The title of Overlord was a crown of thorns woven from gilded lies. For Su Wan, the days were a meticulously orchestrated performance. She held court, her face a mask of serene authority, her voice echoing the Ancestor's ruthless decrees in the grand audience hall. The Lu Clan elders bowed, their eyes averted, paying homage not to her, but to the terrifying will that animated her. At night, she returned to the Phoenix Chamber, where the weight of the crown was replaced by the more intimate, degrading weight of her Master's possession.
Yet, within the hollowed-out core of her being, a sliver of her original self remained—a shard of compassion that not even the Ancestor's meticulous forging could completely erase. It was this sliver that prompted a rare, hesitant request.
She stood before him in his sanctum, after delivering a report on regional tributes. "The Wang Family," she began, her voice carefully neutral. "Their loyalty has been… consistent. Their medicinal gardens are the finest in the western Luo Region. A visit from their… Overlord… would solidify their fealty and ensure the quality of the spirit herbs they supply for the Citadel's use."
The Ancestor looked up from a swirling map of qi currents, his glowing green eyes seeing through her immediately. He saw not a political strategy, but a flicker of remembered kindness. The Wang Family was minor, known more for their healing arts than their combat prowess. They had once, years ago, offered Su Wan shelter during a storm when she was traveling with a young Ye Fan. It was a debt of a few bowls of warm soup and a dry room, meaningless to a ruler, but a cherished memory of warmth for a prisoner.
A slow smile touched his lips. He loved these small, hidden rebellions. They were like weeds in his perfect garden, and he enjoyed plucking them.
"An excellent suggestion, my Overlord," he said, his tone dripping with false approval. "A show of grace to a loyal vassal. You will go. Chu Ling will accompany you. A contingent of Blackscale Guards will ensure no one… misunderstands your visit."
The journey was made in a palanquin of black lacquered wood and shimmering silks, carried by four core formation experts. Chu Ling sat opposite her, silent and watchful, the infant Tyrant Lu Feng sleeping peacefully in her arms, his inherent evil aura subdued for once. The Blackscale Guards marched in perfect, ominous synchrony around them.
The Wang Family compound was not a fortress, but a sprawling, beautiful estate nestled in a valley, its air thick with the scent of a thousand rare herbs. The entire family, from the aged Patriarch to the youngest disciples, knelt in the courtyard as Su Wan descended from her palanquin, their faces a mixture of awe and sheer terror.
The tour was a tense formality. The Patriarch, his hands trembling, showed off their prized gardens where spirit herbs of dazzling colors and luminescence grew in perfect rows. Su Wan played her part, nodding regally, asking pointed questions about yields and potency that the Ancestor had doubtless placed in her mind.
It was as they passed a secluded, quieter wing of the estate, surrounded by silver-leafed Moondew Willows, that Su Wan felt it. A pull. A faint, ethereal whisper of something… broken.
"What is in there?" she asked, her voice sharper than intended.
The Patriarch paled. "That… that is nothing for your majesty's eyes. It is my granddaughter's pavilion. She is… unwell."
"I wish to see," Su Wan stated, the command leaving her lips before she could think. The compulsion was not from the Ancestor this time. It was from the sliver of herself.
Reluctantly, the Patriarch led her to a secluded courtyard. The air here was still and cold, heavy with the scent of palliative herbs and quiet despair. Inside a sunlit room, lying on a bed of woven spirit grass, was a girl.
She was perhaps sixteen, her beauty so delicate it seemed she might break from a harsh glance. Her skin was translucently pale, and her long, dark hair fanned out around her like a silken shadow. But her eyes were closed, her chest rising and falling in the shallow, measured rhythm of deep unconsciousness. An aura of profound weakness, a draining sickness, clung to her like a shroud.
"Wang Xia," the Patriarch whispered, his voice cracking. "A rare talent with plants. Her soul… it grew too bright, too fast for her body. A backlash during a breakthrough six months ago. Her spirit ignited and then… guttered. She has been like this ever since. Neither alive nor dead. A withering lily."
Su Wan approached the bed. The guards stayed at the door. Chu Ling watched, her own eyes, for a moment, reflecting a shared pang of helplessness.
As Su Wan looked down at the girl, something extraordinary happened. The fake nascent soul within her dantian—the strand of the Ancestor's will—stirred. It was not an alert; it was a resonance. And deep within Su Wan, the awakened Yin Phoenix essence, the power of pure creation and nurturing, trembled in response.
She felt a connection, faint as a spider's silk, stretching between her and the comatose girl. It was not a thread of qi, but of spirit. She could feel the girl's fragile consciousness, not gone, but scattered and sinking into a deep, dark ocean within herself. She could feel the girl's innate affinity for life, for growth—a power that had turned inward and now consumed her.
Without thinking, Su Wan reached out and gently placed a hand on Wang Xia's cold forehead.
A jolt, like a soft static shock, passed between them.
In her mind's eye, Su Wan saw not darkness, but a field of flowers under a starless night, all of them wilted and grey. And in the center of the field, the faint, fading glow of the girl's soul.
In her dantian, the Yin Phoenix energy, usually only responsive to the Ancestor's touch, fluttered with a will of its own. It sent a single, gentle pulse of pure, nurturing Yin energy through Su Wan's hand into the girl.
Wang Xia's shallow breath hitched. The faintest touch of color, like the faintest blush on a pearl, returned to her cheeks for a single second before fading. Her eyelashes fluttered, though her eyes did not open.
The Patriarch gasped, falling to his knees. "Y-Your Majesty!"
Su Wan snatched her hand back as if burned. The connection snapped. The Ancestor's fake nascent soul within her settled, its purpose—observation—fulfilled.
She turned away, her heart hammering against her ribs. Pity, profound and aching, welled up within her, a feeling so long suppressed it was almost painful. This girl was everything the opposite of the Citadel: fragile, innocent, broken by her own light, not another's darkness.
"See that she receives the best care," Su Wan said, her voice hoarse, struggling to maintain her regal composure. "The Lu Clan will send additional resources."
She swept out of the room, the image of the withering lily seared into her mind. It was a reminder of a world where things could break from being too good, too pure—a world far removed from the one where she was forced to thrive.
Back in the Black Dragon Citadel, the Ancestor watched the entire scene through the fake nascent soul's eyes. He saw the girl. He felt the resonance through Su Wan. A slow, interested grin spread across his face.
[Analysis: Target 'Wang Xia'. Status: Spiritually Comatose. Physique: 'Verdant Empress Body' (Dormant, Backlashed).]
[Potential: Supreme (If stabilized). High-Value Breeder Candidate. Alignment: Life/Nurture (Counter-Balance to Lu Feng's Destruction).] [Connection established with Breeder #001. Emotional vulnerability detected.]
[New Objective: Acquire 'Withering Lily'. Use Breeder #001's connection as conduit for recovery and subsequent acquisition.]
The garden, it seemed, had just presented a new, fascinatingly fragile flower. And his Phoenix Queen, in her moment of pity, had just shown him exactly how to pluck it.