Chương 98: Book 2 Chapter 12: Eyes

The Heilongtan spirit pool was the color of rich wine, deep and purple, with darker currents visible in its swirling depths. Dawn had barely cracked the horizon, and the Imperial City's immense circular walls still held the sun at bay. But the sky was lightening regardless, indifferent to walls, and pale gold was already threading through the black above, pulling blue and pink and gray in its wake like a painter who had only just arrived and was already making up for lost time. The pool mirrored all of it.

Purples bloomed across its surface in a hundred different moods: blush and maroon, fuchsia and laughing lavender, orchid catching the first cold gleam of morning. Gold smoldered ember-red where the light touched the water at its thinnest, while gray became a brooding plum. More striking still, the waters of the pool reflected the world around them. At its banks stood a picturesque three-story pagoda, its ornate embellishments worn smooth by time, its pillars weather-beaten yet resolute.

It was crowned by an even more exquisite four-tiered pavilion, glistening like a gem in the half-light. The pool extended that pagoda and pavilion upside down within its waters, rendering them in every shade of purple and red imaginable. As the surface shifted from wine-rich clarity to a bed of drifting inks, so too did the reflection transform, its edges softening, lines dissolving, until the pavilion seemed less a structure of wood and stone and more a thing of light and color, suspended between worlds.

A breath of wind crossed the surface of the lake. The mirrored towers shivered, fractured into ribbons of violet and crimson, then slowly gathered themselves back together, as though the pool possessed a quiet will of its own. In that moment, it was impossible to tell which was more real, the silent architecture above, or its trembling, luminous twin below. No one could make that mistake with the reflection of the half-eaten mountain on the opposite shore.

Half-eaten, because the actual mountain had been carved away piece by patient piece, until it looked as though some colossal beast had torn great bites from its flanks and swallowed them down whole. What remained was a jagged silhouette of gray and black, a smudge against the brightening horizon; distant, yes, but unmistakably ugly. Even softened by dawn, it resisted beauty. Yet the spirit pool reflected it faithfully.

Where the pavilion and pagoda were rendered in dreamlike hues, transformed into something almost sacred, the mountain found no such mercy. Its reflection did not bloom into color or soften into grace. The torn edges remained torn. The wounds remained visible. In the purple depths, they darkened further, becoming ink-black gashes that seemed to drink the surrounding light.

"That is the Kanchi Spirit Jade mine," said Wei Shentong, pointing toward the blighted peak beyond the water. His voice was hard and stripped of ornament. He spoke like a man who had long ago discarded the luxury of wasted words. Mo Jian and Bai Ning sat across from him in the pavilion's receiving room, the one that crowned the pagoda like the jewel it resembled from below. They had arrived precisely at dawn, as expected of them.

Wei Shentong had received them without ceremony, offering no tea, no formal greeting, and no acknowledgment that their arrival represented anything beyond the mildest inconvenience to his morning. The conversation had not improved from there. His appearance matched his voice. Old looking, yes, but not in any fragile sense. He looked like someone who had aged like a slab of stone: seasons passing over him without leaving more than the faintest trace.

He was short, barely reaching Bai Ning's shoulders, yet he sat straight-backed and unyielding. His hair was almost entirely white, though a few stubborn strands of black clung on in quiet defiance. Pale blue eyes sat deep within a rigid face, and his mouth was set in a line of permanent, restrained displeasure; the expression of a man for whom reality had always fallen just slightly short of acceptable. The only thing about him that broke the austerity was his natal artifact.

It was an immense headpiece carved from a single piece of jade rested upon his crown, adding nearly a foot to his height. It shone with its own inner light, soft, verdant, and alive. Mo Jian had already caught his gaze drifting toward it more than once, drawn as if by an unseen current, and each time he had to pull his eyes away with effort, lest he linger a moment too long and find himself caught in whatever quiet power it concealed.

"For close to eight hundred years," Wei Shentong continued, his tone as measured as cut stone, "the spirit jade mined there has ensured the prosperity of this district. From the simplest jade slips to ornaments of imperial jadeite, it has shaped every facet of life here, from trade, cultivation, and governance to the very texture of daily existence for every soul within these walls." His gaze moved to them, sharp and unhurried.

"Three hundred years ago, I assumed charge of this district after passing the Imperial Examination. Since then, not a single complaint has reached the Imperial Court. Another century, and my record will be sufficient to permit entry into the palace itself." He turned fully toward them, his pale eyes hardening.

"Do you understand what I am saying, juniors?" Bai Ning did not flinch. She met his gaze head-on, her own eyes just as cold.

"And your record makes it acceptable to enslave people and throw them into a dying mine?" she said, her voice icy enough to freeze.

"All because you are too stubborn to admit the truth to the court? Were those three hundred years spent governing, or simply convincing yourself that you are always right?" The change was immediate. Pressure flooded the room like a mountain dropped from the heavens. An aura as vast and terrible as the moon itself smothered the pavilion. The light of dawn trembled where it touched the windows. Below, the spirit pool churned, its once-glass surface breaking into restless waves.

In the distance, the scarred slopes of the Kanchi Spirit Jade mine shuddered; pebbles skittering, loose stone trembling as though the earth itself had drawn a sharp breath. The jade headpiece upon Wei Shentong's brow flared, and its gentle green deepened, thickening into a loamy, oppressive olive, as if something buried and ancient had stirred within it.

"You dare?" he said. There was no need to raise his voice. Anger had already etched itself into every line of his face, into the very air pressing down upon them. Mo Jian moved before Bai Ning could add anything further.

"Yes," he said simply.

"We dare, because you are abusing your position and grinding lives into dust beneath it. In the century it will take you to claw your way into the palace, how many will die for your record? You speak of the Imperial Examination as though it grants you license over lives as well as land. I have taken the same examination. Nowhere in it does it teach that a man's ambition outweighs his duty.

Or perhaps," he added, with a quietness that had an edge to it, "you believe the court so blind that it welcomes tyrants into its ranks?" The pressure did not lift. If anything, it settled deeper, like a weight intent on testing the strength of bone. And yet, a thin smile crossed Wei Shentong's face. It was not a pleasant thing. It was the smile of a man who has heard objections before, and watched them come to nothing, and found the pattern mildly amusing by now.

"The Heavens preserve me from naïve, idealistic juniors," he said, and there was something almost fond in his contempt.

"Youngsters, the court is the greatest nest of tyrants on this continent. Memorizing the classics does not teach governance - reality does. The classics teach only how to sound principled while the world continues to function exactly as it always has." His gaze sharpened, cutting through the pretense of pleasantry like a blade through silk.

"And you misunderstand the nature of this exchange. I humored you because a subordinate found you interesting enough to mention." The smile did not move, but something behind it did.

"But this is not a negotiation. You dictate nothing to me." His voice dropped a register, cold as cut jade.

"You have two choices. Forget what you have seen, walk away, and consider that mercy genuinely offered. Or I will break you, and cast you into the mine myself, alongside the wretches who had the considerable misfortune of leading you to my door." Mo Jian felt his expression harden. For a fleeting instant, the thought rose in his mind, swift and tempting: use the Netherworld Scorpion, and settle the issue in a single strike, clean and final. The problem would vanish instantly. He crushed the thought just as quickly.

This meeting was not secret. Their presence here was known, their opposition to Wei Shentong already obvious to anyone paying attention. If the man died now, suspicion would not need to wander far before it found somewhere comfortable to sit. It would be a noose tied around their neck. Bai Ning, however, had never found caution especially compelling when there was a perfectly good alternative available.

"You are not the first to threaten us," she said, her voice edged with something almost eager.

"You may want to learn what became of the last. And if you truly believe you can break us in your arrogance…" Her lips curved, sharp and dangerous.

"Then try. That court of tyrants you are so eager to join might find it more entertaining to admit the juniors who put down a rabid dog than the dog itself." For a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath. Then Wei Shentong's qi vanished, as though it had never existed. The crushing weight disappeared so abruptly it left a phantom ache in its wake. His face, however, remained carved from fury, and the smile stretched wider, empty of anything resembling warmth. That smile had yet to reach his eyes once.

"Oh, I know all about you, juniors," he said, with the particular softness of someone who has been patient and is now done being patient.

"And I know the source of your confidence." His pale eyes caught the morning light and held it.

"You carry the gui of the South-Pointing Chariot, the divine treasure that fell into the Southern Seas two years ago." There was a moment of silence. Their surprise, though slight, did not escape him.

"You thought I was ignorant?" His smile sharpened.

"Why do you think you have survived this long? The Emperor might be displeased if harm came to those carrying a treasure of that significance… but then again, here you are, meddling in matters far beyond your station, instead of prostrating yourselves at his feet." He tilted his head, almost contemplative.

"Perhaps he would be more pleased if I delivered the gui to him myself without wasting his time." Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. He let the implication hang. Mo Jian did not back down. Instead, he leaned forward slightly, his own qi stirring beneath his skin, quiet, coiled, and ready.

"Sound reasoning, Senior," he said, his tone even.

"The Emperor, who has not intervened thus far, who has permitted the Thousand Shattered Islands to lay claim to the gui for two years without acting, will no doubt be delighted by your personal initiative. An ambitious Nascent Soul cultivator – uniquely far-sighted, clearly – deciding to relieve a Core Formation junior of a divine treasure and present it as a hard-won personal offering." He held Wei Shentong's gaze without any particular effort.

"And as you yourself observed, Senior, a court of tyrants following your own example, would simply take the gui from you. And no doubt find a mine of their own to put you in, for involving yourself in affairs that were never yours to touch in the first place." Wei Shentong's smile did not falter, but something colder settled behind it, like frost creeping beneath a door. For a long moment, he said nothing. Outside, the first true edge of sunlight slipped past the curve of the Imperial City's walls.

It struck the pavilion at an angle, catching on lacquered wood and worn stone, spilling through the lattice windows in thin, slanting beams. Dust motes drifted within that light, slow and aimless, as though time itself had decided to hesitate. Then, he laughed. It was a short, quiet sound, carrying neither mirth, nor irritation, not even mockery. It was the kind of laugh a man made when something confirmed a suspicion he had already accepted as truth.

"Good," he said at last, nodding once.

"Very good. The pressure did not return, but the absence of it felt deliberate now, like a blade held just short of the throat.

"The South-Pointing Chariot," he murmured.

"A relic that does not lose its direction, a guide that cannot be misled." His lips curved faintly.

"How ironic that it chose carriers who cannot see the road in front of them." Bai Ning's fingers twitched where they rested at her side.

"If you have a point-""I do," he said, cutting cleanly across her words. Silence fell again. Wei Shentong rose. The movement was unhurried, almost casual, but the air seemed to tighten around it. The jade headpiece on his brow dimmed slightly, its earlier oppressive glow sinking inward, becoming dense and contained, like something that had decided it no longer needed to announce itself. He stepped toward the window overlooking the spirit pool. From above, the water no longer looked merely beautiful.

The earlier wine-rich hues had deepened with the rising sun, darkening into something heavier and thicker. The reflection of the scarred mountain stretched across its surface, long and distorted, like a wound that refused to close.

"For eight hundred years," Wei Shentong said, his back to them, "this district has lived because of that mountain." His hand lifted, pointing once more toward the distant mine.

"For three hundred of those years, it has lived because of me." Mo Jian said nothing.

"That mine is dying," Wei Shentong continued.

"On that, you are correct." A pause.

"But I do not intend to die with it." He turned back to them, almost smiling.

"You are not entirely foolish, only mostly so. You understand the court well enough to know it devours initiative as readily as it rewards it. That alone places you above the usual corpses that drift through my district, convinced that righteousness is a shield." His gaze sharpened.

"So tell me, what makes you think you are the first to notice what is happening here?" The implication landed like a drawn blade. Bai Ning let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh, edged with fury.

"You've lost your mind if you think we'll believe the court allows this. Even if they are the tyrants you claim, they gain nothing from indulging your ambition."

"On the contrary," Wei Shentong replied calmly, "they stand to gain a Nascent Soul cultivator who understands the realities of rule." Mo Jian closed his eyes briefly. He could see where this was going now. The way that the ending would unfold, inevitable, and deeply ugly. Within his dantian, the Heaven Enshrouding Ding stirred as he fed it more qi, its presence steady and coiled, ready for the instant it would be needed.

"Then this conversation…" he said quietly. Wei Shentong's smile deepened. It still had not reached his eyes; it looked less like amusement than the baring of teeth.

"Yes," he said.

"I am done humoring you." His gaze settled on them, final and absolute.

"You thought you could frighten me. That was your greatest mistake. I do not permit those who challenge me to walk out of my door." The air seemed to still.

"I will kill you both," he continued, as though noting a trivial matter, "and present the gui to the court. And I will wager everything that I will be rewarded, not punished. The court has already turned a blind eye to my work here." He tilted his head faintly.

"This is your loss, juniors. Wei Shentong is not a dog to be tugged by the leash. Now, say your last words." Mo Jian let his qi unfurl fully, the Heaven Enshrouding Ding bursting out from his body, expanding outward to enclose both him and Bai Ning within a protective sphere of blue light. At the same instant, Bai Ning sprang to her feet, the Green Destiny Sword flashing into her grasp, a ghostly dragon coiling sinuously around its blade.

Miantiao's tongue flicked through the air, teeth bared as he hissed at the enemy before them. Most crucial of all, unseen by anyone but Mo Jian, the Netherworld Scorpion slipped from the ding and skittered soundlessly through the air, making a direct line for Wei Shentong. A flicker of regret passed through Mo Jian's heart. Could this confrontation have been avoided? Had they been too aggressive from the very beginning?

To engage in battle here, to pit themselves against a Nascent Soul cultivator, would complicate everything that lay ahead, no matter the outcome. Yet hadn't he known, deep down, that it would come to this? This was never something he could simply overlook. Wei Shentong, for his part, had not moved an inch. He watched their preparations with a patient, faintly amused expression; the look of a man witnessing something utterly futile. In his eyes, they were not opponents, nor even people.

They were only ants awaiting their end. Then, incongruously, a gong rang through the air. The sound was so unexpected that all three of them froze for an instant, caught off guard. Mo Jian and Bai Ning exchanged puzzled glances, while Wei Shentong's eyebrows shot up, nearly vanishing into his hairline. The gong rang again, deep and resonant. Mo Jian hesitated. What was happening? Should he wait? The Netherworld Scorpion had already reached Wei Shentong's shoulder.

One command, and it could strike, ending everything in an instant. Yet whatever battle had been on the verge of erupting seemed suddenly suspended. Wei Shentong extended a hand out the window, palm flat. A scroll dropped neatly into it, as if delivered from the heavens themselves. Without sparing them another glance, he unfurled it and began to read, his face hidden behind the length of paper.

Mo Jian couldn't see his expression, and a quick glance at Bai Ning confirmed she couldn't either, but both of them felt it: a sudden surge of turbulent qi, undisguised and violent, rippling from Wei Shentong as he read. At last, he lowered the scroll. His expression had changed. Before, he had regarded them with idle detachment, like a man glancing at a curious stone by the roadside. Now, there was something else in his gaze: wariness, almost… fear.

"Get out," he barked. The words cracked through the room, abrupt and forceful. The killing intent that had suffocated the air only moments before vanished as though it had never existed, leaving behind a strange, hollow stillness.

"What?" Bai Ning snapped, anger flashing across her face.

"First you threaten us, and now-""The results of the Imperial Examination have been announced," Wei Shentong cut in flatly.

"The Kanchi Jade Mine is no longer under my supervision. The fools who led you here, and the rest of them as well, are all free." He paused, his expression darkening, anger returning to his features like floodwaters reclaiming a riverbed.

"Now, juniors," he hissed, "I suggest you take this opportunity that Heaven has granted you… and leave." The room fell into a taut, fragile silence. Mo Jian did not move. The Netherworld Scorpion remained poised upon Wei Shentong's shoulder, its stinger raised, trembling with lethal intent. One thought, just one, and it would strike. A Nascent Soul cultivator, brought low in an instant. And yet… Mo Jian's eyes narrowed slightly. Something about this felt wrong. Wei Shentong was not a man who would bluff.

Not earlier, when he had stood unmoving before them, utterly certain of his superiority. That confidence had not been feigned. For such a man to abruptly retreat, to abandon both face and position… The scroll. Mo Jian exhaled slowly, his qi still coiled tight beneath his skin, ready to erupt at a moment's notice.

"Let's go," he said quietly to Bai Ning, hand clamping down on her shoulder, firm enough to forestall any protest. She looked up at him, frowning, reluctance plain in her eyes, but after a moment, she gave a tight nod. Together, they withdrew, step by measured step, still enclosed within the faintly shimmering barrier of the Heaven Enshrouding Ding. The distance between them stretched, the tension thinning, but never quite breaking. Wei Shentong did not move to stop them.

He simply watched as they crossed the threshold, watched as they drifted out over the jade-lit waters beyond, and watched as the figures he could have crushed with a thought slipped from his grasp. His face was carved from stone. ………………………………………………………………………. Only when they had crossed the entire pool, and put half the district behind them, did Mo Jian finally slow. He turned back, his spiritual sense flaring outward to its limit, sweeping across buildings, streets, and empty sky. There was nothing to find.

The Netherworld Scorpion had already returned, now perched lightly on his shoulder like a wisp of condensed mist, its earlier killing intent gone as though it had never existed.

"Master," Bai Ning began, brow furrowed, "what was tha-" A soft rush of air cut her off. A scroll dropped straight down between them. Mo Jian's hand snapped up, catching it before it could fall. The parchment was plain and dyed a muted yellow, but not just any yellow. It was a very particular shade. Bai Ning stared at it for a long moment. Then she exhaled slowly, disbelief creeping into her voice.

"This makes no sense. The results of the Imperial Examination always take a month. It's barely been a few days. Why would they rush something like this? And what does any of it have to do with Wei Shentong… or the Kanchi mine?" Mo Jian weighed the scroll in his hand, his expression unreadable.

"I suppose," he said quietly, "we're about to find out." He unfurled it. Morning light spilled across the parchment, illuminating lines of precise, immaculate calligraphy. There were only two lines. Bai Ning – Pass. Ranked third. Awarded Scholar's Distinction. Appointed second supervisor of the Kanchi Spirit Jade Mine, District Forty-Eight, Division Nine Hundred and Twelve, Tiger Province, Third Quadrant. Mo Jian – Pass. Ranked ninety-seventh.

Appointed first supervisor of the Kanchi Spirit Jade Mine, District Forty-Eight, Division Nine Hundred and Twelve, Tiger Province, Third Quadrant. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Bai Ning's composure faltered first.

"Third?" she said, the word almost disbelieving.

"I… that's not… how could they have evaluated anything this quickly?" Mo Jian barely heard her. The implications had already begun to settle into place with quiet, inexorable weight. In that instant, shock struck him like a physical force, something cold and invasive, like an unseen hand reaching down his throat and seizing hold of something vital. As that realization took hold, another sensation followed close behind it, subtle at first, but impossible to ignore once noticed. Pressure.

Not the overt, crushing force of a cultivator's aura, but something far more distant and pervasive, like the awareness of being observed from a height too great to comprehend. It did not press against his body so much as settle into his perception, quiet and inescapable. Mo Jian lifted his gaze. Across the expanse of the city, beyond the layered districts and rising structures, the Imperial Palace stood at its center, its uppermost tier cutting cleanly into the sky.

Even at this distance, it was impossible to overlook; it anchored the entire horizon. He found himself focusing on its highest point without entirely deciding to do so. There was no figure he could see, and no movement to confirm what he felt. And yet, for the briefest moment, he saw it: a gaze, locking with his own. It was not truly there, and yet it was. Not something his eyes could perceive, but something his very soul recoiled from, as though it had been noticed. The Immortal Emperor.

Mo Jian stood frozen, the scroll trembling faintly in his hand, as awe and fear and something dangerously close to exhilaration surged through him all at once. As though, across the breadth of the entire city… He had just met the Emperor's eyes.