The Empire Reacts
The news spread like wildfire across the empire:
> "The Emperor has bound Lady Aria of Resonance and Lady Nihila of Silence into a joint command of the Nexus!"
Poets wailed. Philosophers scoffed. Courtiers gambled on how many days it would take before one of them tried to erase the other from reality.
Within three days:
The Cult of Harmonic Whispers declared it divine destiny.
The Order of Silent Truth issued a scroll titled "Ten Thousand Reasons Emotion Is Treason."
And a mysterious letter arrived on Tianming's pillow:
> "You are playing with fire and calling it a lullaby. —From Someone Who Survived the Last Nexus."
Tianming read it, chuckled, then used it to wipe sauce off his fingers.
---
A New Recruitment: Chaos Walks In
The Nexus had opened public recruitment for a new generation of spiritual leaders: Harmony Knights, trained in both music and stillness.
Hundreds applied.
Only one broke the gates on the first day.
She didn't walk in.
She fell from the sky, riding a broken zither like a meteor, landing in the middle of the Nexus courtyard and shouting:
> "WHICH OF YOU DIVINE LADIES IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LACK OF RHYTHM AROUND HERE?!"
Aria blinked. Nihila narrowed her eyes. Tianming grinned.
> "...Interesting," he said. "We may have found our wildcard."
---
The Wild Candidate
Her name was Xu Lanyue, age unknown, origin: probably somewhere very inappropriate.
She was:
Loud
Brilliant
Half-crazy
And wielded both a flute and a void bell.
> "I studied both styles," she said in her trial interview, held between Aria's melody hall and Nihila's soundless library. "Then I broke them. Because balance isn't about submission—it's about fighting both sides until they sharpen each other."
> "So," she continued, tossing a peach into her mouth, "who do I punch first?"
Nihila left the chamber in silence. Aria laughed for the first time in weeks.
> "You're in," Aria said. "Welcome to the Nexus."
---
Tianming's Empire Gambit
While Aria and Nihila wrestled with culture and ideology, Tianming unveiled a project that had nothing to do with harmony or silence:
> The Realm Bazaar — a multi-realm economic superstructure built around teleportation hubs, allowing trade between immortal merchants, demonic peddlers, spirit beast caravans, and lost civilizations.
> "Trade," Tianming said, reclining on a spirit lion, "is the real path to peace. If they're too busy making money, they'll stop killing each other."
A divine economist objected: "But Sire, what if the traders destabilize border cultivation levels?"
> "Good," Tianming replied. "Let them. Chaos breeds evolution."
---
Closing: A Song, A Silence, A Storm
At the top of the Nexus that night:
Aria played a single string, sending a lullaby into the capital skies.
Nihila listened, saying nothing… but she did not leave.
And from the Realm Bazaar's southern gate, a dark carriage rolled in—its rider cloaked, its aura wrong.
Within it, someone whispered:
> "So the empire dares to mix song and void. Let's see what happens… when screams are added to the chorus."