Some courts death...

A reed in the storm, I bowed.

A rock in the river, I drowned.

The wind howled atop Mount Hengduan, ancient and aloof, dragging with it the dirges of the sects.

Beneath a cliff veined with frozen lightning, where cranes no longer nested and peach blossoms bloomed no more, Elder Wang knelt alone.

Snow crusted his beard, blood stained his sleeves.

Around him, the corpses of his disciples and his own son lay like wilted lotus petals, shattered, sprawled, and disrespected.

Above, spiritual crows with eyes of malice circled thrice, calling not to mourn, but to feast.

Kaw~ Kaw~

They cawed with glee, sensing the end of a lineage.

His heart, once tempered in the fires of pill refinement and sect duties, had been sliced apart like spring grass, perfectly clean, swift, unannounced.

He did not know the blade, he did not know the face. But one thing he knew was the loss.

And the heavens, as always, looked on in their indifference. No thunder rolled. No divine omen wept. Not even a sigh from the farthest star.

Veins bulged upon Elder Wang's pale face, glowing faintly with stagnant qi. His hands trembled, not from age, but from the fury of a man who still believed in things like honor and justice.

His nascent soul realm, once steady as a mountain stream, now flared and cracked like overboiled cauldrons.

"Revenge… I need revenge," he muttered.

"My lost face… must be reclaimed,"

Woosh~

His spiritual aura erupted like a snapped zither string forceful, but dissonant.

The surrounding pines bent slightly, acknowledging his wrath, but not his authority.

He was a seventh-grade alchemist, a name known among the disciples and Daoists alike, a guest welcomed in the halls of the Jade Pill Tower.

In his youth, he had concocted pills that restored broken meridians, cleansed inner demons, and lit dormant souls ablaze.

Now he could not even protect his own bloodline.

And the one who spat upon his dignity?

A young master, barely of age, with phoenix thread on his robes and murder in his smile.

Outrageous... Simply outrageous, heaven is cruel.

Even so, Elder wang wanted vengeance, but how could he?

Young Master Zhao was already a Holy Emperor, a realm so high Elder Wang could not even imagine the nature of his dao.

The young master's voice carried laws, his gaze bent qi, and his footsteps crushed the karma, and his Celestial Dao rod, well, it can even force immortal into submission.

He had humiliated Wang, Not with force, but with disinterest.

Now, Elder Wang sat beneath the old pine, its branches barren like his sect's ancestral line. Bitter qi coiled around him like smoke from burnt offerings.

The mountain wind tugged at his robe, asking: What now, old man? What now, when the world no longer remembers you were once respected?

But he did not reply.

He stared into the void, and the void whispered back.

The path ahead was not righteous, It was not immortal.

But it promised revenge.

If you ignore the grace of god, the devil knocks at your door.

As someone from the prestigious Zhao family, with that name alone, Young Master Zhao is bound to have natural enemies.

The space rippled, like disturbed ink across silk, and from within the fold of reality stepped a young man.

He wore black robes trimmed with silver thread, a color neither righteous nor demonic, but something more ancient, as if he had crawled out from under the forgotten era when the Dao still wept and the stars had names.

His hair was long, tied with a crimson string soaked faintly in yin qi. His eyes bore no whites, only the hue of obsidian jade polished in blood.

The snow did not touch him.

The spiritual pressure around Elder Wang recoiled, like wolves scenting a dragon's breath.

He walked with quiet feet, but the wind hushed to listen.

"Greetings, Old Man Wang," he said with a voice like flute notes played in reverse.

"I heard your grief echoing through three provinces. Even the ghosts beneath Yin Lotus Lake stirred uneasily,"

Elder Wang's gaze lifted, sunken, and shadowed.

"You are not of the sect," he muttered.

"Nor of the Empire. I smell demonic dust on your sleeves,"

The young man only smiled.

"Does that matter, Elder Wang? The heavens offered you nothing. The Sect kowtows to its guests. Your son lies shattered, and justice lies face-down in the mud..."

He stepped closer.

"But I... I bring you a choice,"

The old man's qi surged unstable. "What choice?"

The young man lowered his voice, almost kindly.

"A soul-forged talisman. Made from the breath of a Nether Phoenix and the marrow of a forgotten immortal. You crush it, and for one incense stick's time, even a Holy Emperor shall be pulled to the level of the first stage of the nascent soul realm,"

"Only once. Only one chance. But in that moment; he bleeds as you bleed,"

Elder Wang's pupils contracted like dying stars, "Such heresy…"

The young man bowed slightly, his smile never touching his eyes.

"Justice has many names. Sometimes, it is called heresy by those who fear it,"

"You want dignity, revenge, remembrance. I want balance. I want fate's wheel to squeak,"

He offered the talisman with two hands. It glowed faintly red, like a cursed ember plucked from the throat of a condemned world.

For a moment, nothing moved.

Then Elder Wang's fingers, cracked and trembling, closed slowly over the talisman.

The crows flew away.

"You... Who are you," Elder finally asked.

"Me? I am Zhao Yung, Zhao Fan's brother... However, we have some enmity," He responded.

A year and a half ago, Zhao Fan coupled with Zhao Yung's fiancee and sent a shameless recording of her deflowering.

Watching the recording, Zhao Yung's Qi went into irreversible Qi deviation and he almost lost his cultivation base.

Such shameless brother, they shouldn't exist, may Buddha open his eyes, lest, a demonic didder touches in-between his thighs.

"Z-Zhao Fan's brother," Elder immediately understood the family politics.

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