His fine silk clothes were torn to shreds, stained with dirt and dried blood. He was bruised, malnourished, and shivering.

But his face was locked in an expression of absolute, feral defiance. He was snarling at the guards, his jaw set with a terrifyingly familiar stubbornness.

And his eyes...

Even from fifty yards away, Ji’an could see the distinct, unusual silver flecks in the boy’s dark brown eyes, the genetic hallmark of the Lin family bloodline.

A genetic hallmark that matched the eyes staring back at Ji’an in the mirror every morning.

A sudden, violent headache pierced Ji’an’s skull as a fragment of the original host’s memory was forcefully unlocked by the System.

[Memory Download Complete.]

[Subject: Lin Xuan.

Age: 13.

Status: Youngest legitimate brother of the Host. The only family member who did not treat the Host with disdain.]

Ji’an gripped the stone railing so hard the rock began to crumble under her fingers.

She had never met this boy in her actual life. She was a transmigrator. She didn’t have his memories, not really.

But as she looked at the terrified, yet defiant thirteen-year-old kid kneeling in the dirt, surrounded by monsters who wanted to drain his blood for magic tricks, something inside Lin Ji’an violently snapped.

It wasn’t the original host’s lingering feelings, but it was her own. She, too, had a younger brother in her past life.

A brother she raised by her own hands, literary acting like a single mom who raised her young son all by herself, she had put the boy through college by working triple shifts in a Michelin-star kitchen.

A brother she would never see again.

"Let me go, you filthy slave traders!" the boy, Lin Xuan, shrieked, kicking wildly at a guard. "When my father’s army finds you, he will raze this entire canyon to the ground! I am the third son of General Lin’s family! Lin Xuan!"

The guard laughed cruelly, backhanding the boy across the face.

Lin Xuan hit the stone hard, a fresh cut opening on his cheek, but he immediately spat a mouthful of blood at the guard’s boots, refusing to stay down.

"So feisty!" the auctioneer cheered, wiping sweat from his brow. "Such vibrant spirit! The blood will be incredibly potent! Dear customers, must like such young and hot-blooded chicks too! Bidding starts at fifty thousand spirit stones!"

"Fifty-five thousand!" a raspy voice shouted from the crowd.

"Sixty!" yelled a man cloaked in dark, necrotic Qi.

"Seventy thousand! I need him for my pill furnace!" a hunched, elderly woman cackled.

Ji’an’s vision went entirely red.

The pragmatic, cautious chef who just wanted to survive the plot vanished. The girl who was terrified of offending the protagonists was gone.

In her place stood the Head Chef of a chaotic, high-pressure kitchen, a woman who was used to absolute authority, who commanded respect with a glare, and who absolutely, fundamentally refused to let anyone mess with her people.

"Master," Ji’an’s voice was dead calm. It wasn’t shaking. It was a flat, terrifying absolute zero that rivaled Xie Wangchen’s Dao of Ice.

Jiu Zui stepped up beside her, sensing the catastrophic shift in his disciple’s aura. He looked down at the pit, then looked at Ji’an’s face hidden beneath the hood.

"You know the kid?" Jiu Zui stated, his hand resting casually on the hilt of his rusted sword.

"He’s my little brother," Ji’an replied, her dark eyes locked onto the auctioneer.

Jiu Zui didn’t ask questions. He didn’t ask how a mortal general’s son ended up in a Xianxia black market. He didn’t lecture her on the dangers of interfering with the slave trade.

He just smiled.

It was a dark, dangerous, fiercely protective smile that promised absolute ruin.

"Alright, kid," the Drunken Sovereign rumbled, reaching into his robes and pulling out the glowing, authoritative jade medallion belonging to the Sect Leader of the Celestial Sword Sect. He handed it to her. "How much of the old man’s money are we dropping?"

Ji’an took the medallion. It was warm to the touch, pulsing with the limitless financial backing of one of the most powerful sects in the world.

"All of it," Ji’an declared.

She didn’t use a bidding paddle, or she didn’t wait for her turn.

Ji’an leaped up onto the wide stone railing overlooking the pit, her Silk-Weave cloak billowing around her.

She channeled every ounce of her Harmonious Five-Grain Qi into her lungs, amplifying her voice until it echoed like a thunderclap across the massive subterranean cavern.

"FIVE MILLION SPIRIT STONES!"

The sheer, absurd magnitude of the number hit the cavern like a physical shockwave.

The bidding died instantly. The raspy rogue cultivators choked on their own spit. The elderly woman nearly dropped her cane.

The auctioneer’s eyes bugged out of his head so far they threatened to fall onto his podium.

Five million spirit stones were enough to buy a small country.

It was enough to purchase a fleet of flying ships, an amount of wealth that simply did not exist in the Black Market.

Every single eye in the cavern, thousands of murderers, thieves, and dark cultivators, snapped up to look at the small, cloaked figure standing on the railing.

Down in the pit, Lin Xuan froze, looking up at the balcony with wide, silver-flecked eyes.

"F-F-Five million?!" the auctioneer stammered, his knees literally shaking. "Esteemed... esteemed guest! Are you... Are you certain?! Do you have the funds to back such an astronomical claim?!"

Ji’an didn’t speak. She simply raised her hand high into the air.

Between her fingers, the Sect Leader’s jade medallion flared with a blinding, majestic, unmistakable golden light.

It projected the massive, shimmering crest of the Celestial Sword Sect into the air above the pit, a giant, glowing sword surrounded by nine stars.

The symbol of absolute, terrifying, orthodox authority in the Northern Territories.

The Black Market descended into instant, paralyzed panic.

"The Celestial Sword Sect?!" someone screamed from the crowd.

"Damn it!"

"It’s over! It’s Over! If we get caught this time...!"