The Netherworld Scorpion slipped through the chamber wall, entering without so much as a whisper.
The chamber beyond was a “room” only in the sense of the Imperial Palace’s design philosophy, containing within itself a small and self-contained realm. A courtyard sat at its heart, enclosed on all sides by a three-story manor of pale stone and dark timber. Five overlapping domes of light sealed the entire residence from above: blue, then green, then red, then silver, and finally gold, which was the innermost and smallest, shimmering faintly like a held breath. The formation layered upon itself like geological strata, each layer distinct and pressed against the last. Together they were capable of withstanding even a powerful Nascent Soul cultivator, stacked atop the already formidable natural restrictions that ran through every stone and beam of every palace chamber.
The Netherworld Scorpion skittered forward and proceeded to ignore them all.
It moved at no greater speed than an ordinary scorpion, its ghostly appendages clicking soundlessly against stone and grass alike. Yet it crossed the courtyard without pause, sometimes climbing through open air as though invisible steps had been laid there expressly for its use. Within minutes, it reached the front doors of the manor and passed through them like a wisp of smoke caught in a draft.
Xuli Ren, overseer of the twenty first floor of the palace, was just beyond.
He paced anxiously, hands clasped behind his back. His robes were a deep, rich yellow, embroidered along the flowing hems and sleeves with blue and green orioles picked out in fine silk thread. His hair, dyed to an even brighter yellow – nearly gold – matched the ornamental ambition of the rest of his appearance. A neatly trimmed beard sharpened the lines of his square face, lending him a dignity that had probably once been called handsome.
Now, however, that face was twisted with unease.
“I am perfectly safe,” he muttered in short, terse phrases, as though trying to convince himself. “I have already set up the Five Bao Thunderdome Formation, and borrowed the Peril Revealing Plate from Xonghuan. No one can touch me here. The prince promised so himself.”
He completed a full lap of the room before speaking again.
"Damn that Tang Huwei. What enmity is there between us?" His voice dropped into a low, simmering grumble. "Can't he simply leave me alone? I never said an unkind word to the princess back then, not once, yet he wants me to resign from my post as overseer in favor of that outer court brat Daisheng." His jaw tightened. "As if anyone with a spine could swallow such humiliation."
His steps slowed, then steadied again. "He can't reach me here. I am safe."
Another lap.
The certainty had begun to crack.
"But… Shouming, that creep, died. And then Situ Jinzheng. Even Lord Futing…" His voice dropped further, growing quieter the more names he listed. “If they could die, then why can’t I?" He stopped, then started again, faster. "No, there's no way. They were careless. I am not. The prince promised." The final words came out less like reassurance and more like a plea directed at no one in particular.
Unseen by the floorboards directly beneath Xuli Ren's feet, the Netherworld Scorpion paused, as though it had grown bored of the performance above it, and began to search. Mo Jian's purpose this time was not simple assassination, but something far more precise. He intended to plant fear in the victim's heart, create an opening for an ally, and fulfill a promise all at once. That was the only reason the scorpion had been dispatched. Xuli Ren himself did not fit the profile of prey he would ordinarily target.
The scorpion slipped away, skittering from room to room through walls and floors and barriers alike as though they were suggestions rather than obstacles.
Most of the chambers on the first floor served specialized purposes. There was a pill-concoction room lined with furnaces and alchemical tools, a jade slip library filled with neatly arranged shelves, a spirit pool saturated with dense qi, and a talisman crafting workshop hung with rows upon rows of spirit beast hides awaiting inscription. Many more rooms branched off beyond those.
The entire floor proved a dead end. The scorpion climbed the staircase, leaving the anxiously pacing Xuli Ren behind.
The second floor was much the same in character, though these chambers appeared intended for a combination of storage and guest accommodations. Several rooms contained jade beds for visiting cultivators to meditate upon, arranged with the correct degree of ceremony. Others held stacks of treasure chests and spirit materials, labeled and ordered on their shelves. A few, however, looked as though a storm had torn through them, with storage pouches scattered carelessly across the floor, half-open crates abandoned mid-sort, and neglected treasures lying where they had fallen and apparently remained for some time. Mo Jian had not taken Xuli Ren for such a disorderly housekeeper at first impression, but even cultivators remained slaves to their private habits. The gap between the face presented to the world and the room no one was supposed to see was, in Mo Jian's experience, almost always instructive.
The scorpion moved on. It found what it was looking for on the third floor, or more specifically, upon the balcony. The balcony itself was modest in size, a small platform of pale stone extending from the manor's upper face, open to the domain's false sky. But at its center stood an enormous gilded cage that occupied the space like a throne, clearly intended as the focal point of everything around it. The craftsmanship was extraordinary: every golden bar etched with fine, interlocking patterns, potent qi surging silently through the metal in steady pulses, like a heartbeat. Someone had spent a great deal of time and care on this cage, that much was unmistakable.
Within it perched a single Sable Back Oriole. Its feathers were so deeply black they seemed to absorb the artificial sunlight filtering down through the dome above, drinking it in rather than reflecting it. Only its beak broke the darkness, gleaming with the warm luster of polished gold. The bird sang softly to itself, each note unhurried and crystalline enough to soothe the spirit.
A rank three spirit beast and clearly a beloved pet.
The Netherworld Scorpion stepped off the balcony railing into empty air and walked across it as though the void had been paved for the occasion. It slipped through the gilded bars without resistance and approached the unsuspecting bird from below. Then it raised its stinger; a translucent, ghostly barb that glowed with a pale, pearlescent white, like moonlight trapped in amber.
For a moment, a stray thought crossed Mo Jian's mind as he guided the scorpion from afar.
There was an old saying among cultivators: The mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind. It was a warning against becoming so fixed upon one's quarry that the hunter lurking beyond one's sight went unnoticed. Now that he was hunting a literal oriole, the irony was difficult to shake.
Was he the hunter, moving silently in for the kill? Or was he merely another mantis, so intent on what lay directly ahead that he had already failed to notice what waited behind him? The palace was the domain of an immortal, after all. And for all of Mo Jian's advantages, schemes, and hidden methods, he most certainly was not one. The thought lingered a heartbeat longer than it should have before he shook it off, filing it away alongside the other things he had decided were not worth dwelling on until they became unavoidable.
The scorpion struck.
Its stinger descended in perfect silence. The luminous tip passed through the oriole's body as though the bird were made of shadow rather than feather and bone. The song cut off instantly as the bird stiffened on its perch for one suspended moment, and then toppled, landing at the base of the cage with a small, muted thump that seemed disproportionately quiet for such a beast. Silence settled over the balcony like a curtain drawn.
Mo Jian withdrew his consciousness from the Netherworld Scorpion and instructed it to return.
Its purpose here had been fulfilled.
…………………………………………………………….
Back in Xiang Muxue's palatial residence, Mo Jian opened his eyes and was immediately greeted by the sight of a gaunt face hovering inches from his own.
He nearly jumped out of his skin. Instinctively recoiling, he jerked backward, heart hammering in his chest. Across from him, the culprit – the legendary Tiger General – leaned away just enough to avoid being headbutted.
"Hmm." The sound was one of mild disappointment.
"What the hell?" Mo Jian blurted. His voice came out embarrassingly high before he managed to regain control of himself.
Tang Huwei ignored the outburst entirely. "Nothing," he said, stroking his chin. "Nothing I could make sense of, anyway. Whatever it is you're doing resembles no technique I've ever seen."
Mo Jian resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands. Of course that's what this was about.
Ever since Xiang Muxue had revealed the details of the alliance she and Mo Jian had formed, the Tiger General had become increasingly obsessed with uncovering his secrets. Most of all, the method that allowed him to assassinate people within the Palace without warning, evidence, or apparent cause. The question had clearly taken root behind the general's eyes and was refusing to be evicted.
He had not stopped probing since.
"Did you really have to get that close to find out?" Mo Jian asked. He already knew the complaint was pointless. Nothing he said would alter the man's behavior in the slightest. Still, voicing it made him feel marginally better.
As expected, Tang Huwei ignored him.
The two of them were alone in the room at the moment. Xiang Muxue had gone to visit her cousin, Xiang Guxin, as part of her efforts to gather support against Chengxuan.
"Guxin has nearly as much reason to hate that man as I do," the princess had said before leaving.
"And even less power than you had five days ago," Tang Huwei had replied immediately. "It's a waste of time. She couldn't convince a fly to buzz past Chengxuan's ear, let alone help us hamper him in any meaningful way."
The princess had remained entirely unmoved by his skepticism. Consequently, “Uncle Tiger” had been forced to yield before her usual stubbornness. Not completely, of course; he had at least managed to insist that she take an escort.
To that, Xiang Muxue had rolled her eyes. "I don't need guards. As long as I'm inside the Palace, nobody can harm me, remember? That's the entire reason we can't simply kill Chengxuan and have to resort to all these roundabout schemes in the first place."
The argument had failed to sway the general. As a result, Bai Ning and Miao Bu had accompanied her regardless. Shen Jinglan had gone as well, though that hardly required mentioning. If Xiang Muxue went somewhere, Shen Jinglan's presence was as inevitable as a shadow following its owner.
Mo Jian glanced around the room, his gaze sweeping over the spirit bamboo grove, the sunken tea court, and finally the vast folding screen that dominated the center of the chamber. It was still a ridiculous place to hold meetings. Then again, everything about the Imperial Palace was ridiculous. Three days had passed since their victory at court, and initially, Mo Jian had assumed things would slow down afterward. Surely after orchestrating the downfall of the prince's allies, exposing (fake) treachery, and winning a major political battle, they would allow themselves a brief respite.
He should have known better.
The first meeting afterward had shattered that illusion. "We absolutely cannot slow down or afford to pause," Xiang Muxue had declared passionately. "This is precisely the moment to maintain pressure until Chengxuan is completely on the back foot." The proclamation had echoed through the room. Meanwhile, Mo Jian had sat quietly in his chair, mentally dismantling every private plan he had made for taking things easy.
Now, three days later, everyone remained occupied. Xiang Muxue was recruiting allies. Tang Huwei was plotting. Bai Ning was shadowing the princess (with plenty of private grumbling to him about the whole situation).
And Mo Jian was assassinating birds.
Life, he reflected, was genuinely strange.
"I've left the message as we planned," he said, turning to Tang Huwei. "Do you think it'll be enough to convince Xuli Ren to abandon his position?"
Some of the humor faded from the general's expression.
"It will," he said. "Ren is a coward to the bone. Not an especially objectionable man, mind you, but a coward nonetheless. Once he understands he isn't safe, he'll capitulate." Then his eyes narrowed pointedly. "Of course, it would have been much simpler if our assassin had actually killed him instead of refusing to."
Mo Jian grimaced, offering no defense. From a purely practical perspective, Tang Huwei was right. Leaving enemies alive complicated matters, and making distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable targets also complicated matters. Yet he could not bring himself to abandon those distinctions entirely. Perhaps it was irrational or perhaps it was hypocrisy, but he wanted to preserve at least a thin thread of morality within himself.
Even if it made things harder.
At the very least, Xiang Muxue agreed with him. She had even praised his refusal to target Chengxuan's newly appointed court herald, Xing Hie. The man was firmly aligned with the prince, but every investigation had reached the same conclusion: he was scrupulously honest.
"There are some lines I'm not comfortable crossing," Mo Jian said at last, before a crooked half-smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Besides, killing the bird was painful enough. Sable Back Orioles are rare. It felt like such a waste."
"It was a bird," Tang Huwei replied flatly with the tone of a man who had never owned a pet. Then, after a moment, his expression softened. "Though it was a magnificent bird, almost as flashy as me." With practiced vanity, he ran a hand through his striped orange and black hair. Rings gleamed upon his fingers, catching the light as though eager to participate in the performance.
Mo Jian rolled his eyes. Somehow, against all odds, the Tiger General's ego had survived centuries of cultivation completely intact.
The room fell into a companionable silence once more.
Finally, the tiger general stirred. “What are your plans now?” he asked, sounding genuinely curious, which, given the general, was either sincere or a prelude to something. "You have the rest of today, and likely most of tomorrow as well, to yourself. I recall your companion mentioning something about visiting the city?"
Bai Ning had indeed mentioned that. She had pointed out, with reasonable logic, that enough time had passed and that they ought to check on the mine and their associates in the capital. Mo Jian wasn't opposed to the idea; he simply had something he wanted to do first. Bai Ning had responded to this priority with a pout, a slow roll of her eyes, and a declaration that he was a bore. He had declined to engage with any of this and had instead maintained a look of quiet superiority, which he felt was the more dignified approach.
"I was planning to visit the scripture library," he said. There was no particular reason to be cagey about it.
"Not the one on this floor, I hope," Tang Huwei said, his tone acquiring a slight edge of warning.
Mo Jian shook his head. “I’m not that foolish. While I doubt the prince would do anything, visiting a hall controlled by one of his men isn't a great idea. No, I was planning to head down to the second floor. I want to look through some jade slips concerning progress in the Nascent Soul realm.”
General Tang nodded slowly, his expression settling into something thoughtful. "You're new to the realm, that much is apparent, so expanding your foundational understanding is sensible." He paused. "What specifically are you looking for?"
Mo Jian raised an eyebrow at the genuine interest, but held his skepticism in check. Tang Huwei was a late stage Nascent Soul cultivator and if he felt inclined toward something approaching helpfulness, then Mo Jian would be foolish not to take advantage of it.
“Advancement,” he answered, short and sweet. It was all that needed to be said.
Tang Huwei nodded again. “"Then you'll find plenty of material on the subject. It's no great secret. There are countless jade slips and treatises addressing advancement in the Nascent Soul realm from every conceivable angle, but any cultivator who has actually progressed through it will tell you the same thing: it ultimately comes down to one principle. Nurturing your soul."
He paused, then continued. "That is all there is to it. Though most people, naturally, go about it the wrong way."
Mo Jian straightened slightly. “Nurturing your soul? That’s not the first time I’ve heard that phrase. But what does it actually mean?”
He wasn’t lying. The exact same phrase had appeared in the book when Ye Chen had explained some of the fundamentals of the Nascent Soul realm to Bai Ning. At the time, Mo Jian had assumed it was merely flowery wording. Yet now General Tang had repeated it almost word for word.
The Tiger General smiled. “It’s simple enough. At the early stage of the Nascent Soul realm, your soul takes the form of an infant.”
Seeing Mo Jian’s expression sour, he burst out laughing. “That ugly, huh?”
Mo Jian immediately realized his mistake and schooled his features back into a neutral mask. General Tang, however, seemed far too amused to make anything of it.
“In the middle stage of the realm, that infant grows into a child,” he continued. “And at the final stage…”
He trailed off as his qi surged outward, sudden and immense, rolling through the room like a wave front that had been held back and released at once. The pressure was extraordinary even through the tight restraint he kept over it. The air itself seemed to condense. The room trembled faintly, the bamboo in the grove swaying as though a wind had passed through without an obvious source. A figure of white light peeled away from Tang Huwei's body and unfolded beside him.
It was Tang Huwei himself. It had the same face, the same build and the same expression. Even the same – highly questionable – choice of clothing. It looked at first glance like a projection formed from pure qi, but it wasn't.
“That’s... your Nascent Soul,” Mo Jian breathed, leaning forward in fascination.
General Tang nodded smugly. “Quite handsome, isn't it?”
Before Mo Jian could reply with something along the lines of Only in your dreams, the general continued. “That is what you're supposed to be working toward.” The Nascent Soul unraveled into a stream of white light and flowed back into his body.
Mo Jian watched the process closely, turning the revelation over in his mind.
“But how does the appearance of the Nascent Soul have anything to do with its growth?” he asked after a moment. “All Nascent Souls are compressed anyway. Even my... infant form is larger than a mountain when measured by the amount of qi it contains.”
“And mine contains several hundred times that amount of qi,” General Tang shot back. “Which is why it looks so dashingly mature.”
Mo Jian stared at him, but Tang Huwei remained completely serious. “Compression has its stages,” the general continued. "The growth of the Nascent Soul from infant to child to adult is what advancement within the Nascent Soul realm actually consists of. That is what 'nurturing the soul' means."
"All right," Mo Jian said, after a brief pause. "That makes sense as a framework. So what does it actually take to nurture the soul? Based on what you said earlier, I'm guessing the answer isn't simply accumulating more qi, otherwise people wouldn't be 'going about it the wrong way.'"
General Tang's smile widened with an abruptness that suggested he had been waiting for exactly this question. Mo Jian felt his guard go up reflexively.
"That," the general announced with considerable pleasure, "is privileged information, my friend. What are you offering in exchange for the teachings of the great legend, Tang Huwei? The man who has climbed to the final step of cultivation before true immortality?"
Ugh. Mo Jian's expression flattened. He really should have known better when the general started being helpful. Then again, it wasn't as though he had much to offer.
“What do you want?” he asked bluntly. "I almost certainly don't have anything that would genuinely tempt you, so you might as well say it plainly."
General Tang adopted an expression of wounded innocence. “There is no need to be so distrustful. Since we are allies, I am, of course, perfectly willing to pass on my priceless and immensely valuable wisdom..." He paused for theatrical effect. "In exchange for a minor favor."
Mo Jian kept his face perfectly blank, which wasn't difficult in the slightest. “Spit it out.”
Whatever reverence he might once have held for this man – a questionable thing to begin with – had evaporated rapidly over the course of the last three days. At this point, dealing with Tang Huwei felt alarmingly similar to dealing with Bai Ning, though without her redeeming qualities.
Was that because he was biased? A deeply troubling thought.
General Tang's smile somehow widened further, becoming bright, cheerful, and, in its own particular way, deeply alarming.
“How do you feel about pretending to be Muxue's lover?”
Mo Jian choked. Quite literally – whatever he had been about to say caught in his throat and became something between a cough and an undignified noise. He was still working through the aftermath when, at the single most inopportune moment the universe could have selected, the doors swung open.
Princess Xiang Muxue entered first.
Bai Ning followed close behind.
Shen Jinglan came after her.
Beyond them, barely visible through the doorway, Miao Bu remained outside, lounging casually against the wall with his spear propped beside him.
General Tang registered the newcomers. More specifically, he registered Mo Jian's expression, that of dawning horror and seized the opportunity with a decisiveness that would not have been out of place on a battlefield. He drew in a breath, and then, unnecessarily loudly, declared: “You should pretend to be Muxue's lover.”
Silence.
“Wait, what?”
“WHAT?!”
"...What?"