The bronze shard was gone. In its place, a cyan glyph, shaped like a rippling wave and no larger than a fingernail, was etched into his palm. It looked less like a scar and more like a tattoo, seamless and faint.
Xue Mu clenched his fist, then relaxed it. Nothing. No surge of energy, no magical interface pinging in his vision.
Maybe it needs a power source to activate? he mused.
He didn't dwell on it. Xue Mu was a creature of adaptation. In the cutthroat entertainment industry, reality was whatever you could spin it to be. Stuck in a world of violent women who treated life like a cheap prop, his priority was survival. And survival meant making himself useful—or at least, entertaining—to the sharks circling him.
He gazed out the carriage window. The sky was a piercing, impossible azure, the kind of blue modern cities had choked out decades ago. The grass rolled in emerald waves, untouched by smog.
So, I've lost my penthouse and my starlets, he thought, a grim smile touching his lips. But I've traded them for a world where the air doesn't taste like exhaust. I built an empire from nothing once. I can do it again.
The carriage had left the mountain pass and was now rumbling along a flat, paved highway. In the distance, the silhouette of a colossal city loomed against the horizon.
Outside, Yue Xiaochan was bored. She wasn't riding; she was floating. Her bare feet tapped the tips of the grass blades, propelling her forward in a drift of white silk and effortless grace.
Physics really has left the building, Xue Mu noted. A thirteen-year-old girl walking on grass like it's pavement. Do they even need carriages, or is it just for the aesthetic?
As if sensing his gaze, the girl turned. Her eyes crinkled into a smile, and she made a playful digging motion at her own eye. Keep staring, and I'll gouge yours out.
"Miss Yue," Xue Mu called out, ignoring the threat. "That city ahead... is that the Capital?"
"The Capital," she confirmed, not breaking her stride.
"Is that where we're headed?"
"Does it matter to you?"
"I am your accountant, aren't I?"
Yue Xiaochan laughed, a sound like wind chimes. She drifted closer to the window. "You look better. That poison of yours had you looking like a corpse. Our medicine is the best."
"Why aren't you in the carriage?" he asked.
She puffed out her cheeks. "Master is tallying the losses from the south. The numbers give me a headache."
"So you leave your guards and run alone?"
"You really don't get it, do you?" She looked at him with amusement, her expression shifting from innocent child to arrogant martial artist. "Do you think just anyone can talk to us like this? You're either missing a screw, or you're blissfully ignorant."
Xue Mu leaned his chin on the windowsill, looking at her flawless, porcelain face. "I admit I'm ignorant. I don't know who your master is. But even if I did, why should I be afraid to chat with a beautiful girl?"
"You're stubborn," she said, tapping her cheek. "My master's name is Xue Qingqiu."
Xue Qingqiu. The name meant nothing to him, though he recalled the terrifying cold light in the woman's eyes. "We share a surname. That makes us family. Why should I fear family?"
Yue Xiaochan stared at him as if he were a rare, exotic animal. Finally, she shook her head, laughing. "Fine. Ignorance is bliss."
She didn't explain. She didn't tell him that "Xue Qingqiu" was a name that stopped crying babies in their tracks. The Moon that Dims the Stars, the Blood-Washed Autumn. The Master of the Star-Moon Sect. A demoness whose hands were stained with rivers of blood. To Xue Mu, she was just a hot, scary woman in a carriage.
"You look less depressed," Yue Xiaochan noted. "Earlier, you looked like you were carrying the weight of the world."
"Since you're bored," Xue Mu said, "shall I tell you a story?"
Her eyes lit up. "A story? Go on."
"Once, an old man was walking down a road, carrying two baskets of porcelain bowls on a pole. Suddenly, one bowl fell out and shattered on the ground. The old man didn't stop. He didn't even look back."
Yue Xiaochan tilted her head. "Because he was rich? He didn't care about a bowl?"
Xue Mu shook his head. "A passerby asked him why. The old man replied: 'It is already broken. Looking back won't fix it.'"
Yue Xiaochan froze. Her playful smile vanished, replaced by a look of deep contemplation. She drifted in silence for a long moment. "That... is interesting. It feels like a lesson for my cultivation. Thank you."
In the carriage ahead, Xue Qingqiu paused. Her brush hovered over a scroll of accounts. She had heard every word. A strange expression crossed her face—a mixture of surprise and release. Suddenly, she laughed. Blue flames erupted from her hand, reducing the scroll of bad debts to ash.
"Master, we have arrived," a guard announced.
The convoy halted. Xue Mu stepped down, looking up at the massive city gate. Above it, archaic characters blazed in the sun: Heavenly Capital.
Ideally, he should have been awestruck. Instead, he felt like he was being crushed.
A massive, invisible pressure slammed into him from all sides, like diving into the deep ocean. His chest tightened; breath became a struggle. But before he could gasp, a warm heat surged from his palm. The cyan tattoo pulsed. The heat flooded his veins, and the crushing pressure vanished instantly.
Instead of suffocation, he felt... welcomed. A strange sense of belonging washed over him. The city walls, the grass, the very air seemed to hum with a familiarity he couldn't explain.
It felt like coming home.