The sky was a hard, flat grey — as if the heavens themselves were bracing for violence.
When General Jiang Youen heard the whisper, he didn't think. He ran.
He burst through the lacquered doors of his second wife's chamber like an avalanche.
"I WILL GIVE YOU A MINUTE TO TELL ME WHAT YOU DID TO XI JIA!" he roared, sword drawn, voice shaking with a cold, terrible thing: grief turned to righteous fury.
Song Yian, the pale woman who'd long coveted his attention, staggered back. "W-what are you talking about…?" Her lips trembled. The servants froze, the hall held its breath.
Jiang Youen's hand did not falter. "I will give you another chance — or your entire Song clan will be gone tonight."
Song Yian's knees buckled. Her face went the color of wax. "F-father!" Song Yi screamed, rushing forward — an act of filial terror that dissolved into helpless sobbing.
"SHAMELESS WOMAN! HAVEN'T YOU HAD ENOUGH WITH YOUR DIRTY TRICKS?!" Jiang Youen's voice shattered the room. Servants crowded, gasping. The general's eyes were hollow fire.
"As of today," he spat, "you are not my wife anymore. Don't expect palimony. My Xi Jia's life is irreplaceable."
Song Yian, wild with humiliation, finally snapped. "What else is wrong with me that you never look at me? I have given everything—" Her scream cut off as Jiang Youen's hand struck her hard. The slap echoed.
"You want to know?" he hissed. "I despise your scheming heart. I will wipe the Song clean from the roots."
He left — and the maddening sound of war drums began: the general summoned soldiers, banners raised, men deployed toward the Song clan mansion.
But revenge is a blade that bends in the dark.
Song Yian ran, frantic, packing, scheming for escape. She never reached the gate.
A shadow moved like a cut — precise, whisper-quiet. A cloaked figure slipped into the room and disappeared as quickly as it had come. Mother and daughter were found moments later: throats cleanly sliced, no spray of blood, no struggle. The workmanship was inhuman.
"Only an expert could make such cuts," a senior steward said, voice flat. "They left no mess. Whoever this was—this killer was hired, or belonged to an organization of killers."
Jiang Youen stood over the bodies, numb. Rage and sorrow warred in his chest. "Xi Jia… I am empty without you." He turned slowly and walked into the house that once smelled of her tea and laughter.
Somewhere out of sight, a pale hand closed over a clay pot, and a voice murmured: "Your presence is needed — but not now." The figure melted into the night.
Across the Mountains — Xi Youran's Battle
Rain had not yet stopped when the scouts came again — this time in force. The Soul Clan sent their best: shadow-bladed assassins, smoke-ghosts that moved between trees, and a veteran scout whose darkness tasted of finality.
Xi Youran felt the approach like the first note of a war drum. She did not flee.
You will not take anything more from me.
She moved like water and glass — graceful, dangerous. The high-rank potions she'd learned to craft now left her hands as weapons: alchemical spheres that detonated with the smell of crushed ozone; essence threads that laced shadows into cages; and — most shocking of all — Hui's phantom claws, blazing with white-blue light.
Hui's latent techniques, grafted into her Qi, finally found their outlet. The phantom claws struck with speed that made the Soul Clan scout stagger. Each blow synchronized with an alchemical detonation, channeling unstable Qi into precise bursts. The scouts' dark armor shattered; their seals burned.
One scout lunged with a black whip. Xi Youran danced through its arc and slammed a potion into the earth. The ground erupted in a column of incendiary essence that lit the rain with blue-green flame. The scout screamed—a sound that was swallowed by the storm.
Breathless, bleeding, and with her hands trembling, Xi Youran felt it — the first true synthesis of what Grandpa Yan had taught her and what Hui had given: Qi‑Alchemy Fusion. Unstable Qi became a blade, an engine, a shield.
She stood in the silence after the retreat, chest heaving, rain washing the soot from her face. The scouts left mutilated sigils and a single message carved into bark: "We will return."
She picked the bark up and stared at it. This was not over.
JianZi's Trap
Back in the capital, JianZi was ready.
He had fed small, carefully engineered rumors about the princess — staged confidences that would lure her into complacency. A grand ball was announced. The courtyard would be full of nobles; the palace veiled in watchful eyes.
At the ball, JianZi sat like a chessmaster among vipers. He had prepared two hidden contingencies: a decoy carriage and a disguised envoy carrying a forged document implicating the princess in secret communications. The princess, elegant and flawless, arrived — and the bait was set.
Cai Xiao slipped among the attendants, eyes like knives. At JianZi's subtle signal, a minor scene erupted: a staged whisper, a deliberate overheard confession. The princess's pale cheeks did not betray her at first; she laughed, controlled and cold. But then a letter — planted by the envoy — was presented in public, its seal unmistakable.
Gasps. Nobles leaned forward. The princess's face flickered — a micro-expression: shock, then the lightning-quick adoption of a mask. Her smile returned, but JianZi was ready. "Lady Nian," he said quietly as cameras of attention turned, "perhaps you can explain the presence of this messenger at your private parlor last night?"
The court's attention sliced through the ballroom. The princess, cornered, faltered. Her attendants rushed to intercept; her composure cracked at the edges. A single misstep: a guard caught one of her retinues exchanging a hidden token — a Soul Clan hallmark. Murmurs rose like a tide.
JianZi's trap did not unmask her fully that night, but the prince watched, the snare set. Connections were exposed. The princess's hand trembled. She smiled—too wide, too practiced—and the palace began to whisper the name of impostor.
Aftermath
Xi Youran, soaked and still simmering with adrenaline, wrapped the bark message and began to walk the ridge toward the place Grandpa Yan had shown her in the rings.
Jiang Youen, bloodied by grief and paranoia, ordered investigations into the Song assassination, the poisoning, and his household's betrayals. Truth and fiction were knotted tightly together — and someone was pulling the threads.
JianZi read the ballroom's reaction like an open book. The Yuan princess had been prodded. She would make a move; either she would strike back violently, or panic and reveal herself entirely. JianZi had a plan for either possibility.
But far from the capital, Xi Youran clenched her fists and whispered into the storm, "I will not fail. I will find them. I will bring justice."
Hui's essence hummed within her. The phantom claws were only the beginning.
The game of masks, blood, and unquiet souls had become a war. The first moves were made — and the board was set for devastation.