Chapter 991: The Chu Your Father Conquered for You

The instant that sword intent appeared, the Sword Maid knew perfectly well that it had not come from her master.

It had come from her little junior sister.

After one moment of stunned blankness, the Sword Maid smiled.

She did not hate her for it. Nor did she blame her little junior sister in the slightest for jumping aboard at the last moment.

How should she put it?

When she had asked the master’s lineage to lend her a sword, her little junior sister had sensed the call and, without saying a word, poured out her own sword intent. Judging from the scale of that strike, she had probably emptied nearly every scrap of sword qi in her body in a single instant.

Her little junior sister had been clever from childhood. She possessed the Fire Phoenix Spirit Body, and her future was limitless. Compared with that natural Sword Embryo, she was certainly no worse and might even surpass him.

When an intelligent person did something foolish, it meant that at that moment she had not been thinking at all.

She had simply reacted by instinct and given everything she had to help.

What possible reason was there to blame her?

As a swordsman, and as a disciple of the Sword Saint’s lineage, whether one was holding a sword or simply standing as a person, there was no room for whining and self-pity.

At the very least, one ought to possess a little freedom of spirit.

The Sword Maid also had no time now to dissect whether she herself had been impulsive earlier.

Hero Chen had said that he planned to push this “mother and daughter” through South Gate Pass before calling for help.

Or perhaps simply push them all the way to Fengxin City and only then call people over. That would even save the trouble of escorting prisoners. Send the Buddha straight to the western paradise.

Without question, that had been the best solution.

But just as her little junior sister had poured everything into lending her sword without the slightest hesitation... had she herself not done exactly the same thing?

The moment she heard what these two intended to do, she had revealed her identity and chosen to fight without wasting so much as a breath.

At the end of the day, she truly did have a blood debt with Zheng Fan.

She would never forget the sight on the banks of the Bian River, when her master Yuan Zhenxing was shot to death beneath a storm of arrows on Zheng Fan’s command.

If Zheng Fan had merely taken her in after that, perhaps it would have been understandable.

Since ancient times, imperial clans, noble houses, and jianghu sects alike had occasionally discovered a promising child among an enemy’s descendants and chosen to raise them.

Usually, they either concealed the truth, deceived and coaxed the child, or hammered some new loyalty into the child’s head until it rang.

At the very least, they watched constantly and kept the grown child as a tool for later use.

But that bastard surnamed Zheng... had simply raised her.

That was all.

He gave her food.

Gave her drink.

Gave her clothes and things to use.

When the Sword Saint took a liking to her, Zheng Fan did not make any special display of it either.

It was almost as though she were merely the child of some distant relative living under his roof.

Not particularly close.

Not particularly cold.

When she was younger, the Sword Maid had not understood it.

Later, she gradually began to.

Compared with Mr. Bei, who had frightened her instinctively since childhood, the bastard surnamed Zheng was actually the one who had truly mastered the art of defeating every move without making a move at all.

Several hundred thousand soldiers and civilians of eastern Jin were willing to die for that man.

You could not buy that kind of loyalty by lying to people.

Those two women had said they wanted to go to Prince Pingxi Residence and “try their luck.”

They had even talked about “paying his family a visit.”

The Sword Maid could not tolerate it.

From Cuiliu Fort in the early days, then Shengle City, Snow Sea Pass, and finally Fengxin City... that Residence was the bastard Zheng’s home.

But the bastard Zheng often left on campaign for half a year at a time.

If you truly counted the days, she had spent far more time living in that home than he had.

Those two bitches dared talk about paying a visit to my home?

See if I don’t fucking kill you!

...

The woman had blocked Big Girl’s sword.

After that brief moment of surprise, she immediately recovered and prepared to step forward and finish the battle before her.

But when she tried to drive her blood qi again... her body abruptly froze.

Confused, she lowered her head and opened her palm.

From the wound there, thin golden lines had begun spreading outward.

Inside the arm that had been blasted open earlier, flashes of gold appeared as well.

She knew what it was.

Fire Phoenix aura.

Extremely pure.

But not particularly powerful.

At least, not for someone at her level.

She had already been wounded. After taking that sword, the Fire Phoenix aura wrapped around its sword intent had begun seeping into—or perhaps scorching—the wounds inside her body.

That too was only a minor injury.

Give her a little time and she could expel every trace of Fire Phoenix aura cleanly from her body.

Not even fifteen minutes.

Five minutes would have been generous.

The true problem... was that this body did not matter very much.

She was here.

But somewhere else, through an unseen connection, that same fire had begun burning in another place.

Years ago, on Mount Tianhu, Tian Wujing had once told Zheng Fan that arts beyond the mundane world could never escape one principle:

Believe, and they exist.

Disbelieve, and they do not.

During the assassination on the Wangjiang River, Zheng Fan borrowed the Demon Child’s power together with the pull of his real-world status and drew forth the screaming souls of tens of thousands from the river.

Afterward, Li Xundao, using the last lotus left behind by Master Cang as the medium, forcibly invited those souls up the Back Mountain.

Once you accepted the premise, you had entered the rules.

Once you believed, the rules applied.

Or to put it another way, if you used those rules to act upon the world, those same rules would inevitably act upon you.

For this woman to appear here in this body, she had clearly relied on extraordinarily sophisticated esoteric arts.

By the same principle... she had to bear the consequences from the other end.

“Fire...”

...

There was no light here.

Only darkness.

But at that moment... a tiny orange flame appeared.

No.

It was too small even to be called a flame.

It was only a spark, no larger than the fingernail of a newborn child.

It trembled in the darkness.

And with its appearance came a little light.

Below it... a woman’s face emerged from the shadows.

She wore a black robe embroidered with gold thread, rich and stately even as she lay upon a bed of ice.

On either side of her, one could vaguely make out other similar slabs of ice.

This was no ordinary frozen chamber.

Within the ice, faint lines of formation patterns flickered in and out of view, circulating without end.

The tiny spark burned directly at the woman’s brow.

It burned.

It scorched.

Its strength was pitifully small.

One breath could have blown it out.

But the problem was... in this place... where was there a living person who could stand up, lean over, and blow that breath?

So the flame would not go out.

It would keep burning.

It was Fire Phoenix flame.

Even if only the faintest trace remained, so long as there was something for it to cling to, it could continue sustaining itself.

The damage was almost laughably small.

But grains of sand could build a tower.

Tiny scraps of fur could become a coat.

Not long ago, the Emperor of Qian had shed his body on the road up the Back Mountain.

His Qi Refiner cultivation had been far too low, so the inner fire he summoned had likewise been only a tiny flame.

That forced the Emperor to endure a much longer period of torment.

But in the end... he had still successfully returned his physical body to the wind and rain.

The spark remained.

It burned.

It consumed...

...

The woman released a shrill howl.

At that moment, she could no longer spare the slightest thought for the gravely injured Sword Maid in front of her.

Her body.

Her true body.

Her original soul.

Someone had set them on fire!

“Why? Why is this happening?!”

The woman was nearly hysterical.

As she forcibly expelled the Fire Phoenix aura inside this borrowed body, she roared toward the other battlefield:

“Send me back! I’m going to die!”

She feared death.

Feared it desperately.

Otherwise, she would never have hidden herself away like a rat in the darkness and endured all these years.

More importantly... to die this way would be too damned absurd.

“Send me back!”

She screamed again.

Urgent.

Desperate.

...

In that dark hidden place... the tiny flame continued burning at the woman’s forehead.

Blackness had already appeared there.

And it was spreading.

The thousand-li dike had begun collapsing from an ant’s hole.

The woman could not directly feel the pain.

But through that unseen connection, she could sense the danger.

Like dreaming while someone harmed your real body.

Even if the dream had not yet broken... something inside the dream would still know.

“Send me back!”

The woman screamed again.

Instead of moving toward the Sword Maid, she threw herself toward the other battle.

The little girl was still barely holding on beneath Hero Chen’s attacks.

Sword wounds already covered her body.

At the end of the day, this was Tian Ji’s horse-racing game.

Whose inferior horse could hold out longer?

The little girl heard the woman screaming.

But she was already struggling too hard to spare any attention to what the woman was actually facing.

Hum!

The woman smashed into the battlefield.

Hero Chen did not retreat.

His sword thrust out directly.

The woman did not dodge.

She took the strike head-on.

A wound the size of a sea bowl was carved out of her back in an instant.

The little girl saw the opening.

Her hands flashed through seals.

A black chain flew from her fingertips, attempting to bind Hero Chen.

From the girl’s perspective, the woman had paid a terrible price to create this chance for her.

Then... the woman’s fist smashed directly into the little girl’s chest.

“Send me back!”

The woman roared.

She was a Martial Artist.

A terrifyingly powerful Martial Artist.

She had been able to distinguish that sliver of Second Grade sword intent the Sword Saint had transmitted earlier.

That meant strength at that level was not completely unfamiliar to her.

But a Martial Artist... was still a Martial Artist.

There was a reason she had always traveled together with the little girl.

The two supported one another.

The woman provided the raw force needed to walk the world.

The girl provided the qualification that allowed both of them to walk the world in the first place.

Among all the Martial Artists beneath Heaven... there had only ever been one Tian Wujing.

For everyone else, even an apex Martial Artist could not perform something like returning the soul through a borrowed corpse.

If the woman wanted to return... the “dream” had to end first.

Only then could her true self awaken and extinguish that tiny flame.

If the little girl refused to end it... then the woman would force her to.

Zheng Fan had once joked to the Blind Man that these so-called great experts with Qi Refiner backgrounds, waving the banner of “restoring Great Xia,” were terrifyingly powerful and terrifyingly cowardly in equal measure.

Whenever the situation turned unfavorable, they possessed almost no will to fight and no courage to gamble their lives.

They were far worse than the Baili siblings years ago, who had seen the Zhenbei Army cavalry approaching and immediately sheathed their swords and fled back into the city.

But the moment their true foundation was threatened... these people could erupt with equally terrifying decisiveness.

The little girl had no defense prepared against her own companion.

She took the Martial Artist’s punch directly.

Her body... exploded.

The woman landed.

The instant the girl disappeared, the woman’s eyes rolled upward.

White vapor streamed out of her body.

Then the shell itself began breaking apart and collapsed to the ground.

Hero Chen landed nearby.

He stared at the scene.

For a moment... he seemed unable to understand how this battle had actually ended this way.

Only moments earlier, Hero Chen had already prepared himself to sacrifice his cultivation realm or even his life in an attempt to force open Second Grade.

He had never opened it before.

Most likely, he could not.

And even if he somehow succeeded in drawing that power down... years ago, the Sword Saint outside Snow Sea Pass had nearly died doing the same thing.

Zheng Fan and the Demon Kings had barely dragged him back from the gates of death.

Hero Chen was Third Grade now.

But compared with the Sword Saint of those years, he was still far weaker.

Forcing open Second Grade would almost certainly have killed him.

Yet he had not spent much time hesitating.

Hero Chen had always done things directly.

On one side was his senior sister.

A genuine member of his own lineage.

On the other was that bastard surnamed Zheng.

Someone wanted to harm Zheng Fan’s family.

No matter what, Hero Chen could never simply stand by.

As for whether sacrificing himself here to shield Zheng Fan’s family was truly “worth it”... sorry.

Hero Chen had considered many things in his life.

Whether something was “worth it” had never been one of them.

The battle had ended too suddenly.

Too absurdly.

The bamboo strip in Hero Chen’s hand slowly curled back into itself.

He casually dropped it to the ground.

And somehow... he actually felt a little disappointed.

What a pity.

A perfectly legitimate chance to force open Second Grade before his true strength matched it... gone just like that.

Hero Chen walked over to the Sword Maid.

He bent down and began stopping her bleeding.

The Sword Maid tipped her chin toward her clothing.

Hero Chen understood.

He reached inside and pulled out several little bottles and jars.

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

Hero Chen nodded.

He poured one pill from every container and helped the Sword Maid swallow them.

Thanks to her relationship with Fan Li, the Sword Maid had access to true top-quality medicines personally compounded by the Demon Kings.

Of course, her master’s face was already large enough on its own.

But with Fan Li involved... she could receive two portions.

Sometimes three.

After swallowing an entire assortment of pills for replenishing qi and blood, dispersing bruising, strengthening the root, nourishing the foundation, and regulating menstruation... the Sword Maid’s complexion visibly improved.

“Just now, the sword I borrowed came from Junior Sister. But why...?”

She was genuinely puzzled.

She had already thought she was finished.

When her master’s sword failed to arrive, she had prepared herself for the end.

Who could have imagined the sudden light beyond the dark willow trees would come in such a bizarre way?

Hero Chen smiled.

“Master Yao once told me that in the present world, Qian has the Back Mountain. On the surface, it looks like the ancestral court of Qi Refiners. But in truth, the people who truly developed Qi Refiner arts to their fullest were the Chu.”

“The Chu?”

“Yes. In Chu, Qi Refiners are called shamans. Master Yao said that eight hundred years ago, during Great Xia, shamans were the predecessors of today’s Qi Refiners. And shamans served the imperial court. Those Qi Refiners on Qian’s Back Mountain live as freely as immortals. But in Chu, their shamans are more like officials belonging to a government yamen. When the Three Marquises opened the frontiers in those years, a large group of shamans followed the Marquis of Chu into Chu lands. It was not because the shamans worshiped the Marquis of Chu. It was because the Marquis of Chu’s line had originally been responsible for supervising and commanding shamans on behalf of Great Xia. Shamans, or Qi Refiners, speak constantly of Heaven’s Mandate. They calculate karma. They talk endlessly of causes arising and causes ending. Yet the Fire Phoenix Bloodline inside Great Chu’s Xiong imperial clan restrains them brutally. Fire Phoenix blood. Fire Phoenix spirit. Those flames might not be able to burn through a strand of spider silk, but they can burn clean through the vast causal webs Qi Refiners weave. Junior Sister is a Fire Phoenix spirit child. The purity of her Fire Phoenix Bloodline is exceptionally rare even across a century of the Xiong imperial clan. So Junior Sister’s sword may not be especially powerful yet, but the Fire Phoenix flame attached to her sword intent is something Qi Refiners find unbearably troublesome.”

Hero Chen pointed toward the ruined corpses lying in the distance.

“Their true bodies were not here. If I’m guessing correctly, that fire reached somewhere they could no longer afford to ignore. To put it simply... they were careless. They never expected to run into something like this.”

“Heh.”

The Sword Maid laughed.

“So Little Junior Sister truly did save my life this time. How embarrassing. I came here thinking I’d protect all of them in advance and kill these two crazy bitches before they could ever reach the Residence. Instead I nearly died, and the one I was supposed to protect ended up saving me.”

“We belong to one lineage. There is no need to divide things that clearly. Otherwise it becomes distant.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll take you away first. We’ll return to South Gate Pass and send word back. Otherwise Master will worry.”

“Good.”

Hero Chen lifted the Sword Maid onto his back.

As he walked, something suddenly occurred to him.

He asked:

“You and Mr. Li are together now?”

“No.”

“Then why did you say something like that earlier?”

The Sword Maid’s face immediately reddened.

“To make myself sound more impressive.”

“Oh.”

“Once I finish traveling and go back, I’ll force him.”

“Oh.”

“He isn’t stupid.”

“That much I know,” Hero Chen said with deep personal feeling.

“Junior Brother, do you think your senior sister isn’t good enough for him?”

“No.”

“...” The Sword Maid.

She reached out and scratched Hero Chen’s neck.

“Lie.”

“You are good enough.”

“These past few years, he’s been growing more and more distant from me.”

“You grew up.”

“You mean he has always treated me like a daughter?”

“Or... a younger sister?”

“But I don’t want that. I want him to be my man. I don’t care how any of you look at it. I’ve always thought he should be my man. I became sensible very early.”

“But you grew slowly.”

The Sword Maid sensed something wrong.

She pinched the flesh at Hero Chen’s neck.

“Junior Brother, we haven’t seen each other for several years. Why do I feel you’ve changed quite a lot?”

“Oh?”

“You’re not still single, are you?”

“No.”

“You married?”

“No.”

“Then you...?”

“Three years ago, in Jiangnan, a woman was sentenced by her husband’s family to be drowned in a pond for adultery.”

“You saved her?”

“Yes.”

“And then she followed you?”

“Yes.”

“Let me guess. She was an innocent, pitiful woman who had been falsely accused. Right?”

“No. She really had been sleeping with one of the household servants.”

“Uh...”

“Where in this world are things ever that perfectly clean and translucent?”

“I suppose...”

“That bastard Zheng once said something like that to me. He said there was a period when he liked painting and also liked writing books. He liked pushing the evil and goodness inside people to their absolute extremes, tearing both open until everything became extreme and pure at the same time. But how much pure evil or pure goodness truly exists in this world?”

“I know he can paint. I know he can write too. But normally, he hardly ever does either. It’s like something he learned in a previous life. Anyway... what happened to the woman after that? Did the two of you get together?”

“She was very grateful to me.”

“Of course. So she offered herself to you?”

“No. Three days later, she stole the silver from my luggage and ran.”

“Oh... where did she go?”

“Back to her natal family.”

“And then?”

“Her family thought she had disgraced them. They beat her half to death and threw her into the wasteland to live or die on her own.”

“You saved her again?”

“Yes.”

“And after that?”

“I treated her injuries. A month later, she had more or less recovered.”

“Then she offered herself to you?”

“No. She stole my sword too and pawned it.”

The Sword Maid suddenly realized something.

“So the reason you no longer have your sword isn’t because, like Master, you’ve reached the stage where having no sword is better than having one?”

“No. It got pawned. I had no money to redeem it. So it was gone.”

“I remember your sword was very good.”

“When I followed Zheng Fan into Chu to steal his wife years ago, the Swordsmith personally refined it for me.”

“Ai. And you just let it go?”

“It was gone. What else could I do? Debts have owners and wrongs have culprits. I couldn’t go make trouble for the pawnshop owner.”

“Fine. I understand... you. What happened to that woman next? Where did she go this time?”

“She was robbed. Then kidnapped and sold into a brothel.”

“She... really was unlucky.”

“On her first day receiving customers, she kicked one of them and injured him. He nearly strangled her to death. Eastern Jin’s Red Tents are different from brothels elsewhere. In other places, people die all the time. As long as there’s silver to settle the matter.”

“You saved her again?”

“Yes. She wasn’t completely dead. They wrapped her in a reed mat and threw her into a mass grave. I found her there, barely breathing.”

“Junior Brother, the two of you really were bound by fate.”

“Then what? Did she run again?”

“No. For the next year, she never ran. Wherever I went, she followed.”

The Sword Maid pursed her lips.

Trying to sound experienced, she asked:

“Did you sleep together?”

Hero Chen shook his head.

“She looked down on a cripple like me.”

His gaze dropped toward his prosthetic leg.

Years ago, when he tried to assassinate Zheng Fan, Xue San and the Blind Man had worked together to cripple one of his legs.

Since then, Hero Chen had used a prosthetic.

Xue San himself had designed and made it.

Over these ten years, every time Hero Chen visited Zheng Fan, he could have it replaced with a new one.

“She still had the face to look down on you? No, wait. Junior Brother, you really liked her that much?”

“I don’t know. I only felt that we had fate. Every time she was about to die, I happened to encounter her. And I swear, I never deliberately searched for her or watched her from a distance. Do you believe in fate?”

“I suppose I do.”

“We wandered together for a year. Then we found a place and lived there for another year.”

“And you still... never slept together?”

“No. At first, she cursed me every day. Said a toad like me wanted to eat swan meat and should piss into a puddle and look at my own face.”

“What happened later?”

“She stopped cursing me once every day.”

“She actually had the nerve to curse you every day?”

“She changed it to twice a day. Morning and evening.”

“Junior Brother, I don’t want to hear this story anymore. It’s too boring.”

“She died.”

“She wasn’t merely half-dead again?”

“No. She truly died. She caught a serious illness. The physician couldn’t cure it.”

“Finally.”

“Before she died, lying on the sickbed, she asked me to bring over the chamber pot.”

“For what?”

“So I could use it as a mirror.”

The Sword Maid reached out and viciously pinched Hero Chen’s arm.

“Junior Brother, you are truly bringing shame upon our lineage.”

“Mm.”

Hero Chen accepted the judgment.

“Then why did you say at the beginning that you weren’t single anymore?”

“This lifetime... no other woman has ever lived with me that long.”

“Ai...”

When Hero Chen was still young, he had once pushed a cart carrying Yao Zizhan deep into the Tianduan Mountains.

A Miss Su from the Silver-Armored Guard traveled with them.

Back then Hero Chen could still properly be called a “young hero.”

At that age, restlessness was natural.

No normal man was exempt.

Yao Zizhan, at least, had done one decent thing in his life.

He could not bear to watch such a fine swordsman become entangled with a woman from the Silver-Armored Guard, so he used his own authority to cut that hazy thread before anything had truly formed.

Nothing had ever been spoken aloud.

So in the end... it had amounted to nothing.

“Junior Brother, when did you enter Third Grade?” the Sword Maid asked.

Now she had reached the part she truly cared about.

“The day she died. I was looking into that chamber pot...”

“You weren’t disgusted?”

“There was no urine in it. It had been scrubbed very clean. There was even soapy water inside. You could see a reflection. I looked down and saw myself. Then I entered Third Grade.”

“What principle is that supposed to be?”

“I’m not like Master. Home and country—he can see them clearly and think them through. Zheng Fan once described Master as: the greatest hero is one who serves the country and the people.”

“That was the bastard Zheng flattering Master so he could keep Master bound to him,” the Sword Maid said, having long since seen through everything.

“I’m not like Zheng Fan either. For that man, how the great momentum beneath Heaven moves only comes second. First is whether he himself is happy. Sleep in the softest bed. Make the grandest entrance. Fight the most satisfying battle. Probably ninety-nine men out of a hundred dream of living the way he does.”

“That’s true.”

“As for me, I’m just an ordinary muddleheaded person. The sword I practice, the road I walk... when I was younger, I said I had no master. But really, whoever made sense, I followed. Master Yao made sense, so I pushed Master Yao along while listening to his principles. Zheng Fan made sense, so at night I liked sitting with him over late-night food and listening to him talk. Master makes sense, so I like watching Master’s sword intent. I cannot compare with any of them. If you set aside the fact that I practice the sword a little faster than most people, I’m simply muddleheaded. A little stupid too. Just like the version of myself reflected inside that chamber pot. Dirty? Actually, it wasn’t dirty. It had been scrubbed very clean. Of course your heart still feels uncomfortable, but every night—especially in summer—if you don’t want to go outside and feed the mosquitoes, you still need to use it. People are the same. Zheng Fan once said that if you count three thousand years backward and three thousand years forward, the majority will always be fools.”

“Believe me. He wasn’t talking about you.”

“I am a fool.”

“A Third Grade... fool. If you’re a fool, then how did you reach this height?”

Hero Chen shook his head.

Then stopped walking.

With his usual honest expression, he said:

“I didn’t climb to this height. It was too high. I couldn’t climb up.”

“Then...?”

“So I pulled it lower. Once it came down, I could reach it.”

The Sword Maid’s eyes widened violently.

She stopped speaking.

So Hero Chen stopped speaking too.

He carried her for a long, long way.

Only when dawn was almost breaking did he choose a place beside a stream to rest.

When he set the Sword Maid down, she was still awake.

“I thought you had fallen asleep. You’re injured. You should rest more,” Hero Chen said.

The Sword Maid bit her lip.

She looked aggrieved.

A little unwilling.

But in the end... she smoothed away those emotions.

Folded both hands properly before herself.

And said:

“Junior Sister has received instruction.”

Hero Chen grinned.

“You’re the senior sister.”

“The accomplished stand first.”

“There is no such rule.”

“None of your business!”

“Fine. As you wish. What do you want for breakfast? I’ll catch fish?”

“Good.”

Last night, on the long road, it had looked like nothing more than two disciples of the same lineage chatting about ordinary life.

In truth...

Hero Chen had laid out almost without reservation the entire process of his experiences, the changes in his heart, and his understanding of the sword.

Plain.

Unpolished.

Unhidden.

That was teaching.

For a Sword Maid who had already reached Fourth Grade, it was an enormous gift.

Especially that one sentence:

*I pulled it lower. Then I could reach it.*

Hidden inside those words was a breadth and daring restrained to the absolute extreme.

After hearing them... the Sword Maid, who had relied upon entering the lineage earlier and stubbornly insisted on being Hero Chen’s senior sister, could no longer bring herself to keep taking advantage of the title.

Hero Chen returned and began grilling fish.

As the aroma gradually spread... the Sword Maid, leaning against a tree, suddenly said:

“Maybe she thought she wasn’t worthy of you. So that’s why...”

Hero Chen turned to look at her.

Then turned back.

And continued grilling the fish.

“You truly never cared? Never thought about it? Did she know you were such a powerful swordsman?”

“She died,” Hero Chen said.

“So?”

Hero Chen handed the first grilled fish to the Sword Maid.

Then said casually:

“Zheng Fan once said not every story needs a pearl added at the end.”

“Why?”

“Because pearls are too expensive. Most people are ordinary people. They can’t afford one.”

Hero Chen picked up the second grilled fish, tore off a piece of meat, and put it into his mouth.

While chewing, he asked:

“You’ve watched eastern Jin’s village opera before, right?”

“Yes. More than half of it is flattering that bastard Zheng.”

“I like it. It’s lively. Very entertaining.”

Hero Chen pointed toward the empty space in front of them.

“Because I know Zheng Fan too well, I don’t watch the actor playing him. And because I know Master too well, I don’t watch the actor playing Master either.”

“But those two are usually the real stars of the whole performance. If you don’t watch them, what do you watch?”

“The ones standing beside them. The ones carrying banners. Beating gongs. Shouting. Jumping. Turning somersaults. Even the ones playing horses, or Pi Beasts. The opera troupes probably call them... supporting players. Maybe they don’t seem important. But take them away, and the show stops being good.”

...

In the deepest darkness, a ghostly flame lit.

The black-robed woman sat upright from her slab of ice.

The charred mark between her brows was horrifyingly clear.

“I fell half a Grade.”

Beside her, a woman in a white robe walked over.

Anger filled her eyes.

The black-robed woman did not care.

“If I hadn’t returned when I did, I would have been gone entirely.”

“Now what do we do? Thanks to you, our true bodies have completely awakened. The hourglass has begun to fall.”

The black-robed woman clenched her fist.

Terrifying force gathered and churned between her fingers.

“We have no choice. Since we are all dogs surviving in the shadows anyway... then...”

BOOM!

Her fist smashed into the ice beneath her.

Terrifying cracks spread outward.

One frozen bed after another began collapsing.

Then... figures slowly sat upright from beds all around the darkness.

“Is it time?”

“It should already be time.”

“Have the Demon Kings thrown the world into chaos?”

“Finally... time to awaken...”

The black-robed woman swept her gaze across them all.

Then shouted:

“No. We are the ones who have run out of time. Wake up!”

...

“Husband. Wake up. Wake up.”

“Oh? Mm.”

Xiong Liqing pushed Zheng Fan awake from where he had been dozing in the commander’s seat.

Great Yan’s Regent Prince did not feel the slightest embarrassment about falling asleep during such an important occasion.

Instead, he laughed.

“Who told you Chu people to make your rituals this complicated?”

On the distant sacrificial platform, his elder brother-in-law—the Emperor of Great Chu—was offering sacrifice to Heaven.

Soon, the Emperor would present a formal state memorial to Great Yan’s Regent Prince.

In law and ritual, that would mark Great Chu bowing its head to the Regent Prince Residence of eastern Jin.

Many Chu officials and nobles were kneeling on the ground and weeping.

Farther out, plenty of ordinary Chu people wept as well.

Unfortunately... the Prince of Great Yan could not truly share their pain.

After all... he was the victor.

The conqueror.

Once his elder brother-in-law’s ceremony was nearly complete... the Prince rose.

Xiong Liqing supported his arm.

Behind them...

Zheng Lin appeared while supporting his elder sister.

Big Girl kept rubbing her eyes and yawning.

She still had not recovered from the exhaustion of lending that sword several days earlier.

“Aiya. My precious daughter is sleepy.”

The sight genuinely made the Prince ache with sympathy.

He was unlike Ji Old Sixth, who years ago, while fighting for the throne and trying to score points with his “excellent imperial grandson,” had been willing to make his own son Ji Chuanye drink medicine.

Zheng Fan could never do something like that.

No.

If it were his son being made to drink medicine... emotionally, he could probably accept it.

His daughter?

Absolutely not.

Even forcing his daughter to lose sleep merely because she had to attend some official ceremony made this father feel distressed.

The Prince walked over.

He lifted his daughter into his arms.

Big Girl naturally looped both arms around her father’s neck.

“Why don’t you go down and rest?”

Big Girl shook her head.

Another yawn escaped her.

But she still answered firmly:

“Dad, today the two of us are the leads.”

“Fine. Then Dad will take you to see it. Come look at the Chu your father conquered for you with his own hands!”

[End of Chapter 991]