Master, Your Salted Fish Has Arrived - Chapter 13
Liao Tingyan thought she would die on the spot—but she didn’t. Instead, after fainting with shock, fragments of someone else’s memories spilled into her mind like broken shards of glass.
The girl in those memories was called Sima E—a carefree, innocent soul who should have lived a peaceful life. Yet she and her twin brother carried the entire weight of the Sima clan, a family teetering on the edge of extinction. Their fate was sealed the moment they were born. The clan could not be allowed to perish; the bloodline had to continue. And so, from her first breath, Sima E grew up in a world where her only destiny was to unite with her brother and bear children.
The Sima clan had long forbidden mingling with outsiders. To them, tainting the Feng Mountain bloodline was a sin beyond forgiveness. Within their family, however, incest was tradition, a necessary sacrifice for purity. Only untainted Feng Mountain blood could feed the Sacred Mountain Fire.
Liao Tingyan glimpsed it—the Sacred Mountain Fire. Not the small, sharp-tongued flame she knew, but a blazing torch, resting atop a red, bowl-sized face, burning brighter than anything she’d ever seen. In this generation, Sima E was the one chosen to nurture it.
She lived in splendor—magnificent palaces, rare treasures, countless attendants. To an outsider, she was the world’s number one princess. But beneath that glittering surface, her life was a cage.
Sima E adored the flame, who appeared to her as a hot-tempered man. He cursed and berated every servant until their ears rang, yet she alone escaped his wrath. He was precious to her, perhaps even beloved. But she could never be with him. There was a barrier no devotion could cross—he could not give her children. And when she came of age, duty demanded she give herself to her brother instead.
The Three Sacred Mountains passed before Liao Tingyan’s eyes—its towering halls, murals of Fuxi and Nüwa, and endless rituals. Daily, Sima E was forced to kneel before that colossal mural and pray, not for herself, but for her clan’s survival. Under this crushing burden, she yielded, bearing a son with her brother.
His name was Sima Jiao.
At that, Liao Tingyan jolted in recognition. So this is the ancestral mother’s story…
But the nightmare did not end. The clan demanded a daughter next, to ensure purity. Yet Sima E could not conceive again. Worse, her twin brother went mad, razing half the mountains before taking his own life. What remained of the memories were jagged and incomplete, but the truth was clear: the family forced her to keep nurturing the Sacred Mountain Fire, and—horrifyingly—wait for her own child to grow, so she could continue the bloodline through him.
At that point, Sima Jiao was only a boy.
Liao Tingyan nearly gagged. You people… how are you this perverted?
Sima E, driven to the brink, tried one desperate night to strangle her son.
“…This clan,” Liao Tingyan whispered in disbelief, “you’re truly insane.”
The memory blurred. She saw Sima E throw herself into the Emerald Pond. The green waters turned blood-red, birthing a massive red lotus as flames swallowed her body, leaving nothing but ashes.
When the vision ended, Liao Tingyan woke trembling. Her head throbbed, her chest felt heavy, and her heart carried too much knowledge it had never asked for. Sometimes ignorance really was a blessing.
And yet, her troubles weren’t over.
Because she was lying in a coffin.
“…Wait. Am I buried alive?!” she panicked.
Her body ached, her limbs felt like stone, and she could barely breathe under the coffin’s weight. She had no strength to shove the lid open.
“Help… help! I’m not dead yet!” Her voice cracked. “Ancestor? Snake? Little flame? Somebody?”
When no one answered, she resorted to nonsense. “I worked hard for the company, bled for the boss… is this my reward?!”
Finally, scraping together the last dregs of strength, she kicked. The lid shifted slightly. Thank heavens it wasn’t nailed shut. Bit by bit, she pushed until daylight spilled through the gap—
—and found Sima Jiao leaning casually beside her coffin, watching her.
“You’re awake,” he said blandly. With one finger, he flicked the heavy lid aside as if it weighed nothing.
“…You bastard!” she wanted to scream. “Is watching someone suffocate in a coffin funny to you?” But then the memory of an infant nearly strangled by his own mother resurfaced. Her anger died in her throat.
Sima Jiao tilted his head, studying her. “Were you just about to curse me?”
The truth buff snapped to life.
“Yes,” she blurted out.
His expression flickered, shadowed and unreadable. Then he said calmly, “Go on. Curse me.”
“…You stupid bastard! Screw you!” she hissed, eyes lifeless. She swore the coffin lid would slam shut again, this time for good.
But instead of killing her, Sima Jiao… laughed. Hard. He leaned against the coffin, shoulders shaking, laughing until the whole box trembled.
“…Are you okay? Did you break something in your head?” Liao Tingyan muttered, deadpan.
When he finally stopped, he simply scooped her up and strode out. The coffin she’d been trapped in was elaborate, carved with dragons and surrounded by eerie candlelight. On the wall loomed the mural of Fuxi and Nüwa, watching silently.
She thought she’d only slept a day, but when they emerged from the central tower, she realized half a month had passed. The ruins had vanished, flattened into empty earth. Only the half-collapsed tower remained, lonely against the horizon.
“…Take a nap, wake up, and the world’s gone upside down,” she muttered.
The great black snake awaited them outside. Sima Jiao stepped onto its tail and climbed onto its back, still carrying her effortlessly.
“Where are we going?” she asked weakly.
“Out of here,” he replied, in unusually good spirits. “We’ve stayed long enough.”
And then, almost casually: “Don’t be afraid. If I wanted you dead, you’d die anywhere. If I didn’t, even if you died, I’d bring you back. Oh, and that flower’s poison is cured.”
“…That was poison?!”
“Otherwise, why do you think you slept for half a month?”
Liao Tingyan nearly choked. She remembered his earlier words—good people produced healing flowers, evil people poisonous ones. By that logic, the flower she picked should’ve been medicine. After all, hadn’t it come from Sima E, who was more victim than villain?
But Sima Jiao just smirked. “I lied. No flower can judge good and evil. Life isn’t black and white.”
She blinked. “Then how does it work?”
“If someone dies peacefully, their pearl blooms a healing flower. If they die in pain and hatred, it becomes poison.”
At that, Liao Tingyan thought of Sima E’s blood-red pond, her agony and despair. She fell silent.
“Why? Did you see who the flower belonged to?” he asked lightly.
But she avoided the question. “Didn’t you say the poison had no cure?”
“Isn’t there always another flower that can cure it?” he replied smoothly.
…So it’s not good versus evil, she realized grimly. It’s a match-three game.
Unbeknownst to her, when she collapsed, Sima Jiao had tested the flowers himself. To him, they were harmless—his Sacred Mountain Fire revealed truth where others saw only chance. He fed her a bitter one, the mark of medicine. And then she’d slept, while he burned half the mountains down in battle and tucked her into the coffin he had once called his bed.
Liao Tingyan didn’t know the details. All she knew was—he had saved her. Should she feel grateful? No, impossible. Wasn’t he the one who poisoned her in the first place? Trash! Utter trash!
As she sulked, she noticed something odd. Her chest felt… heavier. Her hands, smoother. Her legs, longer. She looked down, baffled. “…Why do I feel like I’ve grown prettier?”
Sima Jiao frowned. “What are you thinking?”
“…That my chest suddenly got bigger?”
That was the first time his eyes shifted—straight to her chest.
“….”
“….”
Before she could stop him, his hand casually reached out and squeezed.
“???! What are you doing?!”
“It’s just two lumps of flesh,” he said flatly. “What’s the point of them being bigger?”
Liao Tingyan gave him a dead smile. “…Please, put your hand down before you insult me again.”