Chapter 408 – Ocean Province’s General’s Temple; 3,000 Ghost Cavalry Surge North, Sweeping Aside All Foes; and the Son of Heaven Pays his Respects at the Xie Residence - Part 2

News of Li Yuan trimming Wang Gong down to a single, still-thumping heart never led to any revenge.

A few days later, messengers even turned up at the Xie residence with lavish gifts and nonstop apologies.

“General Wang was drunk that day... Really, he had it coming...”

Most people weren’t stupid enough to keep butting heads once they’d seen true strength. Bully the weak, bow to the strong. That was human nature. After one look at the price of provoking the Xie Clan’s new in-law, they decided they couldn’t afford a second try.

And so the legend of the Young Blade God spread once more.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Days slid into weeks.

Li Yuan’s life grew spare and simple. He’d cultivate; spend time with Xie Yu, sometimes with Xie Wei too; and spar with his brother-in-law. Bit by bit he felt himself turning colder, as though he were already lifting away from the dust of the mortal world.

That winter came down hard, blanketing everything in white. Dressed in snow-bright robes, Li Yuan rode alone to the General’s Temple.

Xie Wei, leader of Ocean Province’s shadow guard and future empress, learned of it the moment he arrived. She wondered why her brother-in-law had gone there by himself.

The temple and the surrounding streets were deserted in the overlapping snows. Only in April, on the eve of the General’s Festival, would the place come alive again.

Why would he visit now?

Two years of acquaintance had taught her Li Yuan’s nature. He was a pure swordsman—rather, a pure bladesman—whose world held nothing but the blade. Without the few ties that still bound him, he would have drifted away long ago. He was cold almost beyond humanity. The moniker of Young Blade God suited him indeed.

“He must be there to practice... But surely he isn’t planning to spar with the General himself...”

Curiosity gnawed at her, but she didn’t follow. She knew he would sense her at once. And she wasn’t the sort to act on whim just to satisfy a question. So she merely wondered.

Outside the temple, beneath the snow-packed ground, vast streams of Yin energy braided together and surged up into the blood red structure. Deeper still, that current plunged toward some hidden, bottomless Yin realm no living soul had ever seen.

Once, Li Yuan would simply have felt the cold without perceiving the flow. Today he felt everything.

He sat cross-legged at the very edge of the ghost domain, close enough to taste the Yin, but not be inside it.

And with a single thought, he seemed to set something in motion.

His body became a tiny whirlpool, pulling the surrounding Yin energy toward him in a rushing flood.

Ordinarily, the living could not stir such currents, but Li Yuan carried a sliver of Yan Yu’s ghostly aura inside him.

A fragment of a ghost’s power should never linger in a mortal.

However, Yan Yu was still his wife. No one had ever wed a ghost before, and certainly no man like Li Yuan had ever taken a bride like Yan Yu.

Their marriage was unprecedented; who could say the rules of Yin and Yang still applied?

Over two years, Li Yuan ground his own soul sharp as steel and refined that single thread of Yin energy. Somewhere deep inside, a change took root, mysterious even to him.

Hiss! Hiss!

A gale burst across the snow, so cold it cut to the bone. In a breath, it wiped the footprints from the temple steps and swept straight for Li Yuan. He stood unmoving, breathing in the icy air with quiet pleasure.

But the temple seemed to take it as a challenge.

A hair-raising creak split the silence. The doors to the temple began to open.

Beyond the crack lay nothing but blackness. It was deep and fathomless, a darkness that did not belong to the living.

Li Yuan’s gaze tightened. He withdrew his power; he had no wish to lock horns with the General haunting this place.

The instant the vortex died away, the doors halted and slowly closed again.

No telling what tier of ghost domain this temple is, and it’s right here in Bright Moon Prefecture. Best let it be.

Still, I proved what I needed. On the edge of a ghost domain, my soul can draw Yin energy. If I let it latch onto me... who knows?

An ordinary man would die in agony, but my body carries Yang flame. Yin energy alone can’t kill me.

𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

With the test complete, Li Yuan turned for home. Behind him the doors eased open a finger’s width, as though some vast shape in the dark were watching him leave.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Back at the residence, Xie Yu grabbed Li Yuan’s hand and tugged him to Xie Wei’s courtyard.

A small brazier simmered a pot of broth; nearby, plates stacked with meat and vegetables waited their turn. People called the dish

gudong soup

. In truth, it was just hot pot.

“Where did you vanish to?” Xie Yu asked.

“General’s Temple,” Li Yuan said.

Xie Wei’s chopsticks stopped halfway to the pot. “What for?”

“To practice my blade.”

“You went to spar with the General?” Xie Yu blinked.

Li Yuan slowly shook his head. Explaining would take too long.

Instead, Xie Yu changed the subject. “A letter arrived from His Majesty. He’ll come next spring to marry Big Sister. When that happens, Big Brother’s armored cavalry will ride out with the Emperor’s army. “Now, it’s really happening. Big Sister is going to be the Empress, and we’ll be part of the imperial clan!”

“Mhm,” Li Yuan answered blandly.

Xie Wei lifted a slice of meat with her long chopsticks, shook off the broth, and dropped it into Xie Yu’s bowl. “Eat.”

Then she turned to Li Yuan and said in a quiet voice, “Our clan is large, but the people we can truly trust are few, just us three siblings and our father. I hope you’ll let yourself belong to us too.”

“That’ll make you the strongest fighter in the whole clan!” Xie Yu clung to Li Yuan’s arm like warm taffy and grinned. She began ticking off fingers. “Father’s got rank, Big Brother commands the cavalry, Big Sister has brains, and my husband has martial skill. Perfectly balanced, right?”

Xie Wei laughed. “And what about you?”

“I have my husband,” Xie Yu said, perfectly content.

The sisters burst into giggles. Once, Li Yuan would have melted at the sweetness of the scene; now he discovered, almost with surprise, that his feelings were fading.

Perhaps that was the price of chasing greater power.

No, not a price

, he told himself.

Only a temporary side-effect.

He was suppressing the inner Yang flame to hone his soul; once both were steady, he would fuse them. And the pursuit itself...was addicting.

Partway through the meal, Xie Wei looked up at him. He had eaten only a slice or two of meat. “Ximen Gucheng,” she asked softly, “you

are

family,aren’t you?”

“I am,” Li Yuan said.

Their eyes met in mid-air, held for a heartbeat, then drifted apart.