Imperial Palace
The opulent hall was thick with a silence that felt heavy and dangerous. It pressed down on the gilded pillars and the heavy silk tapestries that hung motionless in the stagnant air, which smelled faintly of expensive, bitter incense. Emperor Wei of Great Wei sat rigidly on his dragon throne. His face was dark like gathering storm clouds, and his usual imperial composure was shattered. He gripped the thin military report in his hands so tightly the paper threatened to tear. His knuckles stood out white and sharp against his skin.
Over two hundred thousand troops had been deployed. Half a year of meticulous preparation and vast amounts of consumed resources had been spent. And yet, she had simply escaped. She hadn't just run; she had walked on water, crossing the raging, wide Jishui River as if it were nothing more than solid ground. It was a feat straight out of a myth.
To his rational, military mind, that wasn't a martial technique he could comprehend. It was the clear, undeniable mark of an immortal, a being stepping into the realm of legends. A hot coil of bitter envy and a cold, tight knot of primal terror twisted together in his gut. It made him feel physically sick.
"Issue a nationwide arrest warrant immediately," he commanded after a measured, shaky breath. He forced a facade of steely calm into his voice, though his eyes remained wild. "I want her face on posters in every town and village, from the richest prefecture to the poorest hamlet. A reward of ten thousand gold for her capture, dead or alive."
It was a king's ransom, enough to tempt even the most righteous man into betrayal.
"Yes, Your Majesty!" a senior eunuch responded. His voice was a reedy quaver as he bowed almost double before scurrying out of the hall like a frightened insect to execute the order.
Finally alone, the Emperor slumped over his polished jade desk. His shoulders sagged under the weight of the golden dragon robes. He gasped for air, his breaths ragged and shallow, like a man who had just been pulled from drowning in a cold, dark lake.
"Hah… hah… hah…"
Fear gnawed at him. It was a relentless rodent chewing on his sanity and his courage. He was terrified of her vengeance. He was terrified of waking in the deep of night to find her ethereal blade already at his throat, her eyes cold with the memory of her slaughtered family.
Emperors were paranoid by nature and profession, and he was no exception. He knew exactly what he had done to the Su family and the orders he had signed without a second thought. If she were a common girl from a traitorous line, he wouldn't have spared her a second thought. But this one was different. She was something else entirely.
To find the single weakest link in an encirclement of hundreds of thousands of men, and to stride through fire and flood completely unscathed. Even if she was just a girl in years, her demonstrated capabilities and her cold efficiency terrified him to his core.
"Your Majesty," a dry, rasping voice slithered from the jade ruyi scepter at his side, breaking the oppressive silence. "Perhaps you will now reconsider my proposal. With her gone, your paper warrants will be as useless as chaff in the wind against the power she now wields and will continue to cultivate."
The Emperor's jaw twitched. A muscle flickered in his cheek. The price the voice demanded was ten daughters. Not just any ten, but unmarried, young, and healthy ones.
"Think carefully, Your Majesty," the voice pressed. It sensed his moral hesitation, a feeling it clearly found amusing. "Given her display at the river, she may already be knocking on the door of the Qi Refining stage. Every day you delay is a day she grows stronger. Her roots are sinking deeper into a power you can't touch."
The threat was left hanging, unspoken but understood.
"I will make the selections," the Emperor snapped. His voice was icy. All trace of his earlier fear was replaced by a ruthless, survivalist calculus. He had over two hundred children from his numerous consorts. A few sickly ones, or a few from lesser, forgotten concubines... they wouldn't be missed. They were a small, disposable price for the immortality the voice promised and for the security of his own eternal reign.
"Your Majesty," the eunuch's trembling announcement came from the door, shattering his dark thoughts. "General Sun requests an audience."
The Emperor's face, already dark, turned thunderous. The report had listed one notable death and nearly a thousand injured, mostly from burns and smoke inhalation. But the one death was the old General Sun's eldest and most promising grandson. The same old general who had collapsed in court just days ago from the shock and grief. His mighty frame had been brought low by sorrow. That grandson had been the old man's pride, the brilliant future of his military lineage, now cut down in his prime by a single arrow. Steeling himself, the Emperor waved the man in.
The once indomitable general, a pillar of his military for forty years, now looked decades older. His spirit was visibly broken, and his eyes were vacant. He moved without his usual, confident vigor; his steps were slow and heavy.
"Your Majesty," the old man said. His voice was hollow, stripped of all its former power. There was no preamble and no flowery language. "I come to resign. This old bone can serve no longer."
He stepped forward and placed his heavy commander's tiger seal on the Emperor's desk with a final, soft thud that echoed in the silent hall. There was no direct blame laid for the girl, for his grandson had fallen in what was, by all accounts, a fair fight he had initiated.
But to mobilize two hundred thousand soldiers and to burn a sacred mountain range to the ground, all for the obsessive pursuit of one girl? It was a farce, a madness that went against all sound military wisdom and virtue. He had been away inspecting the northern borders, and to return to this spectacle of waste and hubris had broken his will to serve this throne any longer.
And what he had seen festering in the army—the discontent and the superstitious fear—were the early omens of a dynasty's collapse. He was too old and too weary to fight it from within. He chose a quiet exile instead.
After the general had left, the Emperor let out a slow, deliberate breath. "Finally gone, that old fool."
There was a hint of relief in his tone. The general's unwavering integrity had always been an inconvenience. He turned to the waiting eunuch, a new, grim exhilaration cutting through his earlier gloom. With the military's most respected patriarch gone, true, unchallenged power was now his alone. "Summon my ten daughters," he ordered without a shred of paternal warmth. The list was already prepared in his mind. They were just names to be crossed off a ledger.
He would be eternal. His own flesh and blood were merely tools to be used or potential threats to be pruned.
Southern Wilderness
Moonlight bathed a quiet hilltop where Su Min lounged against a smooth tree trunk. She finally allowed herself to feel a genuine sense of ease. The wide, churning river had been her true salvation; it was a natural barrier more effective than any wall. Crossing it had completely severed any immediate pursuit, and she knew moving an army of that size across such a formidable natural barrier was a logistical nightmare that would take them weeks to organize, if they even tried at all.
The arrest warrants she had seen plastered on a dusty town noticeboard a few days prior meant very little to her now. She avoided all main roads and settled areas, sticking to the untamed wilds. She stayed in the dense forests and rolling hills where the Emperor's reach was weak and his officials were few. Along the way, her enhanced strength and reflexes had been tested against the wilderness itself. She had efficiently killed a hungry tiger and two territorial bears that had threatened her. Their pelts were now stored safely in her ring.
"Now, I need to make a real plan," she murmured to the quiet night. The words were carried away on a soft breeze that smelled of pine and damp earth.
She unrolled a simple, hand-drawn map she had discreetly bought in a small, remote southern village just before the warrants had spread that far. She compared its inked lines and crude markings to her memories of the game world's lore. This wasn't a linear adventure with a clear, singular path to follow. There was no obvious main quest marker hovering in the air, only a vast, living world to explore, power to cultivate, and lost, ancient arts to uncover. But major historical threads, the backbone of the game's narrative, did exist and were likely unfolding.
"The first chapter's events should be unfolding right about now," she mused, tracing a route south with her finger.
Her original, simplest plan had been to flee all the way to the isolated, scattered islands of the Southern Sea and hide there for a decade or two while cultivating in perfect peace. But her divine ability, Heavenly Dao Insight demanded more than just passive waiting or the slow passage of time. This power wasn't just about aging and gaining wisdom through centuries; it thrived on action and direct experience. It required engaging with the Dao in all its manifestations.
If she healed the sick, it might grant her profound knowledge of restorative arts and medicinal lore. If she lived the life of a hunter, it could reveal the subtle techniques of perfect stealth and intuitive tracking. It was a versatile, profound tool that adapted to and amplified the path she walked, but only if she walked that path actively, with purpose and intent.
Simply hiding, while safe, would make her growth painfully and inefficiently slow. To truly unlock her immense potential, to feed her Heavenly Dao Insight and accelerate her comprehension of the universe's laws, she needed to engage with the world and immerse herself in its currents. Even if it meant stepping carefully, deliberately, into its conflicts and stories.
Survival was the immediate goal, but thriving, and eventually mastering her destiny, required more.
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1. Ruyi Scepter (如意) – A ceremonial scepter symbolizing imperial authority, here implied to house a sinister spirit or advisor.
2. Command Seal (将印) – A token of military authority, its surrender symbolizing the general's complete break with the emperor.
3. The general's resignation reflects Confucian ideals—honor lies not in blind loyalty, but in recognizing when authority has become unvirtuous. His quiet exit speaks louder than rebellion.