Chapter 349: Similar Flowers

Compared to ascenders who directly feed their bodies to ghosts, grantees who indirectly borrow the power of vengeful spirits enjoy many advantages: they often do not bear the cost of rule backlash, nor do they face the life-or-death core conflict among ascenders, because they never embarked on that spiraling “path of ascension” to begin with.

Precisely because of the inherent contradiction between the spiraling nature of the ascension path and its flawed rules, for a long time, apart from bloodline-linked clans and lineages, ascenders who distrusted one another found it nearly impossible to form organized societies.

Grantees have no such troubles; as the saying goes, when granaries are full, people learn propriety. Without a vengeful spirit breathing down their necks, they can maintain relative dignity over the long term.

But the methods grantees use to indirectly manipulate the rules are far from flawless—right now, before the deliberately cunning Lan Shiwén, they exposed their greatest weakness.

—Weakness.

Before the “absolute” strength of ascenders who feed their bodies to ghosts, grantees are simply too weak.

If ordinary humans are no different from ants before the anomaly, then grantees wielding grant artifacts are at best ants that have evolved a tiny bit more formic acid.

Of course, they pose some threat—but not a significant one. Grantees’ limited abilities can only bully other ants like themselves; faced with genuine ascenders, especially top-tier ones like Lan Shiwén, they have absolutely no chance to fight back.

Tradition wins.

Xia Yubing watched Lan Shiwén walk to the center of the room, press the gun against Bé Dàng’s head, and confiscate all remaining grant artifacts on his person—thus revealing another weakness of grantees: their power is utterly dependent on external objects; once disarmed, they are nothing.

After this, Lan Shiwén turned his gaze toward Ji Bóyīng, who was sipping tea slowly nearby.

“Besides this outfit, I have nothing on me,” Ji Bóyīng said with a smile.

“Then take off your clothes,” Lan Shiwén said casually.

Ji Bóyīng paused, then smiled bitterly, shook his head, removed his coat, unfastened the off-white, high-collared, front-buttoned linen tunic beneath, folded it neatly, and handed it to Lan Shiwén: “You still saw through me.”

“Thank you for your cooperation—I hope you’ll continue to cooperate,” Lan Shiwén nodded. Two jian snakes straightened their pale spines, crawling up their pant legs, their ribs splayed like eight spider legs, clutching Bé Dàng and Ji Bóyīng tightly, icy lips pressed against their earlobes.

Ignoring the pain of ribs piercing his chest cavity, Bé Dàng stared wide-eyed at Méi Lín, who sat slumped on the sofa, silent and head bowed, his eyes filled with disbelief.

Lan Shiwén did not move against Méi Lín.

“So it was you… you betrayed us…” Bé Dàng growled through gritted teeth: “Why? What did the Jiuzhou people give you that made you betray the family that raised you?”

Méi Lín kept her head down, saying nothing.

Lan Shiwén silently slipped his pistol into his waistband, then punched Bé Dàng hard in the abdomen. The searing pain drained all color from his face, twisting his features.

“You can talk to me later, friend—I’m happy to chat,” Lan Shiwén patted Bé Dàng’s cheek, collected each grant artifact from the table, leaving only two bronze mirrors labeled 3 and 7.

After finishing, Lan Shiwén murmured “See you later,” and left the room with the two men bound by jian snakes.

As the door clicked shut, the bone-serpent carpeting the floor receded like a tide, leaving only three blood-drenched, headless skeletons stripped of flesh, and a mess of shattered cups and plates.

Only then did Xia Yubing exhale, collapsing onto the sofa, trembling: “What the hell was that thing? So damn unnatural…”

A pale human skull trailing a blood-veined, snow-white spine like a snake, its ribs splayed like spider legs—it made her physically ill, more eerie than the stone statues in Zànjù Town.

“That thing is called a jian snake—a dead person who dies again.”

Ning Zhe landed on the sofa, flapping his wings back into human form, his gaze fixed on the two upside-down bronze mirrors on the table.

Sensing Ning Zhe’s arrival, Méi Lín snapped her head up, bloodshot eyes locked on him: “I did exactly as you said. I did everything you told me. Where’s the Young Lady? Can you really save her? Don’t you dare lie to me, Jiuzhou man—can you truly bring her back from that walking corpse state?”

Xia Yubing blinked: “What’s she talking about?” Ning Zhe picked up the bronze mirror labeled ‘3’, playing with it nonchalantly: “Whether I can save her, and to what extent, doesn’t depend on me—it depends on you.”

Méi Lín slammed her hands on the table: “What do you mean?!”

“Literal meaning,” Ning Zhe said, placing the mirror back upside down with a smile. “Your desperation, your willingness to betray your own allies just to strike this deal—it proves this girl, Prumeliya, means everything to you. More than just important. So… what is your relationship to her?”

“None of your business!” Méi Lín hissed. “I don’t want to hear your idle questions. Can you deliver on your promise or not?”

“I already said—it doesn’t depend on me. It depends on you,” Ning Zhe shook his head. “Answer my question first: What is your relationship to Prumeliya? How well do you know her?”

Méi Lín raised her hand to slam the table again—but Ning Zhe spoke: “It directly determines whether your Young Lady returns, and how much of her returns. I urge you to answer seriously.”

Hearing this, Méi Lín, who had moments ago been a panther, instantly deflated, her entire demeanor sinking: “I watched her grow up.”

Ning Zhe raised an eyebrow: “Go on.”

Xia Yubing sat beside Ning Zhe, face lit with curiosity.

Seeing he wouldn’t drop it until he got an answer, Méi Lín, consumed by worry for Prumeliya’s safety, forced down her agitation and began to speak:

Méi Lín was the child of a maid—a common trope in novels, a noble family’s illegitimate daughter—but her father was no nobleman; he was an outsider who married into the Fuliimisirete family as a son-in-law. Thus, as an illegitimate daughter, she possessed neither Fuliimisirete blood nor inheritance rights, and was despised by her father’s lawful wife, nearly dying in infancy.

Had her father not secretly protected her, she would never have lived to adulthood.

According to Méi Lín, her father had once been a criminal thrown into an anomaly to test the rules—destined to die, yet he survived through sheer mental fortitude, sharp intellect, and a stroke of luck, mastering the rules and becoming an ascender, which led the Fuliimisirete family to adopt him as a son-in-law.

Precisely because of his ascender status and value, her father, despite being a son-in-law, gained some influence within the family and fought hard to preserve her, this illegitimate daughter without noble blood, allowing her to grow up amid countless hostile glances.

The cost: the maid who gave birth to her vanished forever.

In 2003, when Méi Lín was twelve, her father’s lawful wife—the noblewoman of golden lineage—gave birth to a daughter: her half-sister, the legitimate Young Lady with noble blood: Prumeliya Fuliimisirete.

“I don’t know whether it was the lady’s cruel whim or my father’s own calculation, but I was assigned as her personal maid from the day she was born. I’ve cared for her daily needs, eaten and slept with her, never left her side—until now.”

“Later, my father died from rule backlash; the ghost he controlled was imprisoned. Without his protection, I expected to be killed—or at least expelled—since she always hated me. But to my surprise, my sister loved me. When she heard we’d be separated, she wept bitterly before her mother. The lady was cold to outsiders but doted on her daughter, so I stayed.”

“She doesn’t know I’m her sister. But she is my most important sister.”

Méi Lín paused, then said: “Perhaps that’s why my father sent me to the Young Lady’s side?”

“Prumeliya grew up beside me since childhood. I know all her preferences—every liking and aversion: her favorite colors, the music she loves, the styles of clothing she prefers… everything. I know her completely.”

Ning Zhe nodded in satisfaction: “Excellent answer. Then… congratulations. She will return.”

And she will return very “complete.”

Whether it is the original, or merely a similar flower—that is a philosophical question.

Ning Zhe hated philosophy. He thought philosophers were all nitpickers.

(End of Chapter)