For the next several days, the entire city waits.
The gate incident is not small. A group of outsiders publicly killed Qin Family guards, humiliated the Qin captain, and left Lu Jiangheng, a 2nd layer Sky Lord from the Verdant Edge Sword Sect, severely injured. In any ordinary situation, the Qin Family would have sealed streets, arrested witnesses, stormed the inn, or at least sent a public challenge to recover face.
But nothing happens.
No Qin Family army marches.
No Verdant Edge disciple appears at the inn.
No citywide arrest order is posted.
The Three Ridges Spirit Inn remains untouched.
This silence becomes stranger than violence.
In a tea house near the western market, several cultivators speak in lowered voices.
One middle-aged rogue cultivator says, "The Qin Family swallowed this? Impossible. Qin Wanshan has killed families for less."
Another replies, "They didn't swallow it. They're waiting."
"For Verdant Edge?"
"Who else? That man injured a Verdent Sword Edge envoy. Once Verdant Edge moves, the Qin Family won't need to risk their own people first."
Someone at another table mutters, "You all keep speaking about Verdant Edge. What about that sword? I heard it was at least Mid-Rank Heaven."
The room goes quieter.
A Mid-Rank Heaven treasure is not something River Ridge families can ignore. Even the Qin Family, with its Noble Domain connection, would treat such a weapon as a clan-defining treasure. For rogue cultivators, it is enough to gamble their lives. For smaller families, it is enough to imagine rising overnight.
But the same question restrains them all.
Who wants to test the sword that nearly killed a Sky Lord?
That becomes the main feeling in River Ridge: greed pressed down by fear.
The Lu Family closes its side gates earlier than usual. The Wen Family orders its scribes to record every rumor but forbids its juniors from approaching the inn. The Huo Family begins asking quiet questions about the weapon's forging aura, but even Huo Canglie does not move openly.
Inside the Huo Family hall, Huo Canglie grips the arm of his chair.
"If that blade is truly Mid-Rank Heaven, even one look at its inscriptions would benefit our furnace halls."
Madam Huo Lingsu answers calmly, "One look may cost us a furnace hall."
"You think the boy can kill me?"
"I think the boy injured a 2nd layer Sky Lord while showing almost nothing. That is worse than killing him."
Huo Canglie frowns.
Madam Huo continues, "If he had killed the envoy with a desperate forbidden art, we could understand him. If he had been gravely wounded in return, we could measure him. But he used the sword, injured him, and then entered an inn as if nothing happened. People like that either have no brain or too much confidence."
Huo Canglie says, "And which is he?"
Madam Huo replies, "The Qin Family will find out for us."
That becomes the common attitude.
Everyone watches.
No one wants to be first.
…
While the city waits for disaster, Long Shenyu's courtyard remains peaceful.
He spends the days with Mei Qingxue and Shen Lanyue. He helps them cultivate, explains flaws in their circulation, refines their use of the Glacial Mirror Heart Sutra, and uses the Sovereign Bond to guide their foundations deeper.
Mei Qingxue asks him one morning, "Should we be preparing for the Qin Family?"
Long Shenyu is sitting behind her, one hand resting lightly against her back as he guides a thread of refined cold Qi through her meridians.
"We are preparing."
She looks confused. "By cultivating?"
"By becoming strong enough that their preparation becomes meaningless."
Shen Lanyue, seated across from them, says, "That is your answer to everything."
Long Shenyu smiles. "It keeps working."
Mei Qingxue lowers her eyes, but she cannot stop smiling.
During these days, Mei Qingxue grows quickly. Her Moonveil Spirit Body stirs more deeply. Before, her cold Qi was quiet and gentle, like mist over a lake. Now it becomes clearer, sharper, more layered. When she circulates, faint moon-white threads gather around her fingertips, not bright enough to escape the chamber, but refined enough that Shen Lanyue immediately notices the change.
Shen Lanyue says, "Your Qi is no longer merely cold. It is starting to conceal itself."
Mei Qingxue opens her palm. Pale frost gathers there, then vanishes as if swallowed by moonlight.
"I can feel things more clearly," she says. "The walls, the air, the movement of Qi outside. It feels like reflections on water."
Long Shenyu leans close and says, "Good. My gentle little moon is becoming dangerous."
Her concentration collapses instantly.
"Do not say that while I'm circulating Qi."
"You reacted well."
"I almost lost control."
"Then your control still needs work."
Shen Lanyue looks away with a faint sigh. "You are deliberately training her composure by embarrassing her."
"Of course."
Mei Qingxue turns red. "That is not proper training."
Long Shenyu answers, "It is very effective training."
By the fourth day, Mei Qingxue reaches 6th layer Origin Core.
The breakthrough is smooth. Not violent, not forced. Her dantian deepens, her Origin Qi turns colder and more reflective, and her Moonveil Spirit Body awakens further. The chamber briefly fills with layered pale light, like moonlight passing through thin veils of frost.
She opens her eyes afterward, startled by her own progress.
"I really reached the 6th layer…"
Long Shenyu brushes a strand of hair away from her face.
"You sound surprised."
"I know I should trust you," she says softly. "But sometimes it still feels unreal."
"Then get used to unreal things."
Mei Qingxue looks at him.
He says plainly, "This is only the beginning. One day, the people who once called you a maid will not even be qualified to look at your shadow."
Her eyes tremble slightly.
Shen Lanyue watches from the side. She says nothing, but her gaze softens. She knows Mei Qingxue needs those words more than another cultivation lecture.
Ning Huang remains in the courtyard through the entire silent week.
This becomes one of the biggest mysteries to the outside world.
By now, everyone caught wind an powerful Noble Domain sect disciple was with Long Shenyu's group.
And by standard logic, any disciple of Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace should not remain beside a man who has offended the Qin Family and Verdant Edge Sword Sect. She should either leave, contact her palace, or draw a line between herself and the coming trouble.
Instead, she stays.
At first she tells herself it is because she wants to observe Long Shenyu.
Then she tells herself it is because she needs to recover fully.
Then she tells herself it is because leaving now would make it look as if she feared Verdant Edge.
By the fifth day, even she no longer believes her own excuses.
Long Shenyu makes the problem worse whenever he sees her.
One afternoon, Ning Huang walks into the courtyard after cultivating by the spirit pool. Lightning still flickers faintly around her shoulders, giving her a proud and untouchable aura. Long Shenyu is seated beneath a pavilion roof with Mei Qingxue leaning against him and Shen Lanyue reviewing a jade slip nearby.
Ning Huang intends to pass without speaking.
Long Shenyu looks over.
"You're avoiding me again."
Her steps pause.
"I am not avoiding you."
"You entered through the side path."
"It is a path. It exists to be used."
"It exists because you think I won't notice."
Mei Qingxue hides a smile.
Shen Lanyue does not look up from the jade slip, but the corner of her mouth moves faintly.
Ning Huang's eyes narrow. "You are too confident."
Long Shenyu rises and walks toward her.
Ning Huang instinctively takes half a step back, then catches herself and becomes annoyed at her own reaction.
He stops directly in front of her.
"You know," he says, "you look more imperial when you're trying not to blush."
"I am not blushing."
"You are preparing to."
"That is nonsense."
He reaches out, takes her wrist lightly, and pulls her closer before she can decide whether to resist. His arm goes around her waist with infuriating ease.
Ning Huang stiffens.
"Long Shenyu."
"Yes?"
"Release me."
"You say that every time."
"Because you keep doing this."
"And every time, you stay long enough to complain."
Her face heats.
Mei Qingxue can no longer hide her smile. Shen Lanyue finally lowers the jade slip and says, "You enjoy pushing her."
Long Shenyu answers honestly, "Her reactions are beautiful."
Ning Huang's entire expression cracks.
"You—"
She turns sharply, breaks away from him, and walks toward her room with visible dignity and very obvious panic.
Before entering, she says, "You are shameless."
Long Shenyu replies, "Only with women worth teasing."
The door shuts harder than necessary.
Inside the room, Ning Huang leans back against the door and presses a hand to her face.
Outside, Long Shenyu returns to Mei Qingxue and Shen Lanyue as if nothing unusual happened.
Mei Qingxue says softly, "She is not used to being pursued so openly."
"That is why it works."
Shen Lanyue says, "Or why she may stab you."
Long Shenyu smiles. "Also acceptable."
During their stay, Long Shenyu did wonder about his wild sister. But he rarely sees Long Shenyin during the week.
This is not unusual.
She takes the farthest side room, blocks the door with her spear pressure, and cultivates with the kind of brutal focus that makes even the inn's floorboards tremble. Her aura becomes increasingly condensed, but not peaceful. It feels like a battlefield being compressed into human shape.
Occasionally, she comes out to eat, though "eat" mostly means taking spirit fruit from the table, insulting Long Shenyu, and leaving.
On one evening, she appears while Long Shenyu is drinking tea.
He looks at her and says, "You smell like blood."
Long Shenyin bites into a fruit.
"Then the rats are learning poorly."
Mei Qingxue blinks. "Rats?"
Shen Lanyue understands immediately. "Spies."
Ning Huang looks toward the courtyard wall.
Long Shenyu only says, "How many?"
"Four."
"Quality?"
"Trash. Three 7th layers. They thought darkness was a cultivation art."
Long Shenyu chuckles. "Did you at least ask who sent them?"
Long Shenyin looks at him as if he said something idiotic.
"They came to kill or spy. Their names stopped mattering."
Shen Lanyue says, "Information can be useful."
Long Shenyin replies, "Their corpses are information."
Then she leaves.
Long Shenyu watches her go and says, "See? She is improving. Typically, she would have thrown the corpses through the Qin Family gate."
Ning Huang stares at him. "That is improvement?"
"Subtle improvement."
Shen Lanyue says, "Your standards for subtlety are broken."
…
That assassination attempt had came on that second night at the Inn.
Three Qin Family shadow cultivators climb the outer wall using talismans that flatten their aura against the stone. All three are 7th layer Origin Core. They wear dark-green face cloths and carry short swords coated in a mild meridian-numbing poison.
Their leader whispers, "Do not engage the boy. Confirm the number of people inside. Confirm whether the Heaven's Edict disciple remains. If there is a chance, mark the sword."
The moment he says that, a voice behind them asks, "How will you achieve that?"
They freeze.
Long Shenyin stands on the roof ridge with her Black Sun Tyrant Spear resting against one shoulder.
None of them sensed her.
The leader reacts fastest. He crushes a smoke talisman and throws two needles toward her throat. The smoke blooms, the needles vanish inside it, and his two companions split left and right, trying to escape rather than fight.
Long Shenyin does not chase immediately.
She takes one step.
The roof tile beneath her foot cracks.
The smoke collapses.
Her spear sweeps horizontally.
The first assassin's needles shatter in midair. The second assassin, already halfway across the roof, is cut down by the edge of the spear pressure before he can activate his movement talisman. The third drops toward the courtyard, but Long Shenyin's hand opens and a strand of dark killing force lashes downward like a chain.
It catches his ankle.
She pulls.
His body slams back onto the roof hard enough to break tiles.
The leader tries to speak.
"Wait—"
Long Shenyin plants the spear beside his face.
"Too late."
A single downward thrust ends him.
She does not hide the bodies.
She throws them into the alley behind the inn where Qin Family informants will find them before dawn.
By morning, River Ridge knows people entered the inn and did not leave.
But because Long Shenyu never appears, the rumors split.
Some say the sword has a guardian spirit.
Some say the spear-wielding woman is stronger than the boy.
Some say Ning Huang killed them to protect her reputation.
The truth is simpler.
Long Shenyin was bored.
On the surface, Long Shenyu appears unconcerned.
He spends his mornings guiding Mei Qingxue, his afternoons correcting Shen Lanyue's circulation, and his evenings teasing Ning Huang whenever she gives him the chance.
But he is paying attention to everything.
He places thin strands of soul perception across the courtyard formations. They are not visible. They do not flare. They do not even feel like pressure. They are like invisible dragon whiskers stretched across space. Any movement through the courtyard causes a faint tremor in his mind.
The innkeeper believes the guests are peaceful.
The spies believe they are hidden.
Long Shenyu sees all of them.
One night, while Mei Qingxue rests against him after cultivation, she asks quietly, "Shouldn't we stop them before they enter?"
He strokes her hair.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because if they die outside, people will think the inn protected us. If they die inside, people will understand we allowed them to come."
Shen Lanyue says from the side, "You are using the bodies as a warning."
"A polite one."
"There is nothing polite about this."
"I have not visited the Qin Family yet. That is politeness."
Mei Qingxue looks up. "Will you?"
"When it becomes useful."
Shen Lanyue studies him. "You are letting them gather courage."
Long Shenyu smiles faintly.
"I am letting them gather mistakes."
…
On the sixth night, Shen Lanyue dual cultivates with Long Shenyu in the central chamber while Mei Qingxue and Ning Huang remain in their own rooms. The chamber is sealed. The spirit-gathering array is active. Long Shenyu has already laid three layers of soul concealment across the walls.
Shen Lanyue sits facing him, her aura calm but extremely compressed.
She has reached the limit of Origin Core.