Meet
Returning home. The moment Yue Lan closed her apartment door, the voices returned.
< So is this how your life goes?normally?> Hye Won asked in her mind.
< Tell me, what are you? Like are there beings like you around? I don't trust people easily...God exists? Which pantheon are you from? you are here to guide me right? So what is going to happen?>
Yue Lan bombarded her with questions as she went onto make a coffee.
<Whoa, slow down!> Hye laughed. <One crisis at a time!>
Han's voice sounded. <We're temporal observers. Here to prevent...unintended branches in reality.>
< Are you like, here to secretly destroy humanity or something?> Yue Lan questioned suspiciously.
...
<Why me?> Yue Lan's fingers brushed her hidden mark. <What makes me special to reveal all this?>
< Well, you were sort of like the catalyst for a person destined to cross this reality barrier... But that already happened. But as a result some others came in interfering with loops of closed timelines branching them off. The new Qin Jianwei was one such individual.>
Yue Lan's brow furrowed. <I don't understand.>
<I'd be shocked if you did,> Han admitted.
(Are you just spouting nonsense?) Hye's private thought-voice carried clear disapproval. ( Aren't you the one who said you would reveal as spirits? )
...
<Simpler version?> Han continued. <You got randomly selected. Follow our advice, you get a normal life. Excel, maybe some bonuses.>
Yue Lan made herself comfortable in her sofa, with a glass of hot coffee ready to hear exciting details about this new entities living in her head, unknown to entire earth. < Then, for me, what danger were you talking about earlier today?>
<Picture this,> Han paused.
<***!> Hye's voice raised <Have some tact!>
The coffee cup clattered as Yue Lan's hands trembled. A long minute passed before she whispered: <When?>
<Original timeline? Two months, one day, twelve hours...> Han's voice trailed off. <But with all the changes? Could happen tomorrow. Could never happen.>
<Why would my family—..... and who did I marry off to? >
<Your family's abandonment...> A pause. <...was not conspiracy but convenience. No one engineered your accident. It happened at a precisely bad time for you. They simply harvested the opportunity when the old patriarch died which lead to a sort of wealth and power aggregation from two people namely Yue Ming and his father. >
He continued after letting it sink in.
Your marriage contract served two purposes: access to some technologies and research...and removing a liability. The other family orphan they bound you to...> A heartbeat's hesitation. <...was himself a discarded piece on their board, just like you after taking away the value.>
(.....It's okay. We will change it) Hye Won said to him in private.
Hye gasped. <Wow, that's a lot. You never told me half this!>
Yue Lan's voice turned razor-sharp. <Who was my husband? why not mention his family also? >
(That's why we didn't tell her,) Hye thought privately.
<Classified,> Han said smoothly.
<By whom? God?>
<No.> Amusement colored his tone. <By the girl here.>
<Ahem!> Hye jumped in. <For your... personal development!>
(You jerk!) Hye's private thought slipped through.
Yue Lan's nails dug into the sofa. <If I save my grandfather—>
< No...there's nothing that's humanly possible that could save him from that death. It is a fixed event as he cannot be saved by existing technologies.>
< Unless,....we will be back later Yue, good bye.> Hye Won silenced Han Chen as they returned back.
...
Returning Home
The sounds of the campus faded behind them as they walked towards their rented house, the mental link with Yue Lan severed. The evening air was cool.
" Why? leave...do you plan to intervene? "
Hye Won practically bounced on the balls of her feet. "Han Chen, come on! Look at us – lectures, studying, eating, sleeping. That's our life for the next two years unless we do something! This is... well, it's a pulse! A real problem we might actually be able to fix. Imagine it! You swoop in, the mysterious expert..."
He ran a hand through his hair, a gesture without any grace of an expert he is, "Swooping attracts attention, Hye Won. And 'experts' get investigated. I've got my parents to save this time around, remember? A quiet life, that was the plan. Staying off the radar."
"Quiet, low profile, I get it! But you're practically no profile now," she countered, waving a dismissive hand. "What's the real risk? We just make it clear to Yue Lan that discretion is paramount. You still have ways... don't you? To enforce the silence?" She tilted her head, knowing his capabilities weren't zero.
" Yeah I can....but if I interfere like that, isn't it better we do everything anonymously without her knowledge? This whole fairy reveal was your idea, Hye Won, I only intent to empower and sense her location, enough tools for her to fight her own battles. This whole intervention... it complicates things."
"Hey, you have been kind enough to freely transfer me knowledge of everything so there's nothing to study. You have lots of cash to spend. And we have lot of time left. No liabilities left. So ....you now make me lazy and so I want some adventure in life...Let's use it! Just this once?"
Han Chen let out a slow breath, a sigh "Okay," he conceded, "Let's entertain the idea. How? How do we possibly introduce ourselves? We're just university students on paper. How do we justify having a 'solution'? Anyone with half a brain, especially someone like Yue Lan, would dig into our identities so fast we wouldn't even see the shovel."
He shook his head. "The cover story is the first mountain to climb, and it's a steep one or are we going to enforce silence on that too? She may feel like a puppet, and I am telling you, I have some past experience with this. Mortal minds are more delicate than you think, Hye Won. Tamper too much, and they can fracture in ways you don't expect."
"Right, right, no mind games," Hye Won conceded quickly, shifting tactics. "So... what if we don't go as us? Disguises?"
"Disguises?" Han Chen echoed, skeptical. "And how does she connect these disguised strangers to the voices in her head? Or to us, eventually? It just adds another layer of questions."
"We introduce the 'experts' through the mental link first. Build up the idea. Then figure out the meeting?"
"So we're juggling our normal lives, plus these elaborate 'expert' personas remotely, plus whatever happens when she inevitably wants to meet face-to-face?" He sighed again. "Hye Won, you'll mess it up. Besides that's the kind of intricate scheming I'm trying to avoid this time around. It's exhausting, prone to logical error," – he gave her a wry look – "and frankly, it muddies the waters for my cultivation state of mind. Maintaining that kind of constant deception while having strength... it disrupts the clarity I need right now. There has to be a simpler way than building a house of cards."
"Simpler?" Hye Won sounded a bit deflated. "What's simpler than hiding?"
"Being... selectively honest," Han Chen said thoughtfully. "We go in person. Hear me out," he added quickly as she started to protest. "Not as Han Chen and Hye Won, the students. At least, not at first. What if... the 'guardian spirits' she's already talking to, need a more stable way to interact? What if they temporarily manifest using physical forms... forms that just borrowed? We establish that connection – spirits in borrowed vessels. Then, maybe later, the 'manifestation' ends, leaving... us. It bridges the gap."
Hye Won blinked. "Manifest... using bodies of us? Won't she freak out? Think we've been possessed or something?"
"Come on, its already beyond scary point if she can hear voices in head. We make it clear upfront," Han Chen clarified.
"A controlled projection. Temporary. No harm to the 'originals'. Just the spirits needing a physical anchor to help directly. It frames us as vessels, not the source...."
" But I would be useless then. " She was dejected again. " Don't worry you will breakthrough transform Jin soon." He consoled as they reached his rented apartment.