The air inside the Qīngluán Clan's Internal Affairs Office smelled of dried squid ink and hot wax. There was no echo of swords or metallic scent of blood that marked the borders of the mortal world. In the Two-Faced Empire, war was not waged with blades. It was waged on paper.
Behind a heavy mahogany desk, Lín Jié pressed the jade stamp onto an official parchment, the dry sound of stone against wood echoing in the silence of the room.
The woman in her early thirties rubbed her temples, the skin beneath her eyes marked by a shadow of exhaustion. Her pale fingers were stained with India ink. Jié was not a frontline warrior; her cultivation at the 1st Transcendent Stage had stagnated half a decade ago. But while the generals of the empire polished armors, she held the weight of her Young Master's lineage through bureaucracy.
Lín Jié pulled the next bamboo slip from the pile. The seal engraved on the wood belonged to Huáng Zong's faction, from the Earth Dragon Clan.
The secretary narrowed her eyes. The decree requested, under the justification of "structural maintenance and Qi rebalancing," an immediate cut to the supply of Spiritual Ice and purifying incense for the eastern ring of the palace—the exact jurisdiction where the Autumn Wind Pavilion rested.
Jié's hands squeezed the bamboo slip until her knuckles turned white. The stratagem was disgusting.
Three days ago, the Two Pearls had locked the doors of the guest pavilion with what appeared to be a bunch of pathetic peasants. The entire capital was boiling. Huáng Zong, unable to invade the place without breaking the laws of hospitality, used the council's rules to asphyxiate the area. By cutting off the Spiritual Ice, the climate in the pavilion would become unbearable, forcing the heiresses to come out due to thermal exhaustion.
The Law of the Utopia was clear. A direct attack between noble lineages did not result in death. The punishment for a martial infraction was Absolute Expropriation.
If Qīng Yì broke the pavilion gates to invade or attacked a rival heir to demand honor, the Council of Elders would not ask for his head. They would simply seize every crystal mine and every trade route his Young Master's lineage owned. The territory would be handed over to Huáng Zong's own faction, demoting Qīng Yì's family to mere vassals in less than a day.
With a swift motion, the secretary pulled out an emergency funds requisition from the northern mines. She stamped the annulment of the cut, redirecting the payment for the Spiritual Ice from the Qīng lineage's own pockets, covering the deficit without the maneuver ever reaching the council's desk.
She leaned back in her chair, her throat dry, and touched a cheap wooden hairpin resting on the edge of the desk with her ink-stained fingertip. A simple gift he had given her ten years ago. She dirtied her own hands with political grease every day just to keep Qīng Yì's tunic perfectly clean and untouchable, fully aware that his heart belonged entirely to the Holy Healer who was now locked behind rice paper doors.
Gathering the security reports, Lín Jié stood up and walked toward the training courtyard.
The air in the eastern garden was fresh, perfumed by white lotuses. In the center of the marble floor, Qīng Yì moved.
At thirty-nine years old, the Young Master had already solidified his Inner Astro. The 3rd Transcendent Stage flowed through his veins, clean and disciplined. The wooden sword in his hands sliced the wind with fluid, righteous, and orthodox movements. Sweat glistened on his chest beneath his white training tunic, his breathing steady without a single trace of the typical arrogance found in other heirs.
Qīng Yì stopped his sequence of strikes, the tip of the wooden sword hovering one millimeter from a falling autumn leaf without cutting it. He lowered his weapon and turned to the secretary.
"Any response from the pavilion, Jié?" Qīng Yì wiped his forehead with a linen towel, his jaw muscles tense.
Lín Jié clutched the scrolls against her chest.
"None, Young Master. The Autumn Wind Pavilion gates remain locked. The Eclipse Guard has been forbidden from approaching within a hundred paces of the outer walls. The order came from Lady Qīng Yǔ's own seal."
Qīng Yì's shoulders stiffened. He fixed his eyes on the marble floor, his breathing losing its rhythm.
"Her compassion knows no bounds," he murmured, his voice thick as he tried to find order in the chaos. "The outsiders looked sick, exhausted. Those peasants must be carrying a lethal plague from the borderlands. Yǔ and Bìyù locked themselves in to contain the disease and purify them, sacrificing their own comfort to avoid putting the capital at risk."
Jié swallowed hard. She wanted to scream that no plague in the world would justify the Heiresses of the Nation serving as maids before the guards, but she kept her mouth shut.
"Young Master, Huáng Zong's faction is pressuring the pavilion's logistical resources. If the situation drags on, the Council will demand a sanitary intervention."
Qīng Yì's grip on the wooden sword's hilt made the weapon crack slightly. Sweat ran down his temple.
"Come with me, Jié. Let's go to the outer perimeter. Just to check the air. We won't cross the walls."
The secretary nodded, following one step behind him.
As they approached the ring that encircled the Autumn Wind Pavilion, the utopia began to rot. The large artificial lakes were stagnant. The spiritual carps weren't swimming; they floated lethargically near the bottom. The lotus flowers around the banks had withered, displaying a sickly shade of gray.
The air changed. The palace's floral incense scent was crushed by a thick, suffocating odor that resembled ozone and melted lead.
Qīng Yì frowned, his chest growing heavy with every breath. The atmosphere wasn't poisoned; it was too dense. A gravity that did not belong to the palace's matrices leaked continuously through the rice paper cracks of the distant pavilion.
Thirty paces from the stone wall isolating the guest courtyard, Qīng Yì stopped.
The elite patrol of the Eclipse Guard leaned against their own silver halberds. The soldiers' skin had a pale and sickly tone. Cold sweat soaked their foreheads, and the veins in their necks throbbed from the effort of keeping their lungs working under that oppression.
The Young Master walked up to the patrol captain. The officer tried to salute, but his knees trembled.
"What is the status of the inner courtyard, Captain?" Qīng Yì demanded, his own throat scratching from the lack of oxygen.
"N-No movement, Young Master," the guard's voice came out squeaky. "No one enters. But the nights... Sir, the pressure increases. The woods of the pavilion tremble. There is no magic in the walls, but two of our men had to be taken to the healing wing earlier today. They couldn't breathe. Whatever is inside there... is devouring the air."
Qīng Yì's logic collided with the guard's words. No mortal plague distorted space or asphyxiated Transcendent guards through stone walls. The thread of karmic illusion he had seen at the entrance—the image of dirty peasants—began to crumble before the physical terror the pavilion exuded.
The sickening silence of the morning was broken.
Thump.
The oscillation was muffled and wet. The air in the courtyard was suddenly crushed by the brutal byproduct of a muffled collision happening between sheets and locked doors, the force of that lethal intimacy leaking through the cracks with the weight of a tidal wave.
The atmospheric shockwave swept through the gardens.
Three elite guards gagged simultaneously. The air fled from their lungs, and the men collapsed to their knees on the marble. Their halberds clattered loudly as thin streams of dark blood trickled down the soldiers' noses.
Lín Jié stumbled backward, her breath hitching. Qīng Yì grabbed the secretary by the arm, supporting her.
The Young Master's calm gaze hardened. His breathing quickened, panting. The woman he venerated had been locked at the origin of that crushing epicenter for three days. Whatever inhabited the pavilion was not a patient; it was a calamity.
Qīng Yì let go of the secretary's arm. His fingers moved down, digging into the hilt of the real steel sword at his waist. The blade hissed as it slid two inches out of the scabbard.
"Young Master, no!" Lín Jié gasped, grabbing his white tunic with her ink-stained hands. Panic obliterated the woman's etiquette. "The Law of Isolation! The Council will punish you! Huáng Zong will seize the Silver Mines of the north and your father's influence! Our lineage will lose its domains to pay for the infraction! Do not throw our history away!"
Qīng Yì's breathing was erratic. He looked at the ink-stained fingers of the woman who had dedicated her life to building his family's fortune. He understood the weight of the political chessboard and the cost of redistribution.
The wood of the pavilion creaked again in the distance. The Young Master's jaw trembled.
"Lands can be reconquered, Jié," Qīng Yì's voice came out in a hoarse, desperate thread, his eyes fixed on the locked doors of the Autumn Wind Pavilion. "Ore isn't worth the dust if the woman who guides the light of this clan is being crushed. I cannot wait."
He gently pulled his tunic from the secretary's trembling hands. The faltering steps gave way to a rigid, irrevocable march.
Qīng Yì drew his sword completely. The Qi of the 3rd Transcendent Stage exploded in a bright aura around his body, trying to repel the oppressive pressure of the ozone.
Ignoring the political consequences, the redistribution of his conquests, and the asphyxiation of the air, Qīng Yì took the first step toward the gates of the forbidden pavilion.