Su Yan couldn't sleep.
He laid out the facts like bones, trying to read the pattern. Zhou Qiyun had tracked the serpent into Qinyan Cave. He had followed the Mud Pill Palace Master's scent into the stone chamber. He had knelt to the skeleton, accepted its gift, and had his Mud Pill secret repository opened.
Then he discovered the trap. Destroyed his inner realm. Rebuilt it. Escaped.
But what if the trap had nested layers? What if the flaw in the technique was bait—a distraction hiding a deeper poison? Zhou Qiyun had spent eighty years hunting seventeen nuo immortals, piecing together a conspiracy, correcting his art. He had become confident. Arrogant, even.
And on the day of his tribulation, at his weakest, the true Master would come to harvest.
"You're wrong," the bell said. "Zhou Qiyun's inner realm is the continent itself. His technique can't be what the Master taught. The flaw died with the skeleton."
Su Yan nodded. But the doubt stayed, cold and patient.
He put Niu Zhen and Niu Gan to work cleaning the ascension ground. The two bull demons had opened their Xiyi Domain and were purging the underworld yin from their bodies. They grew stronger by the day.
Yuan Qi, meanwhile, had developed a new hobby.
He carried Yuan Tiangang's sword case to the broken peak of Mount Wuwang, climbed to the summit, and jumped.
He landed with a wet slap. Climbed. Jumped again.
"Perhaps the axe?" Su Yan offered, gesturing at the giant stone weapon in the corner.
Yuan Qi, sprawled in the dust, sniffed. "Barbarians swing axes. I am a swordsman."
On the fifth day, something changed.
Yuan Qi leaped. Sword light flashed from the forest below—an ambush, vicious and precise. He twisted midair, scales bristling, and barely dodged the blade meant for his throat. More lights rose to meet him.
He refused to transform. Refused the Dragon-Serpent Awakening Art.
Instead, he reached for the sword qi in the case on his back.
For one heartbeat, nothing.
Then the case hummed. White light erupted, swirling around him like a cocoon of blades. The attacking swords shattered against his shield, ringing like broken bells.
"I did it!" Yuan Qi shrieked, plummeting. "I finally—"
The shattered fragments turned to green smoke. The smell of temple incense.
Yuan Qi's joy curdled. "Not Su Yan. Underworld gods."
He transformed. A hundred-zhang serpent coiled around the broken mountain, dragon and serpent dao images painting the sky. The attackers—city gods from every county in Yongzhou—froze in terror.
A tall scholar emerged from the trees, his robe stitched with official seals. Behind him walked Xue Lingfu and a host of underworld clerks, thick with incense power.
"This is Magistrate Ling of the Underworld Prefect's Office," Xue Lingfu announced. "By imperial decree, Su Yan is summoned to the underworld to answer for his crimes."
Yuan Qi's heart sank. A prefectural magistrate outranked ghost kings. This was an execution dressed in paperwork.
Then laughter boomed from above.
"Magistrate Ling! How fortunate!"
Zhou Heng floated down, clutching the neck of a giant fat bird, his belly swaying. "I bear a personal letter from my Zhou family ancestor. Underworld business can wait for another day."
Ling Youdao studied the fat man. His eyes flicked to the distant peaks, as if searching for a shadow that wasn't there. He turned and left without another word.
Zhou Heng handed Su Yan the letter. It opened with courtesies, then veered into questions about the Nine Heavens Yang Spirit Scripture—subtle points of qi circulation, dangerous mergings that Su Yan understood only because he had stared into the abyss of the Mud Pill Palace Master's art.
Su Yan wrote his answers. He also sent back the teacup.
"Tell your ancestor," he said. "The liquid inside must not be spilled."
Zhou Heng took cup and letter back to Mount Jiuyi. Zhou Qiyun read the answers, grew absorbed, and woke three days later. The cup was gone. A maid had washed it.
More letters followed. The questions grew harder, stranger. Su Yan felt the weight of Zhou Qiyun's progress pressing through the paper—Jade Pool stage, then beyond. The man's mind was a furnace.
"The ancestor has reached the Spirit-Bridge stage," Zhou Heng said on his next visit. "The altar is complete."
Su Yan's voice was steady. "When will he kill me?"
Zhou Heng's smile flickered. "He has not said. Only this."
The final letter was different. No questions. Only a confession of method.
I have gathered treasures beyond counting, Zhou Qiyun wrote. Ancient texts. Weapons of forgotten dynasties. I will sacrifice them to the heavenly gods and bargain for a gentler tribulation. If I ascend, you will live. If I fail, Zhou Heng will bring you my last words.
Su Yan folded the letter along its creases.
He knew what last words meant.
It meant Zhou Heng would come bearing a sword.