"Teacher, I can't make sense of it. Why gift that boy dragon blood before we left?"
Inside the carriage, Holy Son Huang Yan asked with knitted brows — one large hand busy all the while, pressing down on a fawning woman's head.
"Hah—"
The Fourth Enshrined Elder's eyes narrowed in lazy contentment. "You know perfectly well it was Grudge Dragon Poison. Why ask? If that boy dares drink it, he dies. No question."
"He'll swallow the 'treasure' this Elder so graciously bestowed, sweet as honey going down — and at the end, in shrieking agony, his body will burst apart with a lovely little pop."
Huang Yan's eyes were pure disdain. "If he displeased you, Teacher, one backhand would have settled it. Peasant lives are worthless — why waste a whole vial of Grudge Dragon Poison? He doesn't rate it."
"What do you understand?" The Fourth Enshrined Elder shook his head. "Yan'er, in talent, the men who can match you in this world are few indeed. In scheming, your fire is nowhere near ready."
"He's one peasant piece of trash. If he offends the eye, kill him. What of it?" Huang Yan remained unmoved.
"Muddle-headed boy!" The Elder glared. "Killing one peasant is easy. Then what of the others — kill them too, or not?"
"Leave the rest alive, and the Female Pontiff may well learn that we took it upon ourselves to murder a soul master who had just awakened twin martial souls. She would have to pursue it. You know as well as I do — that Pontiff of ours cares about peasant lives above all things."
"Kill them all, wipe the village clean, and the Temple must investigate. The branch hall knows we passed through here. Trouble either way."
"Gift him the dragon blood, though — and we display our mercy and generosity before the peasants, while removing him without a sound. Is that not beautiful?"
Huang Yan pressed, uncomprehending, "But the boy is an ant who awakened trash souls. He'll never amount to anything. Let him drag out his little life — what possible difference could it make? Why does he merit your attention at all?"
The Fourth Enshrined Elder laughed coldly.
"And how do you know today's ant won't meet some singular fortune and rise into a power that shakes the world?"
"That boy carries himself like a young dragon, and those 'trash' souls of his have something strange about them. With that kind, removing them early — cutting the weed before it roots — is the intelligent play. Why leave your future a mess to clean?"
"HIM? He rates that?" Huang Yan burst out laughing and wiped tears from his eyes. "Teacher, you vastly overestimate these mountain rustics, hahaha."
"I, Huang Yan, am of illustrious birth and matchless gift. In time I will stand invincible beneath the heavens, and roll flat every ox-ghost and snake-god that crawls."
"One little villager — base, talentless, powerless. What kind of 'figure' could he ever amount to?"
The Fourth Enshrined Elder shook his head and offered counsel. "Yan'er. Your mouth may despise your enemies. Your heart must weigh every one of them."
"Truth be told, that boy was just barely worth taking as a disciple — pour enough resources in and a comeback wasn't impossible. But you are not only my disciple, you are my son. Why would I spend resources meant for you on raising someone else's child?"
"Yet neither could I stomach him falling into other hands — the Pontiff's faction least of all. One vial of Grudge Dragon Poison solves it cleanly. Nothing better."
Huang Yan shook his head, the arrogance in his eyes not one shade dimmer — sharper, if anything.
"You've grown old, Teacher. Cautious past the point of sense."
"A pity the brat is probably already wailing himself to pieces under the poison. Otherwise, one day I'd have burst him with my own hands — and proven today's carefulness wasted."
The Fourth Enshrined Elder smiled bitterly.
"You aim for the Pontiff's throne. That takes strength AND scheming — neither alone will do. That Pontiff bitch is iron-blooded and brilliant. She will not be easily dealt with."
A domineering, wicked smile spread over Huang Yan's face.
"The Holy Maiden will be conquered and in my hands soon enough."
"The Pontiff?"
"Heh. She won't escape either. Only women like THAT are worthy of me."
"Behave yourself!"
Huang Yan pressed his hand down hard and closed his eyes. The Fourth Enshrined Elder did likewise.
BOOM!
A heaven-shaking blast came out of nowhere — Huang Yan and the Elder jolted in terror.
In the next second, raging energy engulfed the carriage whole. It disintegrated mid-motion and blew apart.
Splinters and gemstones lanced in every direction. Smoke and dust boiled out from the wreck at the center, and a small mushroom cloud climbed lazily over the road.
"BOOM!"
The Fourth Enshrined Elder burst from the smoke, scorched black and wretched, dragging a Huang Yan with one foot in the grave — eyes straining from their sockets with rage as he wheeled, searching.
"WHO! Who DARES!"
"A pity. The blast didn't kill you, old dog — nor your dog of a son."
With the frost-cold voice, a scorching, sinuous figure resolved upon the empty air.
White fox-fur wrapped a body of lush curves; long flawless legs ended in bare jade feet, golden bells at the ankles; nine snow-white fox tails fanned out behind her. A face of calamity-grade beauty, bewitching to the bone — and blue eyes glacial with killing intent.
"A nine-tailed heavenly fox."
"You — the Empress of Qingqiu? We have no grievance, no feud, and you dare strike at a Temple Enshrined Elder? You COURT DEATH!"
"BOOM!"
The Fourth Enshrined Elder's fury lifted the hair from his scalp. Fire towered at his back, and a twelve-winged angel wreathed all in red manifested behind him.
Beneath the angel's feet pulsed nine mighty rings of light, each a different color, breathing an aura deep as the abyss.
"'No grievance, no feud.' Well said."
The Empress was frost itself, murder rolling off her in waves.
She was, of course, Su Jiu'er — who had learned the dragon blood was poison, found the scheming against her little man impossible to swallow, and left Cloud Village to hunt them down across a thousand li.
She didn't wait for them to move first. Patience spent, she struck the opening blow herself.
"INSOLENCE!"
Interrupted at the critical juncture, his disciple-son gravely wounded, the Fourth Enshrined Elder howled, head splitting with fury.
"AHHH!"
"Today I butcher you — and your soul rings and soul bones go to my son as spares!!"
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
The battle ignited on the spot. Mountains cracked, earth split, monstrous energies surging.
The Holy Son, already half-dead, felt his life force scattering further with every shockwave.
"Nine-Tailed Empress — this Elder will REMEMBER you!"
Skull fractured, vomiting blood in mouthfuls, the Fourth Enshrined Elder spat curses like a madman — and fled in disarray, hauling the charcoal that had been the Holy Son.
***
The sun sank west; a bright moon took the sky. Cloud Village lay silent in the dark.
Luo Fanchen had cooked with his own hands — a full table of dishes, ready to celebrate today's awakening with the fake little aunt, true little wife, who had been beside him all these years.
But he waited from afternoon into full night, and no one came home. He rewarmed the dishes again and again.
He sat on the doorsill, watching beyond the courtyard, murmuring to himself.
"Where has Auntie Su gone?"
"Surely she hasn't up and left without a word — abandoned her 'useless' little husband?"
He shook his head. Su Jiu'er would never — but the worry crept in anyway. Sixteen years of every day together; her presence beside him was simply the shape of his life now.
Restless, he drew the sheepskin scroll from his robes — the map from this morning.
"One of the nine hidden treasure-lands of the Soul Martial Continent?"
"Holding a great fortune tied to my martial souls??"
Luo Fanchen smiled wryly. The mountains and rivers were drawn clear as anything — and he recognized not one of them. How was he supposed to search?
The common man bears no crime; the jade he carries is his crime.
Besides Su Jiu'er, there was no one he dared show this map. The Pontiff and Holy Maiden had made a fine first impression, but one meeting did not make trust.
"SWISH—"
Air split above the courtyard. A graceful figure dropped inside. Joy flashed across Luo Fanchen's face — he shot to his feet, and even as his heart sang, his mouth was already complaining:
"Where have you been? What took you so long..."
The sentence broke against a cough.
"Cough, cough."
In the moonlight, Su Jiu'er's step faltered — and he could just make out, along the pale lotus-root of her arm, the slash of a blade...
"Little man. You were worried sick, weren't you. I..."
Her blue eyes were dim. She hurried to explain, and another soft cough cut her off halfway.
"Tap-tap-tap—"
At the sight of the wound on her arm, Luo Fanchen's mind went white with a roar.
A whole day's anxious waiting burned off in an instant — blame was the last thing left in him. He crossed the courtyard in a bound and caught her by the shoulders.
He couldn't even imagine it. She was the Demon Empress. Who could have cut her?
"WHO!"
"Who wounded you?"
His face was terrible to look at, his voice low and dark.