The aftermath of the Spring Festival was not characterized by celebration, but by a suffocating, heavy silence that draped over the Forbidden City like a funeral shroud. In the tea houses of the capital, the commoners spoke in hushed, hurried whispers about the "Miracle at the Altar." But within the palace walls, the air was sharp with the scent of impending blood.
Long Tian sat in the center of his darkened bedchamber. He had refused the lanterns, allowing only the pale, ghostly glow of the crescent moon to illuminate the room. He was stripped to his waist, the silken trousers of the Emperor hanging low on his hips. Even in the dim light, the transformation was visible. The stagnant fat of Zhao Feng's former life was being consumed by the sheer intensity of Long Tian's internal discipline. His muscles, dense and broad, looked like hammered bronze.
Eunuch Lian stood by the door, his shadow long and trembling. "Your Majesty... the scouts from the 'Shadow' unit you instructed me to monitor... they have reported movement. Jenderal Wang Qi has moved two hundred of his personal 'Iron Clad' guards to the northern gate. And... Selir Meilin has vanished from her pavilion."
Long Tian exhaled a slow, controlled breath. The Sutra of the Eternal North was working. He could feel his heartbeat slowing, his senses expanding until he could hear the scuttle of a beetle across the floorboards.
"Meilin has not vanished, Lian. She is doing exactly what I told her to do. She is hiding in the rafters of the Prime Minister's study, listening to a man scream in rage." Long Tian stood up, his movements as fluid as a mountain panther. "The Prime Minister cannot afford to wait for tomorrow's court session. To the world, I am still a drunkard who had a sudden, feverish burst of madness. If I die tonight, it will be blamed on a 'collapsed heart' brought on by the excitement of the festival."
"Then we must call the loyalist guards! Jenderal Qin—"
"No," Long Tian interrupted, his voice a cold command. "Jenderal Qin is being watched. If he moves, the Prime Minister will launch a full military coup before I am ready. Tonight, this room is the only battlefield that matters. Go, Lian. Hide in the secret passage behind the library. Do not come out until the sun rises."
"But Your Majesty—"
"Go!"
As the eunuch scrambled away, Long Tian picked up a long, heavy strip of black silk. He began to wrap his hands, the way he had done thousands of times before his executions in the Northern Tundra. He did not reach for a sword. In his previous life, he was a master of the God-Crushing Fist—a style that relied on the absolute synchronization of weight, breath, and impact. In this body of Zhao Feng, which possessed an almost unnatural skeletal density, those strikes would be lethal.
He lay down on the bed, pulling the covers up to his chest, and closed his eyes. He didn't sleep. He waited.
An hour passed. The incense clock burned low.
Suddenly, the sound of the night crickets stopped.
A faint click echoed from the balcony. Then another. Long Tian heard the sound of soft leather boots hitting the floor—too light to be soldiers. Assassins. The 'Hidden Vipers' of the Cao clan.
Three shadows detached themselves from the darkness of the silk curtains. They moved with a terrifying, synchronized grace, their daggers coated in a dull, non-reflective poison. They didn't speak. They didn't hesitate. They lunged toward the bed, their blades arcing down toward the Emperor's heart.
Long Tian's eyes snapped open.
He didn't move away. He moved into the attack.
With a thunderous explosion of movement, he threw the heavy silk duvet upward, tangling the blades of the first two assassins. Before the third could adjust, Long Tian's fist shot out like a ballista bolt.
Crr-ack.
The blow caught the third assassin squarely in the chest. The man didn't even have time to scream; the force of the strike shattered his sternum and drove the bone fragments into his lungs. He was hurled backward, smashing into a decorative porcelain vase before slumping to the floor, dead before he hit the ground.
The other two assassins tore through the silk duvet, their eyes wide with disbelief. They had been told they were killing a pampered fool. They found themselves facing a demon.
"Two left," Long Tian said, his voice a low, predatory growl.
The assassins looked at each other and attacked simultaneously, one aiming for the throat, the other for the hamstrings. It was a professional 'pincer' maneuver.
Long Tian dropped into a low sweep, his leg moving with the weight of a falling log. He caught the lower assassin's ankles, snapping them instantly. As the man fell, Long Tian rose like a geyser, his elbow connecting with the jaw of the second assassin. The sound of a shattering skull filled the room.
The second man fell in a heap. The one with broken ankles tried to crawl toward his fallen dagger, his face twisted in agony.
Long Tian stepped on the man's hand, the sound of crushing bones echoing in the silence. He knelt down, grabbing the assassin by his hair, forcing him to look into his eyes.
"Who sent you?"
The assassin spat blood at Long Tian's chest. "The Prime Minister... sends his... regards. You... are a dead man, Zhao Feng. There are... twelve more... outside..."
"Then I should thank him," Long Tian whispered, his grip tightening. "I was worried I wouldn't have enough bodies to send a proper message."
He snapped the man's neck with a casual flick of his wrist.
Long Tian stood up and looked at the door. He could hear the heavy, rhythmic clanking of armor. The 'Hidden Vipers' were only the vanguard. The Prime Minister had sent the 'Iron Clad' guards—men who weren't just assassins, but executioners.
He walked to the corner of the room and picked up a heavy, decorative iron spear meant for display. He broke the wooden shaft over his knee, leaving him with a three-foot length of solid iron topped with a jagged, triangular blade.
The doors of the bedchamber were kicked open.
Six soldiers in heavy plate armor stormed in, their shields raised, their long swords drawn. They stopped when they saw the three corpses on the floor. They looked at the Emperor, who stood in the center of the room, half-naked, covered in the blood of their comrades, holding a broken spear.
"Is this all?" Long Tian asked, his voice echoing with a terrifying, calm authority. "I led armies through the Iron Gates of Shura. I have stepped over the bodies of kings. And the Prime Minister sends me... constables?"
"Kill him!" the lead soldier roared, his fear manifesting as rage.
The soldiers charged.
Long Tian didn't use the spear to stab; he used it as an extension of his arm. He parried the first sword strike with the iron shaft, the vibration numbing the soldier's arm. Then, he swung the jagged end in a wide arc. The triangular blade found the gap in the soldier's gorget, tearing through his throat.
He didn't wait. He stepped into the "blind spot" of the second soldier's shield, grabbing the rim and wrenching it downward with such force that the soldier's shoulder dislocated. Long Tian drove the blunt end of the spear into the man's helmet. The iron crumpled like parchment.
It wasn't a fight. It was a systematic dismantling.
Long Tian used the soldiers' weight against them. He moved with a tactical economy, every strike calculated to kill or maim instantly. He was a modern-military genius trapped in a titan's body, using the laws of physics and the brutality of ancient warfare to turn the bedchamber into a slaughterhouse.
Minutes later, the room was silent again.
Long Tian stood amidst the bodies of the nine men. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving, his muscles trembling with the after-effects of the intense exertion. The "strong body" was holding up, but he knew he was pushing it to its absolute limit.
He looked at the broken spear in his hand, then dropped it.
He walked to the washbasin, slowly cleaning the blood from his face and chest. He then dressed himself in a simple, dark robe and walked out of the bedchamber, past the unconscious guards in the hallway, and headed toward the Inner Palace gardens.
He knew where he was going.
There was one person he needed to see tonight. Not the Prime Minister. Not the Empress Dowager.
He stopped at the entrance of the Paviliun Cendana, the residence of Permaisuri Liu Ruyan. The two female guards at the door immediately crossed their halberds, their faces pale.
"Step aside," Long Tian said.
"Your Majesty... it is late... the Permaisuri is—"
The doors opened from the inside. Liu Ruyan stood there, dressed in a simple white silk nightrobe, her hair flowing loose. She looked at the bloodstains on Long Tian's hands that he hadn't quite managed to wash off. She looked at the cold, iron-like resolve in his eyes.
She didn't look disgusted anymore. She looked intrigued.
"You smell of death, Zhao Feng," she said, her voice steady.
"And you smell of ambition, Ruyan," he replied. He stepped into her pavilion, the doors closing behind him. "The Prime Minister tried to kill me tonight. He failed. Tomorrow, I am going to the military barracks to take back the 'Iron Clad' guards. I need a General who knows the terrain."
Ruyan leaned against a pillar, crossing her arms. "And why should I help a man who, until yesterday, couldn't tell the difference between a sword and a soup spoon?"
Long Tian walked up to her, stopping so close she could feel the heat radiating from his skin. He reached out and grabbed her hand, placing it over his heart. It was beating with a slow, powerful thrum.
"Because," Long Tian whispered, "I am the only man in this world who can give your family their honor back. And because, for the first time in your life, you are looking at a King."
Ruyan didn't pull her hand away. Her eyes searched his, looking for the ghost of the fool. She found nothing but the soul of a conqueror.
"What do you need me to do?" she asked.
Long Tian smiled. It was the smile of a general who had just won his first campaign.
"Get your bow. We are going to visit Jenderal Qin."