Su Yan studied the Emperor's cultivation for a long moment. "You've mixed too many things. Nuo master secrets. Incense divinity. And qi cultivation techniques you barely understand. They don't unify. That's why you're falling apart."
Imperial wrath pressed against Su Yan like a physical weight. The Emperor said nothing.
"Your gaze could kill," Su Yan said calmly. "It makes my heart race."
The Emperor's eyes erupted. Two beams of divine light lanced over Su Yan's head and sliced through a bronze pillar as thick as a water barrel. The hall's roof shattered, the cut edges glowing red-hot.
Su Yan stood motionless. "Have you seen how the people of Yongzhou live?"
The Emperor's voice softened. "The disaster pains me. I've ordered relief."
"Before the underworld invaded," Su Yan said, "your officials crushed us. In my village alone, children were sold. Families hanged themselves. Men died in your prisons. My foster grandfather died catching snakes for your alchemists."
The Emperor frowned. Usually, that expression silenced courtiers.
Su Yan continued. "I smelled dried serpent in your furnaces. My people die so you can treat your spasms. My family died in your hands."
"The local governor is Zhou family," the Emperor said quietly. "I cannot touch the Zhou clan. I cannot remove Zhou Qiyun. What would you have me do?"
Su Yan ignored him. "Your decrees never reach the villages. Your tax exemptions become new taxes. Your relief becomes graft. You're not governing. You're occupying a latrine you won't vacate."
Thunder cracked inside the Emperor's crown. His rage boiled the air.
Su Yan laughed, easy and open. "I understand, Your Majesty. The top is still clean. Only the roots have rotted. Now, about your technique—"
The Emperor forced his qi down. "Even Zhou Qiyun's protection wouldn't save you within ten paces."
"Then why act like a common thug?" Su Yan bowed his head. "I'm a peasant. You're the Son of Heaven."
The Emperor exhaled. He produced a golden book—pages thin as cicada wings, glowing with ancient diagrams. The Nine Heavens Yang Spirit Scripture. It included pill refinement methods, golden crow imagery, and nine-heaven visualizations.
Su Yan examined it. The technique followed a pure yang path, refining body and soul into a nine-revolution primal spirit. The theory was sound. The practitioner was not.
"The Emperor mistook 'pure yang' for 'yang energy,'" Su Yan realized. "With the Crimson Palace open, his heart-fire rages. Adding yang pills makes it worse. In a few years, he'll burn alive from the inside out."
He looked up. "Your two secret vaults conflict when you circulate power."
"They attack me," the Emperor admitted. "My cultivation rises, but my body decays."
"I can translate this properly. Fix the imbalances. Eliminate the madness." Su Yan met his eyes. "But I need something."
"Governance? Reform?"
Su Yan shook his head. "If you could rule, you would have. I only ask one thing within your power."
The Emperor laughed, loud and sudden. "If I achieve immortality, governing becomes trivial. You'll be my greatest minister!"
Su Yan felt a strange flicker. Could this man become a good emperor?
He pushed the thought aside. "I want Veyon and me to escape Zhou Qiyun. And I want the Jade Capital positioning art."
The Emperor's eye twitched. "Granted."
Su Yan collected the golden book and turned to leave. "One more thing. Magistrate Liu Zhongyuan—you summoned him to the capital, then sent him to Liuzhou."
"He talked of reform. Empty words."
"I've only met him a few times." Su Yan smiled and walked out.
Eunuch Chen offered him another peach. Su Yan took it, cracked it open, and dropped it.
"No appetite," he said. "By the way, don't tell anyone the Emperor practices devil arts."
The eunuch's hands trembled.
Su Yan returned to the Phoenix Palace and fell into bed without undressing. "Rotten," he muttered. "Beyond saving."
* * *
The next morning, Guo Xiaodie waited outside, her face bruised, her clothes torn. She'd trained all night.
"I did it!" She grabbed his arm. "I mastered the Sword Control Art!"
Su Yan stared at her injuries. "You didn't use the Azure Sky Ladder?"
"Courage first, technique second!" She wiped blood from her nose and cheered.
Su Yan looked up at Yuan Qi and the great bell sunning themselves on a phoenix branch. He kicked the serpent off the tree.
A long scream followed.
"That method doesn't work," Su Yan told the bell. "Suicide, wasn't it?"
The bell hummed innocently. "A slip. I saw everything."
Su Yan nodded and drifted away.