A ripple of stunned silence swept the crowd the moment Lan Xuan and his guards fell defeated. Lantern flames flickered against shocked faces. Vendors froze mid-pack, a street acrobat's spinning plate clattered to the ground, and even the city watchman halted in his stride. Everywhere, mouths hung open.
Then the whispers began—soft, cautious, carrying like wind through the narrow street:
"Who… who are those two women?" a butcher murmured, blade paused in mid-cut.
"I've never felt qi like that," a tea merchant said, voice low. "It was as if lightning and moonlight combined."
A scholar, ink-stained sleeves rolled up, stared after the pair, spectacles gleaming. "Extraordinary backgrounds," he muttered. "Surely not ordinary cultivators."
No one dared speak louder. The aura around them still humbled the very air—rumbling like distant thunder. Yet among the awe, a few voices edged into certainty.
