A thunderous boom erupted without warning in the stillness of the private room.

Inside the room, a fierce yin wind rose to the ceiling. The overwhelming killing aura split the round table at the center clean in two, sending both halves crashing to the ground. The paintings and calligraphy mounted on the walls flapped and snapped furiously in the yin gale and ultimately could not escape the rampage of that destructive force — they were reduced to shreds, drifting down like scattered snowflakes.

The sudden upheaval sent Grand Tutor Fang and the others instinctively leaping to their feet. They scrambled away from the shattered table, their faces drained white with shock, pressing together in a cluster.

What had just happened?

Fuyi’s killing aura rose like a violent cyclone, savagely destroying everything in the room. His wrathful energy made Grand Tutor Fang and the others feel as though ice had been poured into their very bones — their bodies went numb and rigid, frozen to the marrow.

Lang Jiuchuan had not expected Fuyi to burst out of the pagoda like that — and certainly not for his killing aura to surge to such extremity. Watching as the room was devastated in an instant and the aura blasted outward through the windows, her hands moved in rapid succession to form a spiritual binding seal, which she launched at Fuyi, restraining him. “General — the Grand Tutor is advanced in years. He cannot withstand a direct assault from your killing aura.”

“What does that have to do with me?” Fuyi turned to look at her, his eyes no longer the calm and composed gaze from before — now they were flooded red, vicious and savage. That ferocious power accumulated from countless years on the battlefield and the slaying of innumerable enemies radiated from him in waves, inspiring dread in all who faced it.

“The Fuyi men have served in the military for generations — every one of them, save those taken in childhood or by illness, died on the battlefield. The widows left behind in the Fuyi household outnumber those of any other family. The Fuyi clan served the nation with absolute loyalty across every generation — and what was the outcome? A disgraceful end. Even the women and children did not die peacefully in their beds. Where is the justice of Heaven? Where is the principle of righteousness?”

Fuyi did not fear death. He did not fear dying on the battlefield. But what he could not endure was dying on the battlefield while being branded with a fabricated crime. Such a foul reputation — he could not bear it, and the Fuyi family could not bear it — and yet it had been forcibly pinned upon them, written into the historical records, condemned for all posterity to denounce.

He had not entered the historical record as a loyal hero who had resisted the enemy. He had entered it as a criminal who had delayed military intelligence and brought ruin upon the people. How was he to endure that?

He was not a saint who could remain unmoved at a posthumous name of infamy condemned by history. More than that, his own family had been destroyed because of it. How could he not resent that?

So should he not grieve?

“Heaven’s justice is at work — for the Liang Dynasty itself perished. Those who slandered their own loyal subjects were repaid — the dynasty came to an end that was not a good one. It fell, in the end.”

Fuyi’s killing aura stuttered, and then came a bitter laugh. “It is not the same. The fall of the Liang Dynasty was simply the fulfillment of Heaven’s course. But posterity will say only that it was I, Fuyi, who ruined the nation — the condemnation will fall upon me alone.”

History is written by the victors, by those who survive. The truth of what actually happened — no one knows, and no one will alter it. As it passes down through the generations, those who come after will believe only what the historical records say.

He was a criminal general.

The moment that thought struck him, Fuyi was overcome by a sorrowful desolation. His killing aura no longer surged with ferocity — instead it gradually subsided. But in its place came an aura of grief that made those present feel a far deeper ache in the chest.

A mighty general in his prime, one who ought to have left an immortal legacy as a hero, had instead been saddled with a fabricated crime he never committed. How could that not be the bitterest of injustices? How could it not make anyone who heard it cry out in sorrow?

The storm died down.

Lang Jiuchuan released the binding seal. Fuyi crouched in a corner like a forlorn and abandoned creature — his spirit both sorrowful and tortured, the look of someone who had been dealt a wound to the very core of their being.

She clenched her hand into a fist, pressing her lips together. Even though the Liang Dynasty had fallen, at this moment he must have felt that sense of utter despair — as though the very nation he had fought for had abandoned him entirely.

Lang Jiuchuan wanted to offer a few words of comfort. The words rose to her lips — and then felt so hollow she closed her mouth and said nothing.

The Liang Dynasty — it deserved to fall.

Thud.

Thump.

Two sounds jolted Lang Jiuchuan back to the present. She turned her head to look — and found that both Xue Shi and Grand Tutor Fang had sunk to their knees, their legs giving out beneath them.

Two men whose combined age exceeded a hundred years sat crumpled on the floor, their faces pale with shock and their lips trembling, looking at her with expressions that mingled fear with question — a look that clearly said: aren’t you going to say something in your defense?

Just look at this room — it could have passed for the aftermath of a cyclone.

From outside the door came the urgent, frantic knocking of the two men’s personal attendants and guards.

“Old Master, are you all right?”

“Sir, sir — what on earth just happened? Why won’t this door open?”

“Stand back — I’ll break it down.”

Xue Shi was the first to come to his senses. “Everything is fine — no need to come in. We accidentally knocked over the tea things, that is all. Wait outside.”

“Quite right,” Grand Tutor Fang added a word.

Lang Jiuchuan stepped forward, first righted the stools, then helped the two of them to their seats. Seeing their ashen complexions, she reached into her robe for two talismans, then removed the Dizhong bell from where it hung, and — ringing the bell softly with one hand and tracing through the incantation with the other — began to recite a verse of the Mind-Calming Mantra.

Gradually, to the sound of her murmured incantation and the measured toll of the bell, both elderly men began to settle.

After a time, Xue Shi looked around at the devastated room and sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Just now — what happened? Was it a ghost?”

The conversation had been proceeding normally, and then without warning the table split down the middle and the room was left like this by an invisible force — if it was not a ghost, then were the three of them responsible for it?

Xue Shi had lived through the experience of having his life force drawn away and replaced — he had a relatively easy time accepting the existence of spirits and the supernatural. Grand Tutor Fang, on the other hand, looked at him and then at Lang Jiuchuan with an unreadable expression. But he was an old man of many years with an extraordinarily wide breadth of reading and experience — he had witnessed many things in his long life. He showed no excessive surprise, and he asked no questions.

The answer would come from the young girl before them. And it was surely connected to the former dynasty’s renowned general she had been asking about.

As expected, Lang Jiuchuan first gave them a bow of apology, and said with genuine remorse, “It is this junior who was not sufficiently prepared — I have given you both a great fright. I am truly sorry.”

“This is no moment for apologies — just tell us plainly, was it or wasn’t it?”

“This junior begs your pardon!” Lang Jiuchuan suddenly formed a hand seal, recited the incantation to open the Heavenly Eye, pressed two fingers to each of their brows in turn, and then took her jade-boned spirit brush and drew the Heavenly Eye Talisman on each of their foreheads.

Rather than explain it all herself — better to have everyone see with their own eyes.

Xue Shi and Grand Tutor Fang both felt a sudden sharp tingling between their eyes — an instinctive, faint itching sensation. They closed their eyes without thinking, and when they opened them again, both men’s eyes went wide.

Their fingers shot out, pointing at Fuyi crouching in the corner of the room, then swung back to point at Lang Jiuchuan, their throats producing a clucking, rattling sound.

This — this was —

Nothing there a moment ago, and now a ghost just sitting crouched over there — was this meant to give someone a fright?

Heavens have mercy — this wretched girl, making people see ghosts at the slightest provocation. Does she have any sense of respect for her elders?

Xue Shi stared at Lang Jiuchuan with eyes full of reproach.

Grand Tutor Fang’s face twitched. There was nothing under the heavens that could not be encountered — but seeing a ghost was, for him, like a bride ascending her wedding carriage for the very first time. A completely first-time experience.

The shock of it, coupled with his alarm, made him reach out instinctively and pinch something — and Xue Shi let out a yelp of pain and leaped up. “What are you pinching me for, old man?”

Grand Tutor Fang forced himself to project composure, stood up, and looked at the armored figure of Fuyi. He pressed his hands together in a formal bow. “If I may ask — is this the General Fuyi that Xiao Jiu Niang spoke of?”

A man from two hundred years past — regardless of which clan, they were all people of the Central Plains, all of the same lineage. He was their ancestor.

Fuyi raised his head. Those eyes, still not fully drained of their killing aura, flooding crimson and ferocious, made Grand Tutor Fang step back a pace involuntarily. But he forced a smile onto his face, grabbed Xue Shi’s arm, and bowed again. “We young ones — we pay our respects to the Old Ancestor.”

Xue Shi: “?”

I had no idea you were this perceptive, Grand Tutor — able to bend and yield with such grace. No wonder you move so smoothly in the presence of the Holy Emperor.