"I accepted your hatred. I thought I deserved it. I thought... if I stayed away, you would be happier with the Madam, who seemed to dote on you."
Ji'an sat frozen. The pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.
The original owner hadn't hated the General because he was absent. She hated him because Madam Lin had told her to.
Ji'an felt a surge of cold fury, not at the General, but at the woman who had poisoned a child's mind against the only person who actually loved her.
It was time. It was time to burn that bridge and salt the earth.
Ji'an lowered her head. She let her shoulders tremble. She remembered the memories of the original owner, the loneliness, the confusion.
"Father..." she whispered. "You think... I hated you because you were away?"
She looked up, her eyes wide and brimming with "realization."
"But... Mother told me you didn't want to see me."
General Lin froze. The air in the room stopped moving. "What?"
Ji'an stood up, pacing agitatedly, acting out the distress of a child realizing a lifetime of lies.
"When I was six... I made you a wooden sword. I wanted to give it to you before you left for the Northern Campaign. I waited outside the study for three hours."
General Lin's face went pale. "I never saw you. I was told you were sick and refused to come out."
"Mother... Madam Lin came to me," Ji'an said, her voice choking. "She told me that you were angry. She said you looked at my wooden sword and threw it in the fire. She said... she said you told her, 'Why would I want a toy from a concubine's son? He is a stain on my honor. Keep him out of my sight.'"
General Lin stood up slowly. The spiritual pressure in the room spiked so high that the windows rattled.
"She said that?" he growled. It was a sound from the depths of hell.
"She told me that you only tolerated me because of the family laws," Ji'an continued, letting the tears fall now. "She said that if I approached you, you would beat me. She said she was the only one who could protect me from your wrath. She said, 'Ji'an, stay in the backyard. Be quiet. Be useless. If you show talent, your Father will see you as a threat to Zhaoyu and kill you.'"
Ji'an looked at the General, her face a mask of tragic confusion.
"So I played the fool! I acted arrogantly! I hid my martial arts! I was terrified that if I showed promise, the Father who 'hated' me would strike me down! I thought... I thought I was surviving!"
CRACK.
The solid rosewood desk is split down the middle. General Lin's hand had come down on it, not with a strike, but with a grip of pure, uncontrolled rage.
"Lies," he hissed. "Ten years... of lies."
He looked at Ji'an, his eyes red. The mighty General, who had never flinched before an army of ten thousand, looked like he had been stabbed in the heart.
"I kept my distance... because she told me you were afraid of my bloodlust," General Lin rasped. "She told me you cried when you saw my bloodstained armor. She told me to stay away to let you have a happy childhood."
He walked around the broken desk and grabbed Ji'an by the shoulders. His grip was iron-hard, desperate.
"Ji'an. Listen to me. I have never considered you a stain. Your mother was the only peace I ever knew in this life. You are her only legacy that she left behind. I would burn the world before I hurt you."
Ji'an looked into his eyes. She saw the raw honesty there.
"I know that now, Father," she said softly. "The moment you stood up for me in the Ancestral Hall... the moment you gave me the spoon... I knew. The Madam... she built a wall of fog between us. But the wind has blown it away."
General Lin pulled her into a hug. It was awkward, crushing, and smelled of cold iron, but it was the safest place in the world.
"That woman," the General whispered into her hair. His voice was terrifyingly calm now. "I tolerated her greed. I tolerated her spoiling Zhaoyu. But she dared to sever the bond between father and child? She dared to use my name to terrorize my own blood?"
He released Ji'an and stepped back. He looked toward the door, toward the direction of the Main Courtyard.
"Father," Ji'an said, wiping her eyes. "She is still the daughter of the Minister of Rites. Her family has power in the court."
General Lin scoffed. It was a sound of pure arrogance.
"The Minister of Rites?" he sneered. "He is a man who arranges seating charts for banquets. I am the man who holds the border. The Emperor sleeps soundly because I exist. Do not worry about politics, my son."
He placed a hand on the hilt of his sword.
"Go to the Sect. Cultivate. Become strong. When you return... the Lin Mansion will be clean. I will peel away her power layer by layer. She wanted to isolate you? I will show her what true isolation feels like."
Ji'an left the study feeling ten pounds lighter. The air outside was cool and fresh.
The binding was gone. The misunderstanding was gone. And she had just handed the Villainess over to a raid boss who was currently in a state of berserk rage.
Madam Lin thought she was playing a harem intrigue game. General Lin was playing Dynasty Warriors. It wasn't even going to be a fight.
"Young Master."
Xie Wangchen stepped out of the shadows the moment she exited the hallway. He scanned her face, looking for distress, for tears.
"I'm fine," Ji'an said, giving him a brilliant smile. She reached up and touched the spot on her chest where the jade locket now lived inside her. "Better than fine. I feel... free."