The fifth month of the lunar year, the Month of the Five Poisons, was the season when the dragon brought down the rains in abundance. But this particular Fifth Month filled those within the imperial palace with a terror unlike any they had known, for they discovered that rain had begun to fall over the palace — without any warning, without any sign.

Rain itself was ordinary enough, not something to inspire dread. But this rain was anything but ordinary — it fell in black streams, carrying an acid, putrid stench, as though it were the foul runoff of something long decomposed, making every person who smelled it nauseous with revulsion.

Those who were caught without shelter and soaked through were seized with a burning fever before midnight. Others found every joint in their body wracked with unbearable aching pain. And some collapsed in the palace corridors, their drenched bodies covered in swollen purple markings of the most disturbing kind — exactly like the corpse patches of someone who had drowned.

What made this even more inexplicable was that this black rain seemed to fall only within the palace walls, like a passing shower that moved no further. Beyond the palace, the air was perfectly clear.

After the sudden black rain, the assembled court ministers arriving for morning audience stared up at the placard above the Golden Hall in collective horror. Blood was seeping through the wood, dripping steadily downward, pooling together to form two large characters.

Punished by Heaven.

The court fell into a panic.

This was a heaven-sent sign of warning — the kind that manifested when a ruler had lost his virtue.

The reigning Emperor, Anhe Di, jolted awake from his nightmare in a cold sweat. In his dream he had seen the ancestors of the imperial line, each holding a divine whip, raining fierce reproaches down upon him — condemning him as blinded by his own desires, as having lost his virtue and neglected his duties, as being a fatuous and incompetent ruler unworthy of the throne. They had even raised their whips against him.

Those divine whips seemed to carry a resonance of celestial principle and accountability. They had struck him until his soul shook with agony, leaving a tracery of purple welts across his body that lingered even now.

It had been so real.

The pain was as vivid as if it had truly happened, making his body convulse with lingering shock.

Anhe Di gasped for breath in great heaving gulps, shoved away the soft hand of the beauty lying beside him, and tore open his own garments. He looked down — and his eyes went wide with a fury so intense it seemed his eyes might split.

How could this be?

Across his lean torso, crisscrossing in every direction, were purple welts, sunk deep into the skin, as though someone had been beating him in person just moments ago.

“Your Majesty… Aiyah!” The beauty’s voice began in a soft, sultry murmur, but as she caught sight of the welts on his back, she screamed.

Anhe Di was so startled by the scream that he flinched. He turned to look at her with icy eyes. The beauty, without a single garment on her body, knelt on the imperial bed, trembling.

“Your Majesty?”

The head eunuch rushed in from outside, and having just caught the tail end of that frightened scream, called out in concern.

“Lady Liu has shown disrespect to the Emperor. Take her away. Eighty lashes of the whip.” Anhe Di’s voice was vicious and wild.

Lady Liu’s face drained of all color. She begged and pleaded for mercy, but her cries were quickly muffled under the large hands of the eunuchs as she was dragged away.

Only then did the head eunuch catch sight of the purple welts across Anhe Di’s body, his expression transforming with shock. “Your Majesty, your imperial person—”

“Silence!” Anhe Di’s tone was glacially cold. “Why are you in such a state of panic? What has happened?”

The head eunuch fell to his knees and for a moment genuinely did not dare to speak. The placard above the Golden Hall had already shown an omen — and now the Emperor’s own body had inexplicably manifested these horrifying welts. How could he possibly say it?

“Speak!”

The head eunuch trembled, and under Anhe Di’s cold, penetrating stare, stammered out every word.

Anhe Di’s expression shifted with shock, and then erupted in fury. “Useless things! An omen like this appearing, and the palace guards didn’t come to report it at once? They deserve death!”

He descended from his bed and dressed in haste, not even pausing long enough for his crown to be properly placed, and was already striding out of his sleeping chambers at speed, his steps quick and urgent as he moved toward the Golden Hall.

Before the Golden Hall, the assembled ministers had long since dropped to their knees. When Anhe Di arrived, the cry of “Long live the Emperor” rang out from every throat — though every voice trembled.

Anhe Di looked at the blood seeping down from the placard, then at the characters pooled on the ground below. His eyelid twitched. “Whoever dares play at haunting and trickery within the palace — investigate everything and bring that person to us!”

He issued his decree quickly: morning court was suspended for the day, and the Daoist and Buddhist elders retained by the imperial family were summoned to the palace with the greatest urgency.

Was it possible that this was a genuine omen from the heavens? He refused to believe it. Someone had to be behind this, working dark arts against him. But who, he thought — who would dare work cursed arts against an Emperor? And the person was capable enough to affect even the placard above the Golden Hall. As for the welts on his own body — if an assassin had actually reached him, they would have taken his life, not left him with nothing but welts. So that much was beyond any ordinary assassin.

So he was convinced it was someone wielding dark arts. But who — and how — was something that alarmed and unsettled him deeply. To accomplish all of this without leaving any trace, without any sign of their presence — could this truly be an ordinary cultivator?

If they had only sent an omen today, what would they send next? Would they come for his life?

Anhe Di summoned every retained elder of the imperial family to come and investigate. If dark arts were involved, the culprit had to be identified without fail. In addition, he ordered the Surveillance Bureau to conduct a rigorous inquiry, and commanded the Young Masters of each of the great mystical clans to enter the palace to discuss the matter.

He was desperate to pin the entire affair on the work of heretical cultivators throwing the world into chaos, hoping to deflect attention from any other interpretation.

Especially given the news arriving from Jing Wang’s estate: Jing Wang had fallen into an unconsciousness he could not be roused from, his body suffused with spectral ghostly energy, his life hanging in the balance. This only strengthened Anhe Di’s conviction further.

“Find them. Whatever arts you must use — find this evil demonic heretic for us, and purge this wickedness!” Anhe Di raged, alternately scratching at the back of his hand and glaring savagely at the assembled elders as he issued his command.

Heavenly omens? No — this was clearly the work of an evil cultivator, a direct act of provocation against the imperial house.

Anhe Di’s gaze even drifted with suspicion toward the white-robed, otherworldly figure of Gong Tinglan — the Young Master of the Gong family for this generation had a rebellious streak. He seemed to be positioning himself as a leader, looking to challenge the imperial house and overturn the old order of the mystical clans. Was this his doing?

Then there was the fence-sitting Feng family — always deliberately ambiguous in their intentions. Could they be outwardly loyal to the imperial house while secretly already aligned with the Gong family?

The Young Master of the Feng family and Gong Tinglan both felt Anhe Di’s gaze land on them, and could not help flinching inwardly.

What an enormous responsibility to be saddled with — they wanted no part of it.