't just ignore him and turn around. That would be rude. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing worse in a cultivation world than ending up on a protagonist's blacklist. Those guys had the memory of a vengeful elephant and the luck of the Celestial Emperor.
With that thought hammering against his skull, Lin Mo Chen did the only sensible thing. He nodded at him calmly, or at least made it look perfect. It was a casual greeting, the kind you'd give any fellow disciple, not the center of the world standing before him.
"Sorry, I almost bumped into you," he said in a natural, calm voice, as if he didn't care at all.
Hearing that, Lin Xuan slightly widened his eyes. Surprise crossed his face for a moment, replacing the bitterness. After a pause that felt eternal to Lin Mo Chen, he replied.
"…It's nothing," Lin Xuan said, his voice low but firm.
As he listened to the response, Lin Mo Chen could feel cold sweat gathering on his back. And it wasn't because of the young protagonist. It was because of the young woman standing beside him.
The jade beauty hadn't said anything, but her gaze was piercing. It wasn't the curious look of a fourteen-year-old girl. Lin Mo Chen felt, with instinctive certainty, that it wasn't an adolescent watching him, but rather a predator.
But the feeling lasted only a second. Seeing that his intention toward Lin Xuan had been kind and sincere, the pressure in her gaze dissipated like mist under the sun. The girl simply turned her attention back to Lin Xuan, with that same sweetness as before.
Letting out an internal sigh that nearly emptied his lungs, Lin Mo Chen bid them farewell casually.
"See you."
With his palms drenched in sweat and his heart beating like a war drum, he turned around and walked away. He hadn't taken even three steps when he heard the young woman's sweet voice behind him.
"Who was that, Brother Xuan? Do you know him?"
Lin Xuan's reply came low, with a hint of confusion in his voice.
"No, he seems to be from a branch family."
Lin Mo Chen didn't turn around. He kept walking until he reached his red wooden pillar and leaned against it as before. Only this time, he no longer had his lazy air.
"That went better than I expected," he thought, trying to convince himself the matter had ended there.
Time passed without further incident. Lin Mo Chen regained some of his laziness and focused on watching the procession of disciples continue. One after another, they stepped onto the platform, the stele glowed with mediocre intensities, and the deacon announced results that the crowd forgot instantly.
Until a name was called.
"Lin Yao'er!"
Lin Mo Chen narrowed his eyes. The reason was obvious. He watched as the young woman who had been standing beside Lin Xuan separated from him and slowly approached the stele.
The moment her name was announced, the crowd fell into absolute silence. All eyes turned toward her.
She wore a simple white dress that fell like a cascade of silk, without a single unnecessary ornament. And once again, Lin Mo Chen knew, with the certainty of a seasoned reader, that she undoubtedly fully deserved the title of jade beauty who would topple nations in the future.
With innate elegance, she placed her hand on the stele and closed her eyes.
The reaction was immediate and violent. The stele didn't just shine—it erupted into a pure white light that was almost blinding, far more intense than Lin Yan's. When the light dimmed, the words engraved on the monument were clear for all to see:
"Ling Qi, ninth stage. Rank: High!"
The plaza fell into a deep silence. A silence of complete astonishment.
"…She really reached the ninth stage, how terrifying! The position of the youngest in the highest rank of the clan has undoubtedly been taken by Miss Yao'er!"
After those words, the restraint broke. Several teenagers couldn't help but whistle, others applauded fervently, and every gaze filled with a respect and admiration that bordered on worship.
There was only one person in the entire courtyard who wasn't surprised. Lin Mo Chen frowned.
He had no proof, only a gut feeling. But he was certain that wasn't the true cultivation of the young woman named Lin Yao'er.
He watched as the young woman, with practiced modesty, thanked the deacon with a slight bow. The man had congratulated her with a wide smile, something he hadn't done for anyone else.
"Excellent, Yao'er! At this rate, you'll become a Ling Zhe before turning fourteen! The second youngest person in the history of Yunshan Cheng to achieve it!"
Lin Mo Chen knew perfectly well who the first person to achieve it was. He didn't need to look toward the corner where the young man in blue robes stood to know.
Accepting the praise with a calm smile, the young woman stepped down from the platform and, without hesitation, walked straight toward the boy dressed in blue.
Lin Mo Chen, for his part, deliberately averted his gaze and fixed it on a shapeless cloud in the sky.
Although he would have liked to keep watching, he knew from experience—both from his past life and this one—that excessive curiosity is almost as bad as natural stupidity. And getting too close to those two was tempting fate.
After everything that had happened, the ceremony came to an end without anything else worth noting. The sun was already beginning to set behind the curved rooftops of the Lin Clan, dyeing the courtyard in a lazy orange hue.
Lin Mo Chen walked calmly with his hands tucked into his sleeves, taking the stone path that led away from the main residence. His home wasn't in the central courtyards where the elders and main members lived. It was in the outermost areas, near the eastern wall.
Although he was a member of the side branch, at least his father, a few years ago, had achieved something decent. He had managed to advance to the ninth stage of Yī Huán · Ling Zhe. That had been a pleasant surprise for the main family—a peak First Ring Ling Zhe was enough for his small family to be allowed to move within the walls of the main household.
Thinking about that, as his boots softly struck the cold stone slabs, the memory of when he first arrived in this world surfaced in his mind with an annoying clarity.
He was on the Huán Ling Continent, and the first thing that had struck him—beyond the strange clothing and the headache from someone else's memories—was that everything in this world revolved around spiritual rings.
It wasn't some obscure path reserved for a select few either. After countless generations refining and exploring it, the cultivation of spiritual rings had become something almost universal; from great sects to the smallest villages, everyone understood their importance.
Over time, what had once been a mystery turned into something fundamental, woven into daily life itself. On the Huán Ling Continent, nothing mattered more than the birth of a spiritual ring.
And as the number of rings a cultivator could condense increased, so did the methods to train and develop them—some methods were superior to others, and the difference between them could decide a person's fate.
"I hope nothing else strange happens. I just want to live and cultivate peacefully," Lin Mo Chen thought, kicking a small stone along the path as he walked.
As he walked along the side path leading to his courtyard, a very faint sound came from the surrounding forest.
At first, he was startled. The sound was so sudden among the chirping of the crickets that he almost ran back toward the main courtyard. But he stopped. Listening more carefully, it wasn't a growl. It sounded more like a low humming, a broken, rhythmless melody.
Confused and, unfortunately for him, very curious, Lin Mo Chen looked to both sides of the empty path and stepped into the tree line with all the caution he could muster, pushing aside branches with his sleeve to avoid making noise.
After walking for a while following the sound, he saw something in the distance.
A young man in blue was resting lazily on the grass, his back leaning against the thick trunk of a tree. One knee was raised, and his head was slightly tilted.
Lin Mo Chen could see that he was murmuring something to himself while looking at a silver ring in the palm of his hand with a trace of nostalgia. He turned it over and over between his fingers, as if searching for an answer.
To Lin Mo Chen's surprise—or rather, not surprise—that young man was Lin Xuan.
He instinctively crouched behind a bush. He barely managed to catch a fragment of his murmur, something about "…a promise…" and "…two years…," before Lin Xuan, as if he had sensed a change in the air, suddenly lifted his head.
"Is someone there?" he asked out loud. His voice was no longer the low and defeated one from the ceremony; this time it was firm and alert.
Thinking he had been discovered, Lin Mo Chen froze. He pressed himself as close as possible to the damp ground, holding his breath, his heart pounding against his ribs so loudly he was sure it could be heard from the tree.
A few seconds passed that felt like hours to him. Lin Xuan narrowed his eyes, scanning the darkness between the trees.
"Maybe it's just my imagination," he finally muttered to himself, lowering his gaze back to the silver ring, wearing that same bitter expression as before.
That was all the signal Lin Mo Chen needed. He didn't wait a second longer. He crawled backward, inch by inch, as slowly and silently as he could. He didn't dare stand up until the trees completely concealed him and the humming became a distant echo once more.
Once out of range, he sprang to his feet and ran toward his home without looking back, cold sweat soaking his back.
"Definitely… I need to stay away from him." Lin Mo Chen swore as he quickened his pace.