Xueyin scrutinized the woman from head to toe. His gaze was sharp—cold as obsidian and impossible to read.
"What do you know about the Xie Sui Sect... and the Snake Tribe?"
His voice lacked all warmth. It was emotionless, yet oppressive enough to make the air around her thin.
When he said Snake Tribe, the color drained from her face. She opened her mouth, but her next words never made it out. The cold aura Xueyin emitted choked her throat, freezing her will.
She swallowed hard, forcing herself to meet his eyes.
"We... we have to leave here."
Still, Xueyin didn't budge.
"This is no place to answer your questions. If the Xie Sui find us, chaos will erupt."
But he remained unmoved. His eyes glinted with ancient calculation.
"It's better I finish what I started with them," he muttered to himself.
"Ehn? What did you say?" she asked, panicked.
Without warning, Xueyin struck her acupoint with pinpoint precision. Her body froze, her voice sealed.
"You talk too much."
A faint pulse of spiritual Qi traveled from his palm to the earth. Symbols flickered in the dirt—an ancient trapping array woven with the essence of a forgotten era. The plates beneath them shifted into position: part of the Xuan-Sealed Burial Array, a technique known to few and mastered by fewer.
Hours passed. The sky darkened unnaturally, and thunder split the silence.
Then—life began to vanish.
Leaves shriveled. The trees bent in unnatural agony. Even birds dropped lifeless from the sky. The world turned pale, drained of color, as if death had brushed every inch of the forest with grey ash.
The woman's limbs trembled. Though mute, she tugged at Xueyin's sleeve, desperate to leave. He remained still, watching. But a strange realization dawned in him.
She's not affected...
While the forest gasped its last breath, she stood firm. In fact—she looked more alive than ever.
Then the chant rose:
"A Storm Will Rise..."
In the heart of Yìchūn, where the rivers cease,
The old gods waken, the earth will weep...
Xueyin clenched his jaw.
"Even if he never raised me like a son," he whispered, "he still honored his deceased wife's final wish... to save this world."
"I won't tolerate the disgrace in that chant."
The woman struggled to move him. Her eyes were wide with panic. But Xueyin remained steady.
"Why not go slap one of the Xie Sui men and see how far that gets you?" he said lightly. "They're already trapped in my array."
As she prepared to move, something shifted.
The Xie Sui sect leader—an arrogant brute clad in robes laced with shadowfire—paused mid-step. His head turned… slowly… toward their direction.
That's not possible.
They're inside the array... how—
Before the woman could react, Xueyin flicked his sleeve.
Poof.
She reverted into her true form: a bird cloaked in silver-blue feathers, with a faint violet hue dancing along her wings. Her eyes shimmered—not with spirit beast intelligence, but human awareness.
And around her neck, near-invisible to the naked eye, was a broken jade tag inscribed with the ancient Yue clan's sky symbol.
Xueyin's breath stilled.
A Stormcatcher… but not wild. No, this aura… she carries Yue blood.
She's one of us.
"Why are you even here…" he whispered, now more intrigued than ever.
Just then—the sect leader broke free of the formation.
He appeared before Xueyin, sneering, sword drawn.
"You dare use this old relic array on my people?"
"Who are you to lay a trap for the Xie Sui?"
CRACK!
A sharp blow shook the air as he struck—but Xueyin didn't lift a finger.
Instead, the plates embedded in the earth reacted on their own, weaving energy threads midair to block each blow. Every strike the sect leader landed was intercepted by spiritual barriers and reflective force fields, each precisely aligned by Xueyin's mind alone.
He hadn't moved a step.
"This array was never meant to trap you," Xueyin murmured.
"It was meant to reflect what's already within you."
The sect leader hesitated—his eyes narrowing.
"You—"
His blade surged with black flame and lightning, but still—Xueyin didn't fight physically. His Qi guided the plates like an invisible orchestra, the fight playing out like a silent war of will and intellect.
But beneath it all... Xueyin's thoughts burned.
That bird… she's from the Yue line. But how?
Why now?
And why… isn't she weakened by the incense at all?
The chant echoed again in the distance.
"The skies will burn—forevermore…"
And just as the sect leader raised his blade for the final blow—the Stormcatcher bird let out a cry.
Not a chant. Not a spell. But a pulse of inherited memory.
It hit Xueyin like a wave.
She's not here by accident… She's here because someone sent her.
And that person knew this place would be attacked.
His eyes narrowed, even as the blade bore down on him.
Upon reaching the official Ancestral Hall, Xueyin found the Emperor and the Minister in high spirits, their voices echoing through the vast chamber. The incense curled lazily toward the heavens, but to him, the air felt heavy. As always, his presence cut through the noise like a blade—silencing laughter, stilling movement.
The Emperor's eyes lit up the moment they met his son's, but Xueyin's gaze remained impassive. He bowed his head slightly, just enough to acknowledge the man who had fathered him. His face betrayed no emotion, yet deep within, a quiet storm stirred.
He didn't like his father—not for the throne, not for the weight of his expectations, not even for the blood they shared—but he respected him. That respect was sacred. And no matter how much bitterness lived in the shadows of his heart, he would never disgrace him before others. Some lines were never to be crossed.
So, he turned to the elders and spoke with crisp restraint, "Mission accomplished. When His Majesty is available, he may proceed with the interrogation of the Xie Sui Sect leader."
A pause.
He could feel the Emperor watching him, reading him like a riddle he still couldn't solve. But Xueyin offered no further words, no opportunity for closeness.
Then, as though sensing that something unspoken had to pass between only them, Xueyin reached into his sleeve and activated a concealed talisman. It shimmered briefly before slipping away into the air—a private transmission that only the Emperor would receive.
"I have done what needs to be done. He is secured in a place even the heavens will hesitate to approach. But I ask of you, as your son and your sword—do not summon me for matters such as these again."
That message was not born of disrespect, but of weariness. Of a son who had carried too much for too long and had begun to wonder if the war he fought was ever truly his.
He gave one final look—stern, silent, but not without meaning—before turning away.
And as he stepped beyond the threshold, the incense smoke trailing faintly after him, the weight of unsaid words lingered behind like ghosts in a hall meant for ancestors.