The Fang family compound sat west of the city.
In fact, every great house of Maple City clustered in the western quarter. The Zhangs' lands lay east, near the city lord's manor. The Wangs' lands lay north, close to the armory. The Fangs' lands ran farthest south — closest, of all three, to the Three-Scent Pavilion and the Grand Throughway gambling dens and all the places where money burned.
The other families scattered between the three great surnames, a living buffer.
From where Jiang Chen stood, the shortest road to the Fang compound ran straight past the city lord's manor. The bald man would never agree to that, and Jiang Chen would not even suggest it.
He proposed the southern gate instead: through the common quarters, past the Grand Throughway, then threading near the Three-Scent Pavilion to reach the Fang lands.
It was a long way around. To the bald man, it was safety itself.
The walk went smoothly. When they passed patrols of city guards, Jiang Chen even helped shield the man.
At last they stood before the Fang compound. Dusk was falling.
...
In the Jiang house on Flying Horse Lane, Ling Chuan shot to his feet. "We can't wait any longer!"
Everyone knew Jiang Chen would never miss a moment like Jiang An'an's birthday.
At first they thought he was off preparing some surprise. But dusk was near. No surprise took this long. Something had happened to him.
Zhao Yan pressed Ling Chuan back down. "You stay with An'an, big brother. My house has plenty of people. I'll go look."
The Zhao household was rich, with hands to spare. Zhao Yan could search far better than Ling Chuan. And someone had to stay with An'an — if she came to harm, Jiang Chen would never forgive them.
Ling Chuan knew the logic. He yielded.
The food had been fragrant for hours. An'an was hungry, but she had no appetite.
"Where is my brother?" she asked.
Zhao Yan traded a look with Ling Chuan, then said: "He must have gone to Phoenix Creek Town to buy you sugar dolls. You're always saying you want those ones from the old candy maker back home."
"Grandpa Zhang's!" Jiang An'an piped up.
"There!" Zhao Yan said. "But it's getting dark, and I'm afraid he can't see the road. I'll take a lantern and go meet him."
...
The "Fang family compound" had no walls, no clear boundary. It was simply a broad stretch of land where the Fang clan had lived for generations, until habit made it a territory.
"We should slip in quietly," Jiang Chen advised. "If they ask who you are, I won't know what to say."
It was plain sense: you did not bring a stranger into a friend's home.
"Which direction is this courtyard of yours?"
Jiang Chen pointed without hesitation.
Inside, he was turning schemes.
His greatest weakness: he had not laid his foundation, and the bald man was a sixth-rank Soaring Dragon. The gap between them was a chasm.
His greatest advantage: precisely because he had not laid his foundation, his strength — built on an extraordinary sword canon and a soldier's body-refining art — exceeded any ordinary Roaming Meridian cultivator. The bald man could not have anticipated that. It would catch him off guard.
Jiang Chen had one surprise. Exactly one chance.
All the way here, the bald man had kept an arm on Jiang Chen's shoulder. Now he pulled once, and the two of them dissolved into the shadow of a passerby.
They rode inside that stranger's shadow for a stretch, then the bald man drew him out. "Which way now?"
Jiang Chen let his astonishment at the art show on his face, checked the road, and pointed again.
The bald man chuckled. "This shadow-walking art is not hard. Follow my orders, and I'll teach it to you."
He pulled Jiang Chen back into the shadows.
They repeated the trick several times. By the time darkness had fully fallen, they drifted into the small courtyard Fang Heng had once shown Jiang Chen.
The near-silent movement raised Jiang Chen's alarm another notch.
To his relief, the courtyard was still abandoned, exactly as expected.
The yard had come to Fang Heng from his dead father. Because of its location, no one bothered with it.
And even if the Fangs had reassigned it, Jiang Chen had his answer ready: his friend hardly ever came back, the clan had probably given it to someone, and he himself had not visited in ages — how would he know?
The bald man sniffed the stale, man-less air of the yard and nodded, satisfied.
By his habit, he would have killed and torn out a heart on the spot.
But Jiang Chen was already narrating, easy as a host: "Three rooms ahead, that's the big mess hall. You can steal food there."
He pointed toward the hall with his back turned.
"My friend can't stand the clan's rules. He hardly ever stays here."
Then he turned and gestured elsewhere: "The Fang guards make their rounds at..."
Blade-light exploded.
Without a heartbeat of hesitation, Jiang Chen drew his sword — the first form of the Violet Dawn Sword Art's killing methods, the fastest of the five.
But the strike was not aimed at the bald man. It carried Jiang Chen himself over the wall and into the courtyard next door.
The bald man was no dawdler — but Jiang Chen had been mid-sentence about the guards' patrol schedule, vital for a man hiding here. No one expected the boy to explode mid-word.
Even less did he expect that an unfounded boy could move that fast. His grab came down on empty air.
"Who dares trespass on the Fang ancestral hall?!"
Jiang Chen had barely landed before a shout rang out and a white-haired old man burst from the building.
Yes. The courtyard Fang Heng had once lived in stood right against the Fang ancestral hall. That was the anchor of Jiang Chen's whole plan.
Fang Heng's father, once his cultivation had given out, had been parked here as the hall's keeper. Not a true keeper — he swept the courtyard and wiped the spirit tablets, which was a kind of humiliation. He bore it in silence and poured every hope into his son.
Fang Heng grew up in this courtyard. When his talent surfaced, he refused to move anywhere else.
Jiang Chen had planned it all. He met the old man's eyes, then turned and fled — shouting as he ran, pushing Dao essence into his voice: "The Heart-Devouring Demon! Today he answers for his crimes here!"
Xiong Wen, charging into the ancestral hall behind him, froze — and so did the old man.
One shocked that his identity had been found out. The other shocked at the name itself.
But the thought flickered and died. They faced each other now. There was no way to avoid trading a blow.
And the white-haired old man, keeper of the Fang ancestral hall, would not abandon his post over a shouted name.
He had been readying an art since he jumped from the room — meant for the sword-wielding thief. Now his hands twisted, and arrows with feathered fletching screamed into the sky.
The Fang family's heirloom art: the Thousand-Feather Arrow.
Truth be told, the art was no better than what the academy taught. It was cruder — fussy seals, ornamental feathers. The academy's fast-evolving arts were exactly why family-style cultivation was dying out.
But the old man had polished this art for decades. It had grown sharp with age. At eighth-rank Cycle realm, his power was nothing to sneer at.
Xiong Wen only roared. Violent Dao essence turned into sound and scattered half the feathered arrows. He swatted aside the few that came for his vitals, then slammed into the old man and tore out his heart with one hand.
His hiding place was blown now, thanks to that shouted name. He had to leave fast — kill fast. He moved like thunder, willing to take a wound for an instant kill.
Xiong Wen looked at the withered heart in his hand and tossed it aside. "Appetizing."
The old man had not even lasted a blow — but he was resolved to hand his killer one last surprise.
Watching his own old heart sail away, he used his final strength: every scrap of Dao essence in his Celestial Palace, poured in a single flood into the command seal in his hand.
Light blazed.
A clear glow wrapped the entire Fang ancestral hall. Atop that glow stood a crane's phantom.
It stood tall, its eyes cold.
With the last of his life, the old man had triggered the hall's guardian array.
He thought he heard the crane call out.