"Relax. I'm not joining a book club. I'm just saying... the Realm Guard Division has resources. If I'm going to find Kunlun's hidden gate, I might need their help."
"Ding. The System will monitor this situation closely. The System reserves the right to say 'The System told Host so' if things go wrong."
"Noted."
Yan Xiao turned toward home, the stone warm in his pocket.
The search had begun.
The next morning Yan Xiao stood outside the Realm Guard Division's Chengdu headquarters like an idiot who'd shown up to the wrong address.
It was just a plain gray concrete block squeezed between a bank and a tea shop. No plaque, no flags, no bored guard smoking by the door. To anyone walking past it looked like the kind of place where they processed building permits and lost your paperwork on purpose.
But Yan Xiao felt it in his teeth — that low, electric pressure right before a storm rolls in. The Realm Guard didn't need signs. The air itself did the job.
He pushed the glass door open.
The lobby smelled like instant coffee and cheap air freshener. A young woman in a dark uniform glanced up from her monitor, already bored.
"Can I help you?"
"I need to talk to Su Qinghe," Yan Xiao said.
Her eyes narrowed. "Appointment?"
"Nope. Just tell her it's about the Clawed Beast. And the Crimson Winged Serpent. She'll know."
The woman stared at him for a second, then picked up the phone and muttered something. She hung up and jerked her chin toward the hallway.
"Second door on the left. She's waiting."
Su Qinghe's office was a mess. Maps taped to the wall, stacks of files, and a sword just sitting on a wooden stand like it was decoration. She stood behind her desk with her arms crossed, looking exactly as pissed off as she had the night they walked the city together.
"You've got some balls showing up here," she said.
Yan Xiao shrugged. "Balls are one of my better qualities."
She didn't smile.
"Sit."
He sat.
For a long beat neither of them spoke. Then Su Qinghe let out a breath and dropped into her chair like she was already regretting this.
"Why are you here, Yan Xiao?"
"I need info on Kunlun."
Her eyebrows went up. "Kunlun? The mountain?"
"The one that isn't on any normal map."
Su Qinghe stared at him, then let out a short, sharp laugh.
"You seriously walk into a Realm Guard station — after you stole two of my missions — and ask for classified shit about a mythical mountain? You hear how crazy that sounds, right?"
"I do," Yan Xiao said. "But I'm not asking for free. I'll trade."
She leaned back. "What could you possibly have that I want?"
"Answers. You want to know how some random high-school kid killed a Crimson Winged Serpent with a kitchen knife. You want to know why your missions keep disappearing. You want to know who the hell I actually am."
Su Qinghe's jaw tightened.
"Talk."
So he talked.
Not everything — he left out the System's glitchy cockroach phase and the time he made a hundred thousand yuan stepping on ants. But he gave her the important parts: another world, a master named Qi Yun, the crossing, the body that wasn't originally his.
When he finished, Su Qinghe sat very still, eyes locked on his face.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"Check the records," Yan Xiao said. "The Clawed Beast was Qi Awakening Mid Stage. A normal kid with an iron rod doesn't walk away from that. But someone who trained in cultivation since he could walk? Different story."
She studied him like she was trying to decide whether to arrest him or laugh again.
"Even if I buy any of this," she said slowly, "what does Kunlun have to do with it?"
"There's a gate. Old stories say it leads to a valley where immortals used to live. I'm hoping… there might still be spiritual energy there. Enough to help me find my master."
Su Qinghe rubbed her temple. "A gate. To a hidden valley. Full of immortals."
"You saw the serpent's corpse," Yan Xiao said quietly. "You know this world stopped making sense a while ago."
She didn't argue.
After a long silence she stood up and walked to the map on the wall. Her finger traced the western ranges.
"The Realm Guard has files on Kunlun. Old ones. Most of them are half legends. There's one sealed folder that's been locked for decades. Only Division Commanders and above are supposed to see it."
"Can you get it?"
"I can try." She turned around. "But if I do this, you owe me. One favor. Anytime. No questions."
Yan Xiao met her eyes.
"Deal."
That evening a message popped up on his phone from Zi Xuan.
It was an invitation to her birthday dinner at some fancy private room in Yue Lai Xuan. The text sounded almost desperate: "I know you've been keeping to yourself lately but I'd really love it if you came. Please?"
Yan Xiao sighed and stared at the ceiling.
He really, really didn't want to go. Crowds made his skin crawl, and the original Yan Xiao's memories of Zi Xuan were a messy knot of gratitude, guilt, and second-hand embarrassment.
But she had lent him money when he had nothing. She never once treated him like the school joke.
"System. I'm going to a birthday party."
"Ding. The System strongly recommends the Host decline."
"Can't. She helped me."
"Ding. The System recommends the Host reconsider immediately."
"Already reconsidered. I'm going."
"Ding. …The System will be monitoring. From a very, very safe distance."
Yue Lai Xuan looked exactly the same as the night he'd killed the Crimson Winged Serpent. The memory still tasted like blood and cheap wine.
He showed up early wearing the best clothes the original body owned — which wasn't saying much. A clean button-up, dark pants, shoes he'd actually polished for once.
Zi Xuan spotted him at the door and her whole face lit up. She shoved a glass of something bubbly into his hand.
"You actually came!"
"You invited me."
"I honestly didn't think you would."
She looked… softer tonight. Less sharp-tongued rich girl, more someone who was genuinely glad he was there.
"Come on, there's someone I want you to meet."
She dragged him toward the corner of the private room where two women stood talking.
The first was Chen Xiaowi — Chu Hanli's assistant. What the hell was she doing in Chengdu?
The second woman made his steps falter.
She was beautiful in a way that felt almost unfair. Delicate features, straight black hair past her shoulders, a simple but expensive dress. But her eyes were cold and sharp, like she was already three moves ahead of everyone in the room.
Chu Hanli.
His so-called fiancée. The girl who had publicly announced she was already his and then vanished for years.
"Yan Xiao," Zi Xuan said, voice bright and careful, "this is my friend from Beijing — Chu Hanli."
Chu Hanli gave a small nod.
"We've met," she said quietly.
Zi Xuan's eyebrows shot up. "You have?"
"Once. A long time ago." Chu Hanli's gaze stayed on him. "You've changed."
"So have you," Yan Xiao answered.
The last time the original Yan Xiao had seen her she was an awkward teenager stuck in an arranged engagement. Now she was a woman, standing in a Chengdu restaurant, looking at him like she was trying to solve a puzzle she didn't like.
"I didn't know you were coming," he said.
"Zi Xuan didn't tell you?"
"No."
Chu Hanli's lips curved — not quite a smile.
"Then it's a surprise for both of us."
The whole dinner felt like walking on thin ice.
Yan Xiao sat at the far end of the table, but he could still feel Chu Hanli's eyes on him the entire time. Chen Xiaowi kept glancing between them like she was watching a slow-motion car crash. Zi Xuan talked too loud and too fast, trying to keep everything light.
After the cake and the toasts, Yan Xiao slipped out to the small courtyard behind the restaurant. The night air was cool and smelled like rain that hadn't fallen yet.
He didn't hear her footsteps.
"Why are you here?" Chu Hanli asked, stopping a few feet away.
"I don't like crowds."
"Neither do I."
They stood in silence for a while.
Then she said, "I need to talk to you. Alone. Not here. Tomorrow, if you're free."
Yan Xiao turned to look at her.
"About what?"
She hesitated.
"About us."
The next afternoon Yan Xiao sat in the university library, staring at the same page for twenty minutes.
He hadn't slept much. Chu Hanli's words kept looping in his head. About us. There was no "us." The engagement was just a dead promise between two families that didn't even exist anymore. The original Yan Xiao had only met her once. And the current Yan Xiao? He had zero interest in marriage while his master was still chained up somewhere in the dark.
But she had flown all the way from Beijing.
Whatever she wanted, it was important.