Luo He recounted everything with meticulous detail. The unified tribes. The poisoned swamp. The bizarre dream. The massacre of over ten thousand people, including the children.
He described it with the same clinical precision he might use to discuss crop yields or trade routes.
Jin Mulan listened without visible reaction, her fingers continuing to trace patterns across his chest as he spoke.
When he finished, she simply nodded.
"You did what was necessary." She said simply. "Your cruelty to the world is not mine to judge. I only expect you to be good to me." She said softly.
"Anything else is merely management."
It was perhaps the most honest statement she had made all evening.
Ning Jia, who had witnessed far more brutal things during her years in the palace, simply accepted the information as unremarkable.
Children had been killed before. Populations had been eliminated for political convenience. This was simply the scale of power in a world.
Where sentiment was a luxury only the weak could afford. Neither woman's affection toward him changed in the slightest.
But as Luo He settled more comfortably into Jin Mulan's embrace with Ning Jia's departure the conversation shifted to matters of the empire itself.
"The crown prince has been cautious since your departure." Jin Mulan reported, her voice taking on the quality of someone delivering intelligence.
"He fears sending more fighters to the forest after what happened before. Not because he fears you directly, but because his eldest sister does."
Luo He's eyes narrowed slightly. "The First Princess?" He asked. "She is disturbed." Jin Mulan replied carefully. "Not by you specifically, but by the King of Hell." She said warmly.
Luo He frowned. "Who is the King of Hell?" He asked curiously. Jin Mulan began to explain.
The King of Hell was a phantom figure.
A mysterious entity whose existence had never been officially confirmed. Yet his actions were becoming increasingly impossible to ignore.
On the day Luo He fled the capital with his wife and supporters, the Crown Prince had sent an army after him. It included three Grandmaster-level fighters.
Along with a Transcendent personally trained by the First Princess herself. That alone revealed the seriousness of the pursuit. But something had intervened according to Luo He, and he was right.
That being is known only as the King of Hell. He had intercepted the convoy and eliminated all of them with shocking ease. Even the Transcendent.
A man trained that far surely might have had a lot of trump cards. Yet he had been killed, without being able to escape. Only the three hundred weaker soldiers were spared.
When the news reached the capital, it spread like wildfire. Not even the Crown Prince's influence could fully suppress the outrage.
Some claimed the King of Hell was a demon. Others believed he was a god. Some called him a vengeful spirit. The Crown Prince dismissed it as a fabrication.
A convenient myth meant to disguise another culprit. But the First Princess disagreed. Her own disciple had been among the dead.
She knew his capabilities better than anyone. He was not someone who could be killed so easily. Yet he was killed before he had the chance to deploy even a single one of his trump cards.
More over, he had died without even the chance to escape. That, she concluded. Meant the King of Hell was not ordinary.
She ordered the Crown Prince to stop pursuing Luo He.
If the King of Hell had intervened once, there was a possibility Luo He had some connection to him. Or that Luo He had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time when the entity chose to act.
Now the King of Hell had become a legend. In some places, he was even worshipped. Many common people, long oppressed by the Crown Prince's forces saw him as a kind of dark justice.
But no one truly knew who he was. Only one fact was certain, he was terrifying.
Even the First Princess herself admitted, that if the King of Hell ever came for her life. She would not stand her ground, instead she would run.
Because she understood power better than most. And she knew who ever destroyed that Transcendent was not someone she could confidently face.
Jin Mulan finished the account and looked at Luo He. Even now, she seemed oddly reverent when speaking of the King of Hell.
Luo He raised a brow. "And you admire him?" He said coldly. "I do," she admitted quietly. "If not for him, we would have had no chance of survival that day." She added politely.
Then she shifted the subject. "With a Transcendent-level fighter like that, possibly even stronger than Fei, do you think you could have defeated him?" She asked curiously.
Luo He didn't hesitate. "I would have had no trouble." He said proudly. The answer sounded almost careless. Too confident to be believable.
But that was deliberate. Luo He wanted to mislead her. Not by lying, but by stating the truth in a way that made it sound impossible.
A truth delivered with the tone of arrogance becomes easier to dismiss than a lie spoken with caution. So even when he told the truth, he made it sound like bravado.
And in doing so, he ensured it would not be believed.
For a time, the crown prince paused his plans entirely. But patience, as it turned out, was a luxury he did not possess for long.
The King of Wu had been informed of Luo He's treachery by the crown prince himself.
The wedding between the crown prince and the Wu princess was abruptly postponed to an indefinite future date.
The implications were clear, if the emperor of Yue discovered the crown prince's conspiracy before the marriage could solidify political bonds, everything would collapse.
But the emperor of Yue knew nothing.
Luo He had made no move to inform the imperial court of the crown prince's plot. He had simply, disappeared.
And in that silence, the crown prince began to reconsider. Perhaps Luo He was simply a man not connected to the mysterious King of Hell.
Perhaps the legendary figure was indeed a separate entity entirely. Perhaps the fear that had gripped the palace was overblown, born more from paranoia than actual danger.
As the emperor of Yue seems not to notice the crown prince reconsidered his original plan to poison him. He commanded his conspirators to proceed as formerly discussed.
"The emperor remains vulnerable. The Jin family remains distant. If Luo He were connected to the King of Hell, he would have made a move by now. Strike while the circumstances align." He thought.
The Duke's fury was based entirely on a lie born from shame. His son had assaulted Su Kim first on his terms.
When discovered, Luo He was angered so Jin Mulan defeated him brutally in combat. Luo He, had threatened to cut off his balls off as punishment.
Jin Su had threatened to castrate him personally if he did something like that ever again. With that Luo He showed mercy.
He only threatened the young man. He did not actually harm him. He let him leave alive with just the humiliation of being undressed in public and beaten by a woman.
A nobleman cannot survive such humiliation, defeated by women, assault exposed, and threatened with castration. His honor would be destroyed. His family would reject him.
So the young man lied. He gathered his friends and created a false story. Luo He had challenged him unprovoked.
Defeated him brutally, and stripped him publicly in deliberate humiliation. Multiple "witnesses" corroborated this account for payment.
When the young man told his father this version, the Duke believed him completely.
The Duke had no way of knowing his son had lied. As far as he knew, Luo He was a degenerate who had violated every code of honor.
"That man has humiliated my son publicly." The Duke declared, his fury absolute. "He has stripped him and attempted to destroy his manhood."
The Duke wanted blood. He wanted destruction. He wanted to see the Jin family eliminated entirely.
But he could not move openly. The emperor's authority was absolute. And any military action without imperial sanction would be classified as rebellion.
A crime that would result in the Duke's own execution and the destruction of his entire house. So he used a different approach.
"Six thousand of our best warriors, dress them as common raiders. No uniforms. No banners. No evidence of official sanction. They will kill the Jin family in their sleep. Make it appear as a common bandit attack, and disappear into the night."
The Duke commanded the general of his elite fighting force. The general happily agreed to follow commands just as he was instructed.