After more than half a month of working overtime around the clock, the Ministry of Justice and the Censorate finally managed to sort out both the Chen family case and the murder of Monk Zhi Ji, which had been joined to it for investigation. They were just about to breathe a sigh of relief when the Magistrate of Zhanghe County arrived in the capital alongside the Jinwu Guards escorting members of the Chen family into custody, carrying with him a blood petition signed by the people of Zhanghe County.
Its pages were mottled with blood, and the crimes recorded within were too numerous to count. Even the Left Censor-in-Chief, who had originally intended to plead for the Chen family and argue for a somewhat lighter punishment, had no choice but to close his mouth.
…
It was once again time for Imperial Physician Shen to renew the needles.
Despite having performed the procedure many times already, Imperial Physician Shen remained extremely cautious each time, placing every needle with exact precision.
After the last needle was inserted, Chen Wen Ju shifted uneasily and suddenly asked, “What day of the month is it?”
Imperial Physician Shen paused slightly before answering with caution, “The ninth day of the eleventh month.”
“I remember the Winter Solstice should be tomorrow.”
Imperial Physician Shen said nothing. The moment he left the prison, however, he immediately reported the exchange to the Censorate.
The entire Censorate went on high alert. They practically chewed those few words to pulp, wringing every last scrap of possible meaning from them before reluctantly reaching a conclusion: something might happen on the Winter Solstice.
It was hardly an unreasonable deduction.
Before Chen Wen Ju had been imprisoned, Consort Dowager Chen was still alive, and the Chen family had not yet fallen to the point where everyone rushed to kick them while they were down. Someone must have warned him in advance. If Chen Wen Ju knew he was about to be arrested, would he really have made no arrangements for his family and martial arts schools?
Even if he had not imagined matters would deteriorate this badly at the time, some days had passed between his detention at the Ministry of Justice prison and his transfer to the Censorate prison. Given Consort Dowager Chen’s extraordinary reach, was it really possible that Chen Wen Ju could not send even a single message outside?
And if he could send messages, would he truly never have considered what he should do if the situation turned against him?
Consort Dowager Chen had not been a fool, and Chen Wen Ju, whom she relied upon so heavily, naturally would not be one either.
Which meant the Winter Solstice could very well be a prearranged date.
Someone objected. “If Chen Wen Ju truly intends to act on the Winter Solstice, why would he ask Imperial Physician Shen about the date? Isn’t he afraid we’ll find out? Even if Imperial Physician Shen kept quiet, the prison guards would have heard him. Perhaps this is merely a smokescreen meant to mislead us.”
Someone else immediately objected to the objection. “Or perhaps Chen Wen Ju calculated that we would think exactly that and deliberately chose to do the opposite!”
The two sides remained deadlocked. Seeing that the Left Censor-in-Chief had yet to state a position, the Right Censor-in-Chief and Right Assistant Censor-in-Chief tacitly chose to remain silent as well. The Left Assistant Censor-in-Chief, however, was straightforward by nature and said bluntly, “Whether it is or isn’t, all we need to do is strengthen the prison defenses and notify the Jinwu Guard to increase surveillance around the martial arts schools.”
Both could be accomplished with a single order.
After everyone else left, the Left Censor-in-Chief stopped the Right Censor-in-Chief. “I know all of you suspect that I belonged to Consort Dowager Chen’s faction, but I can tell you now that I did not.”
The Right Censor-in-Chief turned around and thought for a moment. “Lord Shi, were you trying to counterbalance the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicial Review?”
The Left Censor-in-Chief shook his head. “I was simply afraid.”
The Right Censor-in-Chief frowned. “Afraid of what?”
The Left Censor-in-Chief stepped closer and whispered in a voice only the two of them could hear, “Afraid that fewer and fewer of us old retainers from His Majesty’s princely residence would remain.”
The Right Censor-in-Chief’s expression changed dramatically.
The Left Censor-in-Chief gazed at the sky beyond the window and said mildly, “Counting the days, the grandsons of the Commandery Prince of Pingluo should be arriving in the capital soon.”
When a superior moved his lips, everyone beneath him ran their legs off.
At the Censorate, Fu Xi Yan was one of those unfortunate people at the bottom. Not only because he was responsible for the prison, but also because… he was now publicly acknowledged as the strongest martial artist in the entire Censorate.
His consumption of the Mighty Strength Divine Pills had already reached the emperor’s ears. Since the matter had attracted imperial attention, Fu Fu naturally had to report the result after Fu Xi Yan’s breakthrough.
And so, from the Left Censor-in-Chief at the very top to the prison guards at the very bottom, everyone knew that their Prison Warden had swallowed some medicine and somehow emerged at the late Vajra Stage.
Envy and jealousy naturally abounded, but for the Censorate as a whole, this was practically money falling from the sky. If they could have had their way, they would have kept Fu Xi Yan squatting in the compound day and night simply for the sense of security.
As far as Fu Xi Yan was concerned, however, this particular honor was entirely unnecessary.
Workers in every era hated overtime!
Especially unpaid overtime!
Unfortunately, workers in every era were also helpless before their employers.
The Left Assistant Censor-in-Chief’s order passed down through layer after layer, acquiring additional weight at every level, until the “strongest martial artist” at the very bottom of the Censorate food chain found himself starting night-duty overtime that very evening.
Seeing Fu Xi Yan sitting on the stone steps outside the prison late at night, one of the prison officers hurried over. “My lord, the ground is cold.”
Fu Xi Yan said faintly, “My heart is colder.”
“Is something troubling you, my lord?” The prison officer found a spot beside him and sat down, preparing to offer his superior some heartfelt consolation.
Fu Xi Yan propped his chin on one hand and stared up at the sky. “Nothing much. I was simply looking at tonight’s bright moon and suddenly felt inspired to compose a poem.”
The prison officer immediately perked up. “Then this subordinate is fortunate indeed.”
Fu Xi Yan slowly recited, “The Winter Solstice comes, yet not quite here. Work, overtime, night duty all draw near. One gazes at Heaven; one sighs at his fate.”
The prison officer: “…”
The prison officer underwent an intense ideological struggle over whether he ought to follow his immediate superior in verbally “raising the banner of rebellion,” but Fu Xi Yan spared him the dilemma. He slapped the dust from his backside and stood. “The ground really is cold.”
The prison officer breathed a sigh of relief and was just about to stand when Fu Xi Yan suddenly seized him by the hair and yanked him violently through the doorway.
The prison officer cried out in alarm, clutching his scalp and opening his mouth to shout—only for the sight before him to freeze the sound in his throat. From the vast night sky above, arrows poured down like rain, dense, overwhelming, and seemingly endless, covering the entire Censorate beneath their tightly woven assault.
Fu Xi Yan had still moved half a step too slowly. By the time the arrow storm arrived, both of the prison officer’s legs were still outside the doorway.
Suddenly, two masses of dark-bronze light appeared in midair.
Xiao Sang and Xiao Zhang materialized above them. The arrows struck their skin with a rapid series of metallic clang-clang-clang-clang sounds. Shielded by the two of them and dragged with all of Fu Xi Yan’s strength, the prison officer was hauled through the doorway with his scalp burning. Only after the two men were safely inside did Xiao Sang and Xiao Zhang follow.
The rain of arrows seemed to fall directly from Heaven, unbroken and inexhaustible, sealing the Censorate prison off like an island.
Fu Xi Yan released the prison officer’s hair. The man scrambled upright without even having time to thank him and immediately joined the prison guards in trying to shut the enormous prison doors, which normally stood wide open. The doors were nearly ten feet high, half a foot thick, weighed well over a thousand jin, and were forged entirely from refined steel—one of the Censorate prison’s strongest defensive barriers.
Yet before that barrier could even close, a handful of small round objects rolled through the remaining gap.
Xiao Sang shouted, “Get down!”
Fu Xi Yan had actually seen those things before—the Thunderclap Bombs Lu Rui Chun had tried to use as a final lifesaving measure. That time, however, the bomb had never reached the ground before Xiao Sang caught it inside a silvery-white mesh. After Xiao Sang joined the Fatty Unit, Qi Zhong had taken the net back.
Strictly speaking, then, this was Fu Xi Yan’s first time witnessing the true power of a Thunderclap Bomb.
More than a dozen exploded simultaneously. It was as though over a dozen bolts of thunder had struck the ground at once. The resulting force was so tremendous that the entire prison seemed on the verge of shaking itself apart.
Even Fu Xi Yan, now at the late Vajra Stage and protected by both Xiao Sang and Xiao Zhang, felt his blood surge violently as dizziness and ringing filled his head. The prison guards, whose cultivation was far weaker, fared much worse. Those who were not killed outright by the blast were knocked unconscious by the shockwave.
The smoke-filled prison erupted with anguished cries.
Covering his nose, Fu Xi Yan pushed himself upright and groped around for the people beside him. Xiao Sang sprang to his feet in a single kip-up and stared warily toward the gap in the doorway. Once the arrow storm and Thunderclap Bombs had cleared away the prison guards, the real attackers ought to appear.
To his surprise, however, the third wave was—more Thunderclap Bombs.
Fu Xi Yan grabbed the two nearest injured prison guards and dragged them away, but more screams disappeared beneath the earthshaking explosions.
Xiao Sang climbed up from the floor, spitting dust from his mouth. “Is everyone else in the Censorate dead or something? Cough. Why is there no movement at all?”
Fu Xi Yan checked the prisoners’ pulses and found that both were still alive. As he pulled out two internal medicines and fed them to the injured men, he said, “Whatever we thought of, they thought of too. Find a way out first.”
At a time like this, only Xiao Sang and Xiao Zhang, with their unusual cultivation technique, stood any chance of crossing the encirclement and bringing reinforcements.
Xiao Sang agreed without hesitation. His figure blurred and disappeared from the prison. Xiao Zhang, who had been guarding the opposite side, retreated to Fu Xi Yan’s side.
Fu Xi Yan got up and checked the others. Those closest to the prison entrance hardly needed checking; his attention went mainly to those who could still make a sound. He carried both internal and external medicines on him—supplies Fu Xuan had prepared after Fu Xi Yan became Prison Warden.
He had never been given anything like this while serving in the Yulin Guard. Apparently, in the mind of the Commander of the Yulin Guard, being a Prison Warden was far more dangerous than serving in the Yulin Guard itself.
And wasn’t that the truth?
Fu Xi Yan smiled bitterly to himself.
Comparing his three jobs so far, the Yulin Guard’s daily drills and exercises had practically been child’s play. Truly, people never appreciated their blessings until they had left them behind. Only after entering the jianghu did Fu Xi Yan realize how fortunate he had once been.
He fed oral medicine to several more seriously injured guards and sprinkled external medicine over their wounds, hoping it would help.
Throughout the entire process, he did not ask Xiao Zhang to assist him. The enemy’s true objective had yet to reveal itself, and the attack was not over. One of them had to remain on guard.
The last of the medicine happened to be enough for the prison officer.
Although the man had been near the entrance, his reactions had been quick. Apart from a bruise on his forehead from being knocked around, he was mostly unharmed. Of everyone in the yamen, Fu Xi Yan was closest to him, and seeing him alive allowed Fu Xi Yan to relax slightly. “In a moment, you—”
The Wind Chime inside his robes suddenly shrieked.
Fu Xi Yan instinctively raised his head toward the prison doors.
A palm slammed them open, and five or six black-clad men darted inside. Xiao Zhang casually snatched up a saber lying on the ground and hurled it at the assassin in the center before striking the leader with his palm.
And yet—
the danger Fu Xi Yan sensed was not coming from the doorway.
Concealed by the prison’s dimness, a massive black saber silently extended from the direction of the cells where the prisoners were held, inching toward him little by little.
Some blades in this world were fast, cutting through men as easily as melons. Others were slow—silent, yet with no less murderous intent hidden within them.
At the very instant the blade was about to pierce Fu Xi Yan’s neck, the man holding it could not help sighing inwardly, as though lamenting why such a simple matter had required so much effort that, even at this critical moment between life and death, he still had to waste his time.
Yet the twists of fate often arrived in the final instant before victory fell into one’s grasp.
Fu Xi Yan’s rounded body slid along the saber’s edge like a loach. His fist—now several sizes smaller than it had once been—floated back toward his attacker with deceptive softness. The motion looked almost like a lover playfully pounding someone with a tiny fist, but the instant it connected, a sudden burst of force erupted from within it, carrying a trace of scorching heat.
Even in the freezing night, the attacker involuntarily let out a soft cry as though he had been burned.
Behind Fu Xi Yan, a flash of saber light illuminated half of the attacker’s face—
Chen Wen Ju.
It was nearly midnight.
An hour had already passed since Noble Consort Liu sent an eunuch to urge Emperor Jianhong to retire for the night.
With Consort Dowager Chen dead, Noble Consort Liu now stood unrivaled within the inner palace and had conscientiously taken upon herself the responsibility of supervising the emperor’s daily routine. Unfortunately, Emperor Jianhong showed little appreciation for her gentle solicitude. Recently, he had only been going to bed later and later.
Yanying Hall remained brilliantly lit inside and out.
Reports arrived one after another:
“Wanli Martial Arts School has forced a breakout and engaged the Jinwu Guard.”
“Shenxing Martial Arts School launched a night attack on the Jinwu Guard. Reinforcements have been dispatched.”
“The Censorate has been attacked. Explosions have been heard.”
“Imperial Physician Shen is dead. His severed head was left on a table and has been positively identified.”
…
Emperor Jianhong glanced at Yu Shuang Xi beside him. “We had only just begun investigating Imperial Physician Shen, and now he’s dead—with his head deliberately left behind. That is a rather blatant provocation.”
Yu Shuang Xi remained silent.
Emperor Jianhong continued, “The Prison Warden at the Censorate is that fat son of Count Yongfeng’s, isn’t he? We were the one who gave him the post. Count Yongfeng may be grieving this time.”
The words expressed regret, yet the faint curve at the corner of his lips suggested that he was extremely pleased with what was currently unfolding.
How did Chen Wen Ju get out of his cell?
Hadn’t Imperial Physician Shen sealed his martial arts?
So their chosen date wasn’t the Winter Solstice—but the night before it?
Countless thoughts flashed chaotically through Fu Xi Yan’s mind, but his fists never slowed.
After his first strike failed, Chen Wen Ju hooked the prison officer beside him with one foot, grabbed the back of the man’s collar with one hand, and hoisted him up as a human shield.
Yet Fu Xi Yan’s fist technique was strange. The force of his punch seemed to swim around the prison officer’s body like a fish through water before striking Chen Wen Ju’s shoulder with softness concealing hardness. The scorching true qi appeared to pierce through the skin and seep along the grain of Chen Wen Ju’s muscles, strand by strand.
Chen Wen Ju could even feel a hairline crack forming in his shoulder blade.
What kind of domineering martial art was this?!
Although Chen Wen Ju had not yet used his full strength, being forced into such a state by someone a full cultivation stage below him left him deeply humiliated.
Three short whistles sounded in rapid succession outside.
It was the signal to withdraw immediately.
Chen Wen Ju suddenly swept his right hand in a circle and then reversed his grip, slashing out a blade wind of extraordinary ferocity. Taking advantage of the instant Fu Xi Yan retreated, he lifted the prison officer and shouted, “Move!”
The assassins entangled with Xiao Zhang immediately fell back. As they retreated, they scattered another handful of Thunderclap Bombs.
Fu Xi Yan was standing too close. Retreating now would only send him crashing into the fleeing assassins and straight into the blast zone, so he had no choice but to grit his teeth and follow directly behind Chen Wen Ju.
Amid another earthshaking series of explosions, Chen Wen Ju leaped over the high walls of the Censorate first, with Fu Xi Yan close behind. The instant Fu Xi Yan’s feet touched the ground, Chen Wen Ju spun around and brought his saber crashing down toward his head.
The blow carried the force of ten thousand jun.
And behind Fu Xi Yan were six more blades, all hungry for his life.
People said that in the moment before death, one’s entire life flashed past in an instant.
Fu Xi Yan’s mind, however, was completely blank.
He did not even break out in a single bead of cold sweat.
He stared intently at the black saber descending toward him, pushed his true qi to its absolute limit, and instead of dodging, threw a vicious punch straight at it.
Fist and blade seemed like magnets drawn toward each other. They collided violently in midair with a sharp clang.
Cold moonlight illuminated the point of impact.
Fine cracks spread across Fu Xi Yan’s golden-bronze skin.
By now, the assassins’ blades should have reached him as well.
Six blades.
Six streaks of light.
Like six moons plunging into the darkened street.
In the attackers’ calculations, those blades would carve six wounds through flesh. If they cut deeply enough, they would bury themselves directly inside Fu Xi Yan’s body and pierce his organs.
And yet—
before the blades could finish their descent, bloody holes opened in the assassins’ throats.
Six fountains of blood sprayed across the backs of their blades.
The gleaming steel immediately dimmed.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Six consecutive impacts.
Men and weapons alike collapsed to the ground.
Fu Xi Yan had no idea what had happened behind him, but he felt Chen Wen Ju’s breathing falter for an instant. Fu Xi Yan immediately shifted his fist away from the blade and drove it toward Chen Wen Ju’s weapon hand.
Chen Wen Ju slashed back. When Fu Xi Yan withdrew his hand, Chen Wen Ju flipped the saber and slapped the flat of the blade toward his face, forcing him backward. Then, still clutching the prison officer, Chen Wen Ju fled in the direction of the Western Market.
Fu Xi Yan glanced over his shoulder at the bloody holes in the assassins’ throats.
Pei Yuan Jin is back?
Or did he arrange for another powerful expert to stay behind?
Either way, Fu Xi Yan felt far more confident about continuing the pursuit.
First, he needed to save the hostage.
Second, it was his duty.
As he chased the escaped prisoner, Fu Xi Yan kept hoping they would run into a Jinwu Guard patrol so they could surround Chen Wen Ju and beat him down together. Yet Chen Wen Ju seemed to know the Jinwu Guard’s patrol routes in advance. He fled with extraordinary skill, slipping beneath eaves one moment and vanishing into narrow alleys the next. The two of them somehow failed to encounter anyone else at all.
Near the Western Market, Chen Wen Ju abruptly stopped and turned around.
“Right now is my best chance to escape. Unfortunately…” Still holding the motionless prison officer in one hand, Chen Wen Ju tossed him into the nearby canal and turned to attack Fu Xi Yan. “I have to kill you first.”
Fu Xi Yan twisted rapidly aside, avoiding the saber light. His arm slid against Chen Wen Ju’s, and he was just about to exert force when Chen Wen Ju unleashed the pressure of his superior cultivation stage.
Even though the suppression lasted only an instant, that instant was enough.
Chen Wen Ju reversed his grip and drove the saber into Fu Xi Yan’s back.
The golden-bronze pattern across Fu Xi Yan’s skin shattered. The blade tore through his smooth pale skin and plunged deep into his internal organs.
Agonizing pain overwhelmed every sensation.
Just as Fu Xi Yan was about to lose consciousness, however, the pain vanished like a retreating tide.
The pitch-black saber in Chen Wen Ju’s hand was suddenly violently ejected from Fu Xi Yan’s body, shooting backward and burying itself in the wall behind them.
Had Fu Xi Yan been able to look inside himself at that moment, he would have seen his injured organs repairing themselves at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Chen Wen Ju seemed stunned by the sudden reversal.
Then his expression hardened.
True qi gathered in his right hand, and he struck Fu Xi Yan with a full-powered palm.
Fu Xi Yan suddenly raised his head. Grabbing Chen Wen Ju’s shoulders, he threw himself forward and deliberately allowed the palm to land directly over his true origin.
The true qi contained within that strike surged into Fu Xi Yan like a tidal wave—straight into the true origin that was screaming, ravenously:
Hungry.
Chen Wen Ju’s eyes widened in terror.
Nothing in his understanding of martial arts had prepared him for the existence of someone capable of directly devouring another person’s true qi.
Panicking, he tried to pull his hand away.
He tried to withdraw his true qi.
But it was already too late.
Without Fu Xi Yan doing anything to stop it, his true origin became a vast whirlpool, greedily swallowing this hard-won “delicacy” without the slightest hint of satisfaction.
At first, Chen Wen Ju could still make furious geh-geh sounds in his throat. Then the color of his skin began to dull, his face visibly aged, and the veins on his forehead slowly bulged outward…
And in the distance, the long-awaited sound of footsteps finally approached.
Fu Xi Yan gritted his teeth and forcibly made his true origin disconnect from its “charging cable.”
Then, holding the limp Chen Wen Ju, whose legs could barely support him anymore, Fu Xi Yan jumped into the canal.
The freezing water made both of them jerk violently.
Chen Wen Ju seemed to regain a little clarity and began struggling fiercely.
But Fu Xi Yan knew that now, even if it were not for the sake of avenging his dead colleagues, he had to kill Chen Wen Ju to silence him.
The fact that Fu Xi Yan could absorb another person’s true qi was a secret so dangerous that even Fu Fu and Fu Xuan had never dared speak of it publicly.
How many powerful and wealthy people in this world were unable to cultivate true origin?
If they learned of this secret, then regardless of whether Fu Xi Yan’s unusual ability could actually be taught to anyone else, they would use every method imaginable to get their hands on it.
And then there were the righteous martial factions—Heaven-Earth Mirror, the Immortal Treasury Palace, and others who considered themselves orthodox. A martial art that benefited oneself by harming others would undoubtedly be classified as a demonic art.
When that happened, even Count Yongfeng’s Estate could become a target condemned and hunted by all.
So Chen Wen Ju had to die.
He had to—
die.
Countless reasons for killing him flashed through Fu Xi Yan’s mind.
He told himself that this was simply adapting to local customs, that in a world filled with killing, this was a rule he had no choice but to learn.
Besides, Chen Wen Ju had attacked first.
Fu Xi Yan was only acting in legitimate self-defense.
…
At most, perhaps his self-defense was going to be a little excessive.
Each justification was like another weight added to the scales, pressing him inexorably toward a final farewell to the person he had been in his previous life.
His arm tightened brutally around Chen Wen Ju’s throat until Chen Wen Ju’s struggles gradually ceased—
and his pulse stopped beating.
The water on a winter night was cold.
So cold.
The Jinwu Guards had already reached the canal bank. They had discovered signs of fighting and begun searching the surrounding area.
Fu Xi Yan did not dare surface.
He groped around underwater for a while and found the prison officer’s body.
The man had already died while Chen Wen Ju was holding him hostage.
Fu Xi Yan loosened his grip and allowed the corpse to sink back into the water. Then he quietly surfaced just long enough to take a breath.
The Jinwu Guards had pulled Chen Wen Ju’s saber from the wall and were now leading men toward the canal.
Fu Xi Yan took Chen Wen Ju’s corpse and sank to the bottom.
He could not allow the body to be discovered immediately. If the corpse showed obvious signs of having had its true qi drained away, no coroner would overlook something so strange.
This was the junction of the Yong’an Canal and the Transport Canal. The Transport Canal ended at Jinguang Gate. Following the Yong’an Canal north led toward Jingyao Gate, while heading south brought one near Anhua Gate.
Chen Wen Ju must have fled here because this waterway offered a route out of Haojing.
But which of those three directions had he planned to take?
Fu Xi Yan could not guess.
All he could do was hope his luck held and that he did not swim directly into Chen Wen Ju’s waiting accomplices.
Dragging the corpse with him, he swam blindly through the darkness until he reached a deeper stretch of water. There happened to be a jumble of rocks below.
An idea occurred to him.
He moved the loose stones aside, placed Chen Wen Ju’s body beneath them, then dragged several larger rocks over the corpse to hold it down.
It was obviously a crude solution, but Fu Xi Yan could not afford to waste any more time.
Before dawn, he needed to appear somewhere far away from this place. If the corpse was discovered later, he would at least have some way to distance himself from suspicion.
After confirming that he had left nothing of his own on Chen Wen Ju’s body, Fu Xi Yan followed the current and swam without any particular destination.
He did not want to know exactly where he had buried the corpse.
Nor did he want to know where he himself was going.
He simply remained submerged in the dark water, silently waiting for dawn to arrive.
The first light of day had already appeared in the east.
Beyond Yanxing Gate, a powerful horse was racing across the horizon at full speed.
The city gates had not yet opened.
The guards atop the wall stared at the lone horse and rider hurtling toward the gate as though they meant to crash straight through it.
“Who goes there?!” one shouted.
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, the rider sprang from the horse. In a single leap, he swept over the storm of arrows that roared up from the city walls, landed inside the city—
and vanished in the blink of an eye.
Only his answer remained, carried back on the morning breeze.
“Pei Yuan Jin.”
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