The emperor's voice was a thunderclap.
"JIANG YOUEN!""Xi Jia is dead?" he demanded, fury making the throne room tremble. The news of the Song household's destruction had already spread like wildfire; the sight of the grieving general on his knees only made the court stiller.
Jiang Youen, pallid and shaking, bowed his head. "My lord… they broke our pact. They poisoned my wife, then tried to cover it with slander. My daughter—Xi Youran—has vanished. I kept it secret because… I feared for her safety." His voice cracked and the general collapsed in a tidal wave of guilt.
Emperor Zhang rose. "We will hunt the guilty," he vowed. "Return to your house and bury your wife. The Song clan will be dealt with." His hand tapped the table and a eunuch rushed forward; the sentence was swift and merciless.
By nightfall the edict fell: the Song mansion was razed, its survivors declared traitors. Rumor and rumor's echo fed one another—traitor, foreign spy, poisoner. The palace swallowed the story and spat out retribution.
A Princess in Blue
In a private suite, the false Yuan princess paced in a pale blue gown, nails biting at the silk. "This isn't the plot I wanted," she muttered. Her fingers left crescent moons in the fabric as she whispered to herself: "Xi Youran must have been involved… but she's gone. Impossible." Panic touched her voice; she had prepared for cunning, not for this public purge.
She had spent months weaving herself into the palace's tapestry. Now the threads were being yanked too fast.
A Red Shadow at a Grave
Outside the capital, at a small graveyard veiled in rain, a woman in red stood before a newly-dug mound, fingers bleeding from clenched fists.
"As I thought… someone took her body," she said into the wind. "If the Soul Clan has her, I will rip their souls apart." Her eyes were storm-cold. Then she vanished like a flame swallowed by night.
No one in the capital knew that more than one pair of hands sought vengeance. Many masks wore many faces.
JianZi's Trap Tightens
JianZi did not wait. The ball had exposed the princess's weakness — a crack in her poise. Now he set a second stage: a public commemorative ceremony with invited envoys and a staged "diplomatic dispute."
Carefully, he planted—under the watchful eyes of his network—an envoy who would attempt to deliver a secret note to the princess. Instead of secrecy, the note was a signal: a counterfeit dispatch suggesting a midnight meeting at the east tower, where the princess would be forced to reveal her hand.
"Let her come," JianZi murmured to Cai Xiao. "If she moves to stop exposure, we will have proof. If she flees, we have her fear."
Cai Xiao melted into the shadows, the net cast. This time the palace would see her true reaction.
A Near Encounter — Two Paths Cross
Far from the capital, in the rough foothills, a dark carriage rolled toward the mountain road. JianZi had followed a slender trail of Soul Clan sigils and couriers' mistakes; he believed the fugitives or informants might be near.
In the same hills, Xi Youran trained.
She was no longer the frightened girl who had carried a beast in her arms. She moved with a new, dangerous grace: alchemy porned into strikes, Qi and explosive essence braided together. Her hands, soot-stained and trembling, formed the final signs for a technique no one but her and Grandpa Yan had ever practiced.
They came within two breaths of each other that night. JianZi's scouts saw a flicker—an odd alchemical flare, then silence. JianZi slowed his carriage and felt it like a chord struck in the dark: a familiar resonance, a thread he remembered from old reports. "Someone is here," he said softly. He almost dismounted. He almost called out her name.
But the mountain swallowed the sound. She moved on, and he was left with a scent of smoke and a note of ember on the wind. Their paths had nearly crossed. Fate drew lines that would intersect… soon.
Xi Youran's High‑Risk Breakthrough
The golden scroll — the one with the thorn that had bled from Xi Youran's finger — had been the key. Inside it lay a forbidden formula: "Phoenix Core Synthesis" — a high‑risk alchemical technique that converted part of a cultivator's soul‑fragment into stabilizing essence, temporarily binding unstable Qi and granting extraordinary output. But the bargain was brutal: the soul fragment used was burned and could never be fully reclaimed.
Grandpa Yan had warned: use only when the end is near.
The Soul Clan returned—this time, a small hunting party led by a scout who smelled of old graves. They struck with silent blades, each strike meant to harvest a life.
Xi Youran fought. The fight was brutal and close; the scout's shadow‑blade shredded the air and came within a breath of her throat. Her body ached and her spirits trembled, but she set her palm upon the golden scroll and traced the final runes.
"Forgive me," she whispered to Hui and to Mu Fei.
She invoked the Phoenix Core Synthesis.
For a thunderous second, the world convulsed. The unstable Qi flaring through her chest turned into brilliant threads of white‑gold. The phantom claws flared to full bloom — long, razor blue with ember tips. Her alchemical bombs sang with crystalline harmony. The scout's black armor popped under the sequence: a cage of flame, a rain of essence shards, and a final, blinding strike.
Silence.
When the smoke cleared, Xi Youran was on her knees, body shaking with the cost. Her eyes were brighter and deeper, but something in her gaze had been carved away — a small hollow where the used soul fragment had been. It was subtle, almost invisible, but it was real.
She had won. She had stabilized a portion of her Qi and learned to wield Hui's techniques as her own. But the price hung like a shadow at her shoulder.
Aftershocks
In the capital, rumor spread. The princess's composure cracked further; she reacted to JianZi's net, striking at his planted envoy with a violent burst that nearly exposed her Soul Clan ties. The court gasped. JianZi held his expression like stone.
At the mountain, Xi Youran gathered herself, the golden scroll clasped in bleeding fingers. Hui's echo cooed like wind in a distant cave — a small comfort. She whispered: "I won't abuse this power. Not yet."
She knew two truths now: high‑rank alchemy could save her, and it could steal from her. The Soul Clan's pursuit had only grown hungrier.
And in the capital, JianZi prepared the next stage of his trap. The princess was wobbling. TianZi grew increasingly erratic in politics. The chessboard had shifted—and the players had finally noticed.