“Then I’ll start with his daughter first…” Jared told his plan. “Senior, she almost never leaves the manor, and strangers can’t get near her. How will you reach her?” Lyza’s brow furrowed; the question hung between them.
“I can take Quentin’s shape, walk into Jade Immortal Manor, then look for a window to approach Rania.”
Hearing that idea, the room went still; even Luther’s ever-cold eyes widened. Posing as Quentin inside the manor’s heart and dancing around the Manor Lord’s darling—one wrong note and everything burned. The proposal was both breathtakingly bold and razor-thin on margin. If he slipped while wearing Quentin’s face in the manor’s core, no rescue would reach him.
“Senior, this… This is far too reckless!” Lyza blurted, her voice cracking under the weight of alarm. She stepped closer, speaking fast. “Quentin is Grand Chamberlain of the inner court. He deals with people all day, and plenty know every quirk he has.
You can copy his face and aura, sure, but the tiny habits, the way he files reports, even who he greets first—any of that could give you away. And Rania…”
Lyza paused, lowered her tone. “Julian’s only daughter may look carefree, yet her talent is frightening. Her mind is sharp as a blade… She knows music, arrays, old texts. Folks in the manor respect her. If you approach her as Quentin and she senses a flaw…”
Luther rumbled, “Mr. Chance, Lyza is right. Slipping into the enemy’s nest while wearing a high-rank mask is a desperate play… Julian stands at seventh-grade Upper Immortal. His divine sense is razor-keen. One hint that something is off and we’re finished. Let’s rethink this.”
Jared stayed unruffled, as if every danger they named had already run through his mind a dozen times. “Danger is real,” he admitted. “But this is still the best route to Julian, the Soul-Refining Crystal, and whatever secret the celestials are hiding… Breaking in by force would tip the whole manor and warn the celestials. Our chances of winning head-on are near zero.”
He glanced at the limp, half-conscious Quentin on the floor, eyes cold. “And who said I need a perfect imitation?”
Quentin heard that and despair flickered inside his clouded gaze. Jared walked to him, crouched, and asked softly, “Quentin, do you fear death?”
A rasp scraped out of Quentin’s throat. He tried to beg, but his chaos-scarred body no longer obeyed. Jared laid a palm on the man’s crown. “Your memories, your reflexes, everything you are… I’ll borrow them.”
The words fell, and a surge of purer, vaster chaotic force, laced with Jared’s overwhelming mind, flooded into Quentin’s shattered sea of consciousness. Soulsearch Technique—among cultivators it was one of the harshest acts, tearing memories by force; the victim often ended as a simpleton, sometimes as drifting ash.
Quentin’s limbs jerked uncontrollably. His eyes rolled white, a guttural croak spilling while pain twisted every feature beyond recognition. Jared closed his own eyes, weaving through the torrent like a master loom, sorting, stripping, absorbing the tangled scraps that made up Quentin’s life.
He saw the man’s climb from obscurity, Julian’s favor, and the dirty errands that bought him power inside Jade Immortal Manor. Blueprints of the manor, guesses about Julian’s moods, names tied to each inner hall—everything flickered past. Workflows, signing habits, even the petty phrases Quentin muttered when nervous flowed in with equal clarity.
The flood kept coming, roaring into Jared’s mind. Were his spirit any weaker, the raw intake would have torn his thoughts apart or smeared them with Quentin’s residue. Soulsearch could not reach the deepest vaults of memory; it skimmed surface use. That limit stayed in place here. And each dive risked the searcher. One slip, and borrowed fragments could overwrite the self.
Moments later Jared lifted his hand. Quentin quit shaking, slumped, eyes empty, drool threading from slack lips. Nothing living remained behind them. His soul had shattered under chaos and the Soulsearch storm.
“Dust to dust, earth to earth…” Jared murmured the words. Gray light pulsed from his palm, and Quentin’s body crumbled into nothing, leaving not the slightest trace.
When the last mote vanished, Jared’s own form began to shift. He stretched a little taller, facial planes wavered like water, re-forming into Quentin’s lean, hawk-like features. His clothes morphed, dark green brocade settling just as Quentin’s usual robe, every thread matching. The aura around him sank, cold and deep, hovering at fifth-grade Upper Immortal, exactly what Quentin used to display. Even his eyes narrowed, carrying that weighing, calculating glint and a faint, proud stiffness in the spine.
In the span of a few breaths, Jared had become another Quentin. Face, aura, cultivation ripple—no difference a passerby could name. Lyza and Luther stared, mouths parted, utterly stunned by the flawless disguise.
Lyza’s breath caught. In the dim lamplight her pupils tightened, tracking every subtle ripple that finished sliding across Jared’s borrowed skin. A heartbeat ago he had still looked like himself.
Now the narrow face, the hollow cheeks, even the faint chill that rode the man’s spiritual pressure belonged entirely to Quentin. For anyone to shift features and aura this fast, down to the barely-there hitch in Quentin’s exhale, felt unreal. Lyza’s shoulders prickled as if she were standing next to witch-fire.
Jared caught the way her pulse hammered at her throat and let the silence stretch. Perfecting the mask had taken more than spellcraft. Every twist of muscle, every hidden meridian had answered his will without resistance—a blunt reminder of how deeply the path of change already lived in his bones. Power and precision, fused until nothing slipped.
“S-Senior…” Lyza’s voice came out small. The rest of the sentence fell away because no words seemed large enough for what she had just witnessed.
Jared let Quentin’s rasp roll from his stolen vocal cords. “I’ve skimmed most of his memories. Not flawless, but good enough for doorways and ledgers.” The tone scraped like gravel, exactly the shade of fatigue and distrust others expected from the Grand Chamberlain. Still wearing that borrowed roughness, he added, “Luther, bring the two guards in.”
Luther inclined his head once and slipped into the corridor, boots soundless against stone. Jared used the brief lull to replay a choice made earlier. He had kept those guards alive for this precise moment, gambling they would serve better as camouflage than corpses.
Moving through Jade Immortal Manor as Quentin without his shadows would draw questions. With them at his back, no one would look twice.
