In the central continent of the Xian Dao world.
At the heart of the Gu Yan Empire, the air was merciless. Even the poorest commoners could feel the oppressive pressure radiating from the Imperial Tower.
At the center of the capital, the imperial forces had gathered. The Emperor, seated upon the throne, clenched his hands so tightly that the wood beneath his fingers cracked. Before speaking, he hurled a wooden tablet forward.
Engraved upon it was a single name:
HUI CAO
Beside the name, a flame burned violently.
The man who received the tablet was none other than the First Prince. He ground his teeth in frustration as he caught it.
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It was not a grand gesture.
It was a lash of restrained fury.
From the sleeve of his imperial robe, a wooden plaque the size of a palm shot through the air. It was no ordinary plaque—it was a Lineage Tablet, carved from the same wood as the Ancestral Tree itself. Upon its surface, etched with dragon blood and fire, the name HUI CAO glowed.
Beside it burned a flame.
Not a controlled spiritual flame, but a wild, inclement one—the Lineage Soul Fire, directly linked to the vitality of the bearer. A steady flame meant health and safety.
This flame flickered violently.
It shrank.
It flared.
It spasmed on the brink of extinction—
Then stabilized into a weak, sickly glow.
But it did not go out.
She was alive.
But where?
In what condition?
The tablet flew like a harbinger of misfortune and landed with a dry clack in the hands of the man kneeling at the center of the hall, directly before the steps of the throne.
The First Prince.
Gu Yan Long.
The heir apparent.
Hui Cao's elder brother.
The man who had given the order.
His hands—hands skilled in swordsmanship, calligraphy, and governance—trembled slightly as he received the tablet. Not from its weight, but from its meaning.
This was not merely a reminder.
It was a suspended sentence.
His sister was alive. But the fact that the tablet had been thrown to him in this manner meant only one thing.
The Emperor knew.
He knew who stood behind the attack on the Jade Concubine.
He knew who had ordered the hunt.
Gu Yan Long clenched his teeth.
Not out of fear of death—though that fear existed—but from a deep, bitter frustration.
How was this possible?
Wang Mao and the Hundred Shadows were the best. They had crossed the portal. The princess had no allies. No resources.
What had gone wrong?
He raised his gaze—but not toward the throne. That would have been defiance.
Instead, he stared at the jade floor.
—Father Emperor —said Gu Yan Long, his normally smooth and persuasive voice now hoarse with tension—. This unworthy son accepts responsibility. The failure is mine.
There was no denial.
There could not be.
The flame upon the tablet was proof of life—but also a trail. A trail they had failed to erase.
From the throne, a voice descended.
It was not a shout.
It was not a roar.
It was colder than the core of a spiritual glacier, and each word fell like an axe upon the soul.
—Your sister burns —said Emperor Gu Yan Wu slowly, as though each syllable required immense restraint—. But not within the halls of the palace. Her flame trembles in a place where even the eye of the Golden Dragon cannot see clearly.
—You have squandered a battalion of shadows. You have lost Wang Mao, whose soul has not even returned to the Ancestral Lantern. You have enraged the Ghost Court by violating their treaty and striking a concubine within her chambers.
—And all you have to show me… is a flame that refuses to go out.
The pressure within the hall intensified.
Several ministers of lesser cultivation began to sweat blood, staining their blue robes as the Emperor's aura crushed the air itself.
—Father —Gu Yan Long kept his head lowered, his mind calculating at lightning speed. The mention of the Ghost Court was catastrophic. They protected concubines and their children as part of the empire's internal balance of power. Angering them was a monumental political mistake.— The portal… opened toward the Western Forbidden Lands. A place from which explorers do not return. There, the laws of heaven and earth are… chaotic. The shadows may have been consumed by the environment. Hui Cao may have—
—May have what? —the Emperor cut in coldly.
—Dead? The flame says otherwise.
—Lost? The flame says yes—but also that she still has the will to live.
He paused.
The silence that followed was more terrifying than any roar.
—Your mistake, son, was not desiring the throne.
—My mistake was not strangling you in the cradle if this is what you were to become.
—Ha… —The Emperor's laughter held no joy. It was dry and sharp, like bones cracking beneath a boot.— You truly are a pathetic creature, one I should not even call my son.
The word son, normally a title of honor and lineage, left his lips like a venomous insult. Gu Yan Long, still kneeling, felt the title he had struggled his entire life to uphold crumble into ash within his ears.
—Even while attempting to eliminate your own sister for a throne that was never yours… —The Emperor continued, his voice now a restrained roar that caused the very foundations of the hall to tremble. His cultivation, usually as vast and serene as a deep ocean, erupted outward.
It was not a directed attack.
It was an involuntary release of divine wrath.
The air solidified into visible waves of golden pressure. Tapestries embroidered with scenes of deities tore apart. Bronze incense burners crumpled like paper. And Gu Yan Long—the First Prince, a cultivator at the Soul Fusion Stage—was smashed against the jade floor like an insect.
CRACK!
It was not the sound of jade breaking.
It was the sound of his ribs compressing against the immortal floor.
A strangled groan escaped his lips as his face was pressed against the cold, polished jade—not in reverence, but under overwhelming physical force.
—Grant me… one… opportunity… to redeem myself, Father —he managed to force out between ragged breaths, feeling death not as a distant threat, but as a tangible weight upon his spine, ready to crush his dantian at any moment.
The pressure eased slightly—just enough for him to breathe, but not enough to rise.
The Emperor looked down at him from the heights of the throne. His golden eyes held no trace of fatherhood. Only calculated contempt.
—Redeem yourself? —The word was spat out.— By killing Concubine Huan Ming Zhi, one of the leaders of the Bright Moon Sects, did you believe they would offer you anything other than a price on your head?
The blow was more devastating than the pressure.
Gu Yan Long felt the ground—both literal and metaphorical—collapse beneath him.
How did he know?
The death of Huan Ming Zhi—Hui Cao's mother—had been planned as a masterpiece of intrigue. An undetectable poison. A disposable servant. The blame shifted onto a minor rival sect. The Bright Moon Sects were famously neutral, secluded within their frozen mountains, more interested in unraveling the mysteries of eternal frost than in imperial politics.
They were supposed to accept the death of one expatriated daughter as the cost of doing business with the Empire.
Or at least… their vengeance was meant to be slow. Bureaucratic.
But the Emperor did not merely know Gu Yan Long was responsible.
He knew they knew.
And that their price would not be political.
—They… accepted the compensation tribute —Gu Yan Long stammered, his strategist's mind collapsing under the weight of his father's apparent omniscience.
—They accepted the tribute and carved your name onto their Scroll of Eternal Ice! —the Emperor roared.— Your soul, not your wealth, is what they burn upon their frost altars every night since her death.
—They have dispatched three Mist Hunters after you. Have you not felt an unusual chill upon your cultivation cloud lately, my son?
Gu Yan Long went pale.
Yes. He had felt it. That persistent cold. That sensation of being watched even within the most secure chambers. He had dismissed it as stress. As paranoia.
Not as Mist Hunters—legendary assassins of the Bright Moon Sects, said to pass through energy barriers and freeze the soul with a single breath.
—But… the non-aggression pact… —he tried weakly.
—It applies to armies, not to personal vengeance! —The Emperor rose from his throne.
His mere act of standing seemed to fill the entire hall.
—In a single greedy and foolish move, you have accomplished the following:
—First, you enraged the Ghost Court by violating the sanctity of a concubine's chambers.
—Second, you earned a death curse from the Bright Moon Sects.
—Third, you lost your finest assassins.
—Fourth, you alerted the entire Empire that you are as ambitious as you are incompetent.
—Fifth, you sent the only daughter who showed true potential in comprehending the Dao into a land from which she may never return—robbing this lineage of a possible bridge to forces we do not even understand.
He listed the failures with a coldness that froze the blood of even veteran generals.
—You are a walking disaster. A hole in the imperial ship.
His voice lowered, but each word struck like a nail.
—So yes. I will give you an "opportunity."
Gu Yan Long's breath caught.
—You will go West. Not as a prince. You will go as an outlaw. Without insignia. Without treasure. With only the clothes on your back and the sword in your hand.
—If you survive the Mist Hunters who will surely pursue you… if you navigate the Forbidden Lands… and if you find your sister… then, and only then, will you have repaid one hundredth of your debt.
Gu Yan Long remained pressed to the floor—not only by force, but by total comprehension.
This was not redemption.
It was sacrifice.
He was being sent to the execution block, with the faint hope that his death might accomplish something useful.
—And if… I bring her back? —he asked, a final spark of ambition struggling not to die.
The Emperor looked at him for a long moment.
In his golden eyes, Gu Yan Long saw something worse than hatred.
Indifference.
—If you bring her back —the Emperor said at last— then perhaps I will allow you to choose the manner of your execution. That would be more mercy than you deserve.
With a flick of his hand, the pressure pinning Gu Yan Long to the floor vanished.
The prince struggled to rise, gasping, blood staining the corner of his mouth, his imperial robes torn and dust-covered.
—Go —the Emperor ordered, already turning his attention to the strategic maps being unfurled by the eunuchs.— Before the Mist Hunters decide that the imperial palace is a suitable place to collect their debt.
—And remember, son… in the Forbidden Lands, death may be a blessing compared to what dwells there.
Gu Yan Long bowed shakily, clutching the Lineage Tablet where Hui Cao's flame still burned with that infuriating persistence, and limped out of the hall.
The gazes that followed him were no longer filled with respect or fear.
Only pity.
And relief.
Relief that it was not them being sent on a journey with no return.
As he crossed the vast courtyards toward his quarters—already being stripped of their contents by imperial decree—he stared at the tablet.
The flame of his sister seemed to mock him.
He, who had planned to rule an empire, was now a fugitive—hunted by spectral assassins and exiled to a land of madness.
All because of a girl who should have died quietly.
The hatred burning in his chest was the only warmth left in a world that had suddenly turned glacial.
Hui Cao.
If she was still breathing in that wasteland at the end of the world, he would find her.
Not for redemption.
But to extinguish that stubborn flame with his own hands—
Even if it was the last thing he ever did.