Master, Your Salted Fish Has Arrived - Chapter 56
Upon entering the forbidden palace, the black snake instinctively shrank. Its girth narrowed until its waist was barely as thick as a person’s torso—small enough to slither freely through the palace corridors. Only then did Shi Yan find space to wriggle free from between its teeth, though half her body still dangled from the creature’s maw, tossed and spun until her head swam.
The snake could not care less about its master’s curses; it was ecstatic, wagging its tail like a pleased hound. With a wet little “ptooey” it spat her out onto the polished floor.
“Hiss hiss—” the beast announced proudly. It was presenting a prize.
Sima Jiao blinked as if the meaning eluded him. Shi Yan rolled, sat up, and stood before him utterly bewildered. For a full ten minutes they regarded one another in silence.
Who are you? The question flashed in Shi Yan’s mind and, at the same moment, an uneasy realization dawned: this black snake was Sima Jiao’s companion; the man who scolded it so casually must be its master.
Where was the hulking, blue-faced, fang-toothed giant she had expected? Sima Jiao in front of her was… a pretty face. A disturbingly pretty face.
No—she tried to correct herself—this could not be right. The original Shi Yan had been his lover. If this was truly Sima Jiao, and if he recognized the face that now wore Shi Yan’s body… what then? Panic and absurdity tangled in her head. Had he already realized who she was? Had he recognized her at a glance?
Brought here, delivered to his doorstep—she felt like a parcel misdelivered by fate.
Should she perform a tearful reunion, eyes brimming with faux memory-laden sorrow? Or claim amnesia—an old, convenient ruse? Both options mocked her poor acting skills. And Sima Jiao did not look the sort one fooled by flattery. He looked like someone who would notice the smallest lie.
Her heart hammered until she could no longer keep the nervousness up. She froze, wide-eyed and rooted to the spot.
After his own long appraisal, Sima Jiao finally moved. His voice was low, roughened by whatever had been in his throat. “Come here.”
Shi Yan did not move.
He did not scold her. His earlier frown eased as if by habit. He stepped across the floor and picked her up in his arms.
Shi Yan’s mind went blank. Protest should have come naturally—she should have struggled—but her body delayed, then yielded. That stillness, she convinced herself, was a survival tactic: be like a corpse; don’t make sudden moves.
He held her with an intimacy that made her core tighten. One hand cradled the back of her head, pressing her cheek to his neck.
The instructions her adoptive father had drilled into her rose up like an old hymn: if you see Sima Jiao, kill him without hesitation.
He was here, at her mercy’s reach—his neck unguarded. It should have been straightforward.
Yet as his breath warmed her hair, an odd, dry scent drifted to her nose and a wave of drowsiness washed over her. Her muscles sagged. The fatigue that crushed her was unlike any she had known since she arrived in this world—deeper than exhaustion, heavy as sleep after three sleepless nights.
Some drug, she thought vaguely.
“If you want to sleep, then sleep.” Sima Jiao’s cheek rubbed against her hair. A cold palm pressed the back of her neck and stroked down her spine with a practiced, soothing motion.
Her head tipped. She surrendered to the heaviness and fell asleep in his arms.
She woke still cradled against him, in an even closer embrace: her head tucked under his arm, her legs covered by the sweep of his sleeve. The snake swayed nearby; Sima Jiao nimbly kicked its head away, then pushed it out through a wide open window.
“Get out.” He pointed.
The great beast recoiled, pitiful and obedient.
Everything about the scene felt unnervingly domestic—like a lover soothing an excitable pet. For a moment Shi Yan’s blurred mind registered an odd flicker of déjà vu, as if she had been here before. Then the alarm bells rang.
None of this was right.
Why had she fallen asleep so easily in the arms of a handsome stranger? Where had her hard-won vigilance gone? This was the very body that had nightmares after killing—yet tonight a single touch ushered in an instant, dreamless slumber. She suspected, correctly, that Sima Jiao had drugged her.
His hand framed her chin as she blinked awake. “Why so dazed? Sleep well?”
The tone was familiar—soft where it should be fierce, intimate where it should be distant. Panic fluttered under her ribs. No—I am not his girlfriend, she told herself.
“Since you’ve rested, let’s talk.” His words were calm, but the intent behind them was sharp.
“Talk?” she thought.
“Where have you been all these years?” he asked.
Shi Yan’s mouth moved of its own accord, answering with a hollow truth: “In Crane Immortal City.”
Was she under a truth-compelling spell? The words spilled out, unbidden.
“Was it the Shi family who took you? Is Shi Qianlü with you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you return to me?”
“I don’t know you. I don’t know why I should return.”
Three questions and Sima Jiao had drawn a map through the years.
He had made a terrible scene searching for Liao Tingyan—had hunted until even a shattered soul would not have escaped him. Finding nothing, he’d turned his anger upon the Shi family, destroying their mansion and following threads that led him to the Demon Realm. He toppled the demon lord who had once handed Liao Tingyan over; he seized cities, crushed those who cooperated. He chased the Shi survivors like a storm.
So when Shi Qianlü hid Liao Tingyan—brainwashing her into a different life—Sima Jiao had felt the theft. Now, seeing the woman who called Shi Qianlü “father,” he read the truth like a wound.
His face darkened. He pulled her closer and the anger shifted—less murderous, more wounded. “Stupid,” he muttered. “Do you believe whatever that old bastard says? He claims to be your father—worthy?” He pinched her chin. “You are Liao Tingyan. That old Shi only wanted to use you against me. Next time I catch him, I’ll make him bow to you as a grandson.”
Shi Yan blinked. The plot twists piled up too fast. She could not grasp whether she was the actor or the prop. This was no longer her story—Zhou Yan’s hands were shaking at the edges of another’s script.
Sima Jiao’s anger curdled into something fierce and personal. He clicked his tongue, swept a fallen lock of hair from her forehead, and—unexpectedly—kissed the spot tenderly. His voice, when he spoke, was a low rasp that made her spine go cold. “When I catch him, I’ll grind his body and soul to powder—bit by bit—so you can vent your hatred.”
“Wait!” she blurted.
He shifted, suddenly watchful. “What? You don’t want him dead? You don’t believe me?”
It felt as if the wrong answer might detonate him. Facing that single intolerant expression, something in Shi Yan’s fear-response misfired; she could not summon terror. Her voice, small and uncertain, came out: “I don’t know who’s telling the truth.”
Sima Jiao remembered how she had nightmares after killing. “Don’t worry. I’ll handle it. I won’t force you. I know what frightens you.” He drew her tighter and patted her back like a man comforting a child.
Pinned to his chest, Shi Yan imagined the life of the original: a fragile, peace-loving girl who begged lovers to spare violence—“Promise you won’t kill,” she could hear Liao Tingyan’s imagined plea. In her head she staged melodramas of love and wrath—him and her at odds in pouring rain, ultimatums shouted, tragedy striking—until she found herself staring at Sima Jiao’s face and realizing the fantasy had turned to awkward reality.
He was no longer fuming. His expression had become blank and intent. He lifted his hand and hovered it before her face, making a vague grasping motion.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Extracting all the messy thoughts from your mind,” he said. So the old man had tried to overwrite her—brainwash her into hatred—and Sima Jiao could peel those false memories away like bandages.
He tightened his hold and asked with quiet hurt, “Would you follow Shi Qianlü and kill me?”
“No. No.” The answer was reflexive.
He snorted, a brittle laugh. “You don’t believe them then. They want you to be the weapon—why would you want it?” He stroked her cheek. The smile never reached his eyes.
“Because I have no grievance,” Shi Yan found herself saying. The truth—partial and raw—slipped out. The resentment belonged to the Shi clan, not to her. The rituals used upon her had erased only memories since she arrived here; they could not touch the life she had lived before this body. She was not the blank slate they’d hoped for.
Sima Jiao’s expression softened by a fraction, though the simmering dark in him remained. “You don’t believe it now? Fine. When I catch Shi Qianlü, I’ll make him tell you himself.”