At the rear of Qingyang Temple, there was a pavilion known as the Gazing Toward Immortals Pavilion. At that moment, a man and a woman stood within it — none other than the Rong Family’s young master, Rong Huanxuan, and her guardian elder, Liu Xiao.

Liu Xiao was only in his early forties, yet his face looked as though he had already passed sixty. He was currently furrowing his brow and urging Rong Huanxuan to leave.

“Young Master, a gentleman does not stand beneath a crumbling wall. The Family Head has already sent a sound transmission — you should return to the clan at once.” Liu Xiao lowered his gaze to the dark golden talismanic patterns embroidered on her black robes, his tone carrying undisguised helplessness.

Rong Huanxuan turned toward him and looked at him coldly. “The Family Head is telling me to retreat and give way to that woman. Is that it? I am the esteemed young master of the Rong Family — have I truly come to the point of yielding to some ordinary woman? Elder Liu, do you think so little of me?”

Her tone seemed to carry a bone-deep chill.

Liu Xiao looked up and held her gaze.

The young woman before him was undeniably beautiful. She had a pair of elongated phoenix eyes, their corners tilted upward, the irises deep and fathomless. Her brows swept diagonally up into her temples. Her nose was tall and straight, her lips as red as blood. Between her brows, she had painted a blood-red flame, lending her an added air of commanding severity and inviolable dignity.

Liu Xiao suddenly realized he had been staring, and lowered his eyes again. Out of the corner of his gaze, he watched her impeccably tailored black robes billow in the breeze, the embroidered patterns on the hem shifting between light and shadow.

When had it started — when had the young master taken to wearing only black robes? It seemed to have begun after all that bad news had spread.

And the young master’s aura had undergone a profound change as well. It had grown somber and cold. Yet her overall bearing had also become more commanding — she had matured, as though she had truly taken on the weight of being the young master. And yet she had also become harder to manage, her temper darker and more volatile.

“Your subordinate would not dare.” Liu Xiao stepped back and clasped his hands in a bow. “However — Elder Lingxu has fallen.”

Rong Huanxuan’s pupils contracted sharply. Her eyes darkened even further, and a flash of shock and resentment flickered deep within them.

To have defeated a Daoren at the Foundation Establishment stage and brought him to his end — how powerful must someone be? Surely their cultivation already surpassed that of a Foundation Establishment expert — both in spiritual power and natural talent, someone standing among the finest.

As Rong Huanxuan contemplated this, the cold, imperious face she wore betrayed not a shred of grief for Lingxu’s fall. Instead, it showed nothing but resentment, indignation — and above all, envy.

First there was the National Preceptor’s disciple, acclaimed as the foremost genius of the age, carefully nurtured by the National Preceptor, who had already achieved Foundation Establishment at a young age. And now, out of nowhere, an unknown wandering soul with nothing but a broken, ruined body had managed to kill a Foundation Establishment expert. And what of herself?

She had extraordinary talent. She had never been lax in her cultivation — not once. She was the foremost person of the entire Rong Family. Yet what had come of it? Her attempt at Foundation Establishment had failed and damaged her cultivation base instead, nearly destroying years’ worth of cultivation in a single moment. If not for the Family Head’s swift intervention, she might already have fallen below even the outer disciples of the Rong Family.

Everyone said she should not have been so eager for success — but who was she doing it for? Was it not all for the Rong Family? She had wanted to raise the Rong Family’s standing, to push it to a position even above the Feng Family!

Heaven was truly unfair. What was one more genius in this world?

Rong Huanxuan’s expression twisted slightly. Liu Xiao caught a glimpse of it and felt a quiet heaviness settle in his heart, and a sudden bleak, mournful sensation rose up in him — the sorrow of one creature watching another of its kind perish.

Was someone so utterly cold truly worth serving?

No — they had all signed binding contracts. Betrayal was not an option.

Liu Xiao silently recited a heart-calming mantra before turning to Rong Huanxuan again. “Young Master, your cultivation base is currently unstable—”

“Silence!” Rong Huanxuan cut him off with a sharp reprimand. Her upswept phoenix eyes were ruthlessly cold. “Elder Liu Xiao, you are one of the top five elders of our Rong Family. Do not speak words that elevate others while diminishing our own standing. Would you fear a petty person who hides and cowers in the shadows?”

At that scornful, mocking tone, Liu Xiao nearly choked on a surge of rage. Swallowing it down, he said tightly, “Young Master — Elder Lingxu’s cultivation was above mine, and yet — what became of him? The same was true of Zhengyang Zi. And now they have both fallen by the same person’s hand. Does this not warrant the young master’s serious attention?”

Rong Huanxuan pressed her lips together and said, “I deeply regret Elder Lingxu’s fall — but he only barely crossed into Foundation Establishment last year. His cultivation base had not yet been fully consolidated. That is how that person got the better of him. Who knows what underhanded tricks she used, or whether someone helped her? Were she to face my grandfather, I wonder if she would be quite so capable.”

Her expression carried a self-satisfied, haughty air, which sent Liu Xiao’s fury surging even higher. He retracted what he had just thought about her having grown into her responsibilities. This one was simply a spoiled child, rotten all the way through — even with her cultivation base severely damaged, she still showed no restraint or sense of self-preservation. She was determined to court death.

“No matter what tricks she used or whether she had help, she made a Foundation Establishment expert fall — that is fact. That is ability.” Liu Xiao said with a darkened expression. “Is the young master refusing to leave because you intend to defy the Family Head’s orders?”

“Insolence — don’t you dare use the Family Head to pressure me!” Rong Huanxuan flew into a sudden rage, and her hand shot out to strike him squarely in the chest.

Liu Xiao had not been on guard against it. The blow landed on his heart, and his throat instantly filled with a sweet, metallic taste as he coughed up a mouthful of blood.

His expression shifted with alarm as he looked at her hand. Was his eyesight failing him? He could have sworn he glimpsed an ominous, sinister darkness flickering across her hand for just a moment — and her voice just now had carried that unsettling, bone-cold edge.

Liu Xiao looked up at her, his brow deeply furrowed.

Rong Huanxuan’s expression flickered with a brief moment of panic, then immediately returned to its usual composure. She tucked her hand behind her back, and with her chin raised and her gaze contemptuous and imperious as always, she said, “Uncle Liu — have you never heard the saying that a general in the field need not follow every command from the throne? Besides, that person just fought a great battle with Elder Lingxu. To have brought Lingxu to his fall would have required an enormous expenditure of vital energy and spiritual power. She is not a deity — she cannot recover from that in an instant. If she were to appear before us right now, perhaps we could even capture her, and offer that as a tribute to the spirits of our two fallen Rong Family elders.”

Liu Xiao said nothing. That much was plain to him as well. However recently Lingxu had entered Foundation Establishment, he was born of a prestigious orthodox Daoist sect with exceptional talent and formidable cultivation. Destroying him would have demanded an enormous toll in spiritual power and vital energy. That person could not possibly have recovered and recuperated so quickly.

“Even so—”

“Uncle Liu,” Rong Huanxuan said, “if she were smart and knew her place, she would know when to stop. If she truly dares to move against me, the Rong Family will not let her go — nor will they let go of the Lang Family behind her. A nameless wandering soul from who knows where — if she borrows a body to survive, she should keep her head down and hide. Instead she has kicked up this tremendous commotion. Does she truly think no one can deal with her? If she drags the entire Lang Family down with her — all those lives — what kind of karma would that bring her? How could she ever repay it?”

A chill crept through Liu Xiao’s heart. Know when to stop — this was entirely dismissing the two fallen elders without any intention of seeking justice.

“Young Master, the Lang Family is only an ordinary household of nobles — they are not a Xuan Clan. Now that the Surveillance Division has been established, and you are about to marry into the Tantai Family, you must not embarrass the imperial family. To act against ordinary people — not only would the Surveillance Division refuse to let it go, but the other two great families would likely oppose it as well. From what I have heard, the Gong Family is protecting this person.”

Rong Huanxuan said sharply, “That is because they do not know this woman is an evil demon possessing another’s body. If they knew, would Gong Tinglan — that self-proclaimed righteous paragon of the orthodox path — be able to tolerate it?”

Evil and demonic — something that everyone was justified in destroying.

“Enough. You need not concern yourself with this. Since she chooses to live as an ordinary person, we shall use the ordinary method!” Rong Huanxuan cast a cold glance down the mountain, where someone appeared to be slowly ascending.

Liu Xiao’s gaze sharpened. She had truly come.