Just a breath later,
Yanyu returned with light steps, eyes hopeful as she carried a tray with a steaming jade teapot, the delicate aroma of Spirit Tea wafting gently with each of her movements.
"Holy Son, your tea—" she began, her voice sweet as ever, yet, the words froze in her throat unable to comprehend the scene before her.
Tinnggggg!!!
The tray clattered to the ground, cups shattering like dreams on polished spirit stone.
Her gaze fell upon the swing.
Upon the dead body.
Fatty Wang's headless corpse sat unnaturally upright, the swing still swaying with a slow, ominous creak.
His severed head lay nearby, eyes wide in confusion, lips parted as if still mid-smirk.
Blood had pooled beneath him, a gruesome crimson lotus blooming beneath the swing.
Yanyu stood paralyzed.
Her legs gave out, and she collapsed to her knees, the front of her robes quickly soaking in the warm blood that had spread toward her.
"N-no... no no no no no…" she whispered, crawling forward on trembling hands. "Holy Son—? HOLY SON!!"
Her fingers reached out, shaking the cooling hand of the young master, as if willing warmth to return.
"No! I-I was going to thank you… I was going to… to serve you forever! We were supposed to return to the garden… you said…"
She covered her mouth, choking on bile and disbelief. Her heart pounded like a war drum, not just from grief, but from terror.
This… this was no accident.
This was an assassination.
And she had been the last one to see him alive.
Just then, a cold, crystalline chime echoed through the air; The activation of a sect formation.
An emerald light flared briefly in the sky, signaling the death of a core disciple.
Yanyu's breath caught. "No... the Formation Beacon…!"
She backed away, eyes wide in horror. She could already hear the sound of approaching footsteps, disciples, guards, perhaps even Elders.
And when they arrived...
"They'll think I…I... No, I didn't do it,"
A bitter sob escaped her throat.
She has to pay this with her life even if she has no contribution to his death.
She frantically wiped her hands on her robe, as if she could wash away the guilt, as if blood was something that cared for silk.
But it stained deeper than fabric, it had already soaked into her very fate.
Her eyes darted to the still-open gates of the courtyard.
She stood... Wavered... Then ran.
From above, hidden amidst a fold in space, Li Mei floated in silent observation.
Her delicate fingers traced an invisible sigil as her eyes followed the fleeing maid.
"Tsk. I gave her too much hope," she muttered, voice like a breath of wind across a winter lake.
"How naive... Does she really think she can run?"
A silver butterfly landed on her shoulder, formed entirely of ephemeral spiritual qi.
"Should I kill her too?" Li Mei asked, mostly to herself.
"Or let her fate unravel as it may…" She vanished without making a sound.
Behind her, the koi pond rippled faintly, and the spirit orchids began to wilt, perhaps in mourning, or perhaps merely in acknowledgment.
...
Elsewhere, far atop the Supreme Peak…
A wizened old man in violet robes stood abruptly in the middle of a lesson, his fingers pausing mid-inscription.
His pupils widened as a jade token on his belt shattered into dust.
"Wang'er…!" he whispered.
His qi flared.
The skies above Supreme Peak darkened.
Bururum!
Somewhere, distant thunder rolled, not from clouds, but from the fury of an elder, whose only son had just died.
"Which sinner dare to bring misfortune to the blood of this one, unforgivable," He spat voice full of anger and hatred.
Certainly. Here's the continuation — the tension expands as the sect reacts to the beacon, Elder Wang's fury grows uncontrollable, and Yanyu finds herself thrust into a nightmare beyond her understanding.
Boom!
A thick slab of ancient stone exploded beneath Elder Wang's foot as he vanished from the summit in a flash of violet and gold.
Pill furnaces shattered from the aftershock, disciples screamed, and several elders scrambled to stabilize the formation barriers he had nearly shattered with a single flare of rage.
One spoke in a trembling voice:
"He… He's going to the courtyard…"
No one needed to ask whose courtyard.
The Formation Beacon had told them all.
...
Two breaths later,
A shrill wind preceded Elder Wang's arrival.
The clouds overhead crackled, forming an oppressive vortex. With a crackle of spatial lightning, the violet-robed elder materialized mid-air, his eyes sunken, veins bulging beneath parchment-like skin, lips trembling with fury.
The headless corpse, his blood, that remained cold.
No… No… Noo...
He descended in silence, knees buckling slightly as he reached out and cradled his son's head with trembling fingers.
His entire body shook as the realization sank in, not just grief, but disbelief.
It wasn't a normal hatred or act of vengeance, the soul was destroyed leaving no room for reincarnation.
"He was supposed to inherit everything…"
"He was supposed to become my legacy…"
His lips peeled back in a snarl of anguish.
Then he stood and roared.
A surge of Qi burst outward in all directions.
The jade fences shattered, spirit orchids were uprooted, the koi ponds boiled violently, and the polished stones split into craters.
The spiritual pressure was suffocating.
All the nearby disciples who had rushed over fell to their knees, gasping under the weight of it.
One even coughed blood, with his internal organs destroyed needing months to recover.
"Seal the sect!" Elder Wang's voice boomed like a divine decree.
"NO ONE LEAVES SUPREME PEAK! UNTIL I FIND THE ONE WHO DID THIS… THIS SLAUGHTERER OF MY BLOODLINE; UNTIL I TEAR THEM APART BONE BY BONE, SOUL BY SOUL!"
His hands flared, summoning a thousand spirit-seeking butterflies, tracking talismans that danced into the air like a swarm of fireflies, hungry for a trail.
They scattered.
One hovered.
Paused.
Then turned east.
Meanwhile,
Outskirts of the Inner Sect
Yanyu ran barefoot, the spiritual tea still scalding one of her palms. Her robe was torn for reason unknown to the normal mind, her hair wild, her eyes red and swollen.
She gasped for breath, weaving through back alleys of the sect's outer gardens, passing disciples too stunned to even notice her.
Then, she felt it...
A tremor in the air, a gust of killing intent.
A vortex appeared behind her and an old hand pulled her in.
The old man was angry, if he didn't kill the sinner he would start to breed inner demons.