Wei Ping took a deep breath. Forget three days—he wished Lin Feiyuan would vanish immediately.
"Time to eat," Steward Wei smiled as he opened the food container, moving with practiced ease.
Thinly sliced meat, washed and chopped vegetables, and four small dipping sauce bowls were arranged on the table. A charcoal stove was set up, and the copper pot of clear broth began boiling. The four gathered around the table, enveloped in warm, rising steam.
Seeing Lin Feiyuan had quieted down, Song Qianji removed the Silence Talisman from his back.
Lin Feiyuan picked up his chopsticks but stared at the sauce bowl in front of Song Qianji. "Swap with me!"
Song Qianji looked puzzled.
Lin Feiyuan pushed his own bowl forward, declaring boldly, "I want to eat yours."
Ji Chen’s face fell, showing rare displeasure. "Brother Song spared your life out of kindness, treated your wounds, and provides you with food and drink. How dare you make more trouble?"
Wei Ping transmitted an angry message: "Eat your own! I didn’t poison it!"
Lin Feiyuan remained unmoved. Distrusting Wei Ping, he tapped his chopsticks and said, "True, Immortal Official Song is the kindest under heaven. I’m the one causing trouble, but I insist on causing trouble."
Wei Ping suddenly slammed the table. The stone table and the delicacies upon it remained undisturbed, but Lin Feiyuan’s sauce bowl flew into the air. "Troublemakers don’t deserve to eat."
The celadon bowl hovered mid-air until Ji Chen’s chopsticks tapped it, sending a fierce pressure straight at Lin Feiyuan’s face.
With injuries on both arms and unable to muster any Spirit Qi, Lin Feiyuan had no choice but to bend backward in the split second. Knowing he couldn’t dodge it, his vision suddenly blurred as a white sleeve intercepted the attack.
Song Qianji calmly caught the bowl mid-air as if it had been handed to him. "Eat," he said, pushing his own bowl toward Lin Feiyuan. His gaze swept over Wei Ping and Ji Chen. "They’re the same."
No one had ever heard of fighting at the dinner table.
The meat had overcooked. Lin Feiyuan snatched a piece with his chopsticks, dipped it into the bowl, and chewed loudly. He suddenly froze, looked at Wei Ping, and slowly grinned, revealing white teeth. "This bowl really is different!"
Wei Ping felt a chill. "Shut up!"
"Tsk, the fragrance of century-old Red Mountain Lingzhi—dried and ground into powder, mixed into the sauce, I suppose."
"Ah, Southern Sea tiger-head abalone, stir-fried and minced, finely layered at the bottom of the bowl."
"And White Jade Spirit Mushrooms, Night Star Flower honey..." Lin Feiyuan seemed to have caught Wei Ping’s tail, exaggerating, "So extravagant! Rare delicacies from land and sea, all in a dipping sauce that looks the same but is exceptionally precious. No wonder Immortal Official Song doesn’t practice inedia. Eating like this every day, only a fool would refuse."
Wei Ping gave Song Qianji an innocent smile. "Just cheap stuff from the market. Fellow Daoist Lin must have mistaken the taste."
Meanwhile, he transmitted a threat: "Shut up, or we’ll see who dies first!"
Lin Feiyuan arrogantly devoured large mouthfuls of meat and even served Song Qianji. "Everyone, eat! Why is Fellow Daoist Ji just sitting there?"
Song Qianji gave him a faint glance. Though he said nothing critical, Lin Feiyuan understood the message in his eyes—it was nothing more than the Silence Talisman.
He snorted lightly and fell silent.
The hotpot meal finally concluded peacefully.
Lin Feiyuan was like an Explosive Talisman ready to detonate at any moment.
Wei Ping wanted to stay and keep an eye on him, but the final round of screening suspicious individuals in Thousand Canals was underway. The God Temple held spies from various factions, awaiting his interrogation.
Ji Chen needed to reinforce old formations and select a few lucky spies to test new ones. Neither could stay longer.
Only Lin Feiyuan, the idler, swaggered about, usurping the place and observing the formations in Song Courtyard.
Song Qianji hadn’t been bluffing—Lin Feiyuan truly couldn’t break out of the courtyard at present.Most cultivators set their cave abode formations to maintain a constant temperature year-round, free from cold or heat, and untouched by dust.
The formation of Song Courtyard was different. While it appeared as a dragon's den and tiger's lair to ordinary cultivators, wind, snow, rain, and dew passed through unimpeded.
Occasionally, scrawny stray cats would dart along the base of walls, leap over roof ridges, and climb across enclosures.
After observing Song Courtyard's formation, Lin Feiyuan turned his gaze to Song Qianji.
He wanted to know what sinister arts Song Qianji practiced. But Song Qianji didn't practice swordplay or meditate at all—he spent entire days occupied with leisurely tasks unrelated to cultivation.
These "leisurely tasks" made Lin Feiyuan extremely uncomfortable.
Being older than Song Qianji, Lin Feiyuan had seen many young cultivators. Novice assassins, still young, often spouted phrases like "Nothing matters in this world except life and death" to appear cold and formidable.
But after years in the trade, killing became numbing, with their heads hanging by a thread on their sword hilts—even life and death became trivial matters.
Lin Feiyuan meticulously planned every assassination, calculating every step down to the last detail.
Outside of work, he preferred a carefree life—listening to a few tunes, tailoring new clothes—as if his life wasn't worth taking too seriously.
But in Song Courtyard, nothing was trivial.
Song Qianji poured his heart into every task.
After a meal, he stood beneath a plum tree, basking in the clear winter sunlight, holding up a small pot. Lin Feiyuan, thinking he was channeling energy, quietly approached.
He saw melted snow, drop by glistening crystal, dripping from the edges of plum petals into the mouth of the pot, producing a crisp sound.
Lin Feiyuan asked, "What's the use of this?"
"Brewing tea," Song Qianji replied.
"And what are you doing now?"
"Selecting seeds to sow next year."
Lin Feiyuan couldn't help asking, "Aren't all seeds the same?"
"They're not," Song Qianji said. "Only plump, unblemished ones are good seeds. If you want to learn, I can teach you. Look at this one—it's a bit shriveled in the middle..."
Lin Feiyuan: "Who would want to learn this?!"
Song Qianji continued sorting through the seeds on the table: "Besides killing, you should learn something else."
"Besides killing, I have no use for other skills!" Lin Feiyuan sneered. "I think you're the one who's sick."
If he weren't injured, he'd have grabbed Song Qianji by the collar and shouted:
You're Song Qianji, peerless in chess and calligraphy. The youngest Nascent Soul of this era, whose talent surpasses Ziye Wenshu and rivals Xian Jianchen.
You're the master of Thousand-Ditch Prefecture. Your enemies are sharpening their blades, countless people are watching, waiting to kill you—what are you doing all day?
Song Qianji stood up: "You're the one who's sick. It's time for your medicine."
Soon, he brought a bowl of medicine from the kitchen.
Lin Feiyuan turned his head away in disgust.
Song Qianji: "I just brewed it. It's not from Wei Ping."
Lin Feiyuan lowered his gaze.
The dark medicinal broth rippled gently, reflecting his own image.
"Why?"
Why heal my wounds? Why not kill me? Why not interrogate me?
As if that assassination had melted away with the heavy snow, leaving not a trace behind.
Song Qianji didn't understand: "You wouldn't drink it if Wei Ping brewed it."
"I, I..." Lin Feiyuan wanted to say something, but saw Song Qianji raise his hand.
A familiar gesture.
He erupted in fury instantly: "I'll do it myself! I'll do it myself, alright?!"
A man of iron will, with a crack, dislocated his own jaw and gulped down the medicine, then with another crack, snapped it back into place.
Song Qianji was speechless. As he retrieved the bowl, he couldn't resist reminding him: "...Since you're doing it yourself, you could have just opened your mouth."Lin Feiyuan fell silent for a moment, then kicked the bamboo fence until it broke: "It's all because of this damned yard—I'm going crazy living here!"
Song Qianji didn't hold back, slapping a Silence Talisman onto his back.
Lin Feiyuan opened his mouth but couldn't make a sound, glaring at him resentfully.
He watched Song Qianji plant narcissus, trim branches, and repair the fence.
The day slipped by quietly, unnoticed until the moon rose over the western tower and the lanterns grew dim.
For Lin Feiyuan, the day felt both agonizingly slow and startlingly fast.
That evening, Wei Ping came to prepare a late-night snack—fragrant plum blossom glutinous rice cakes skewered on bamboo sticks, coated in honey and nuts.
Wei Ping personally picked one up and handed it to Lin Feiyuan, while simultaneously transmitting a message: "Tomorrow night at the third quarter of the midnight hour, three bird calls will be the signal."
Lin Feiyuan had a sweet tooth and couldn't bring himself to throw it away.
He broke off half and called over the scrawny flower cat from the corner of the wall: "You eat first."
It didn't die. Lin Feiyuan smiled, satisfied, and stuffed the other half of the cake into his mouth.
The earth-colored kitten gently rubbed against his leg, letting out a faint meow.
Lin Feiyuan thought to himself, in this damned place, even cats act like dogs—clingy and spineless.
With the winter fields barren, there was no fear of the garden being destroyed by cats or dogs, so Song Qianji turned a blind eye to Lin Feiyuan keeping the cat.
...
At the border of Thousand-Ditch Prefecture, the north wind howled.
The guards trained by Wei Ping patrolled through the night, fully armored and marching in orderly steps.
"Senior Brother Ji, here to check the formation again?" Zhou Xiaoyun greeted him.
"I'll reinforce it a bit more. You all carry on, don't mind me."
The vast night was suddenly illuminated by a faint glow of firelight.
Ji Chen set down the formation material and squinted into the distance.
The firelight snaked forward, approaching with fierce momentum.
Most of the cultivators trying to sneak into Thousand Canals today had been stealthy, skulking like thieves afraid of being discovered.
But this time, with so many people coming, were they planning to lay siege to the city?
"It's Senior Brother Meng leading them!" a disciple from the city wall hunting team lowered his spyglass and shouted.
A voice from outside the walls responded: "I'm back, open the gates—"
It was indeed Meng Heze's voice.
Ji Chen refused to withdraw the formation: "Wait!"
Senior Brother Meng had gone to fetch his family—at most, he should have returned with two carriages. How did he bring back an endless line of people?
Aside from four mortals, the rest were all low-level cultivators. And they were covered in dust, looking dejected, with injuries on them—numbering in the thousands.
Something was clearly wrong.
He stared at Meng Heze's approaching figure and asked warily, "How can you prove it?"
Meng Heze raised the sword Song Qianji had forged for him: "Do I still need to prove it? Take a good look at me!"
Ji Chen shook his head: "No. Find a way to prove your identity."
Earlier, he had carefully observed Wuxiang, and what was the result? It proved he wasn't a good judge of people.
Seeing Ji Chen's suspicion, Zhou Xiaoyun immediately waved her hand, and two rows of crossbows aimed at the foot of the wall.
Under the watchful eyes of everyone, the situation grew tense.
Meng Heze had no time for lengthy explanations. He simply pulled out an iron plaque from his chest and held it high: "Will this do?"
The characters on the plaque were crooked and ugly, barely legible in the firelight: "Hunting Expert."
Ji Chen was overjoyed: "Open the gates quickly! My handwriting is one of a kind—no one in the world could forge it! Brother Meng, it's so good to have you back!"
From the crowd behind Meng Heze came a chorus of admiration:
"What unique calligraphy—truly impossible to imitate!"
"This must be the top scholar in the calligraphy exam, Formation Master Ji Chen, right?"
Meng Heze felt deeply embarrassed and immediately stuffed the plaque back into his chest.
The procession finally entered the city gates, like a small stream merging into the sea.
"Brother Meng, who are they? Relatives of yours?" Ji Chen asked.Meng Heze said, "They are this year's Outer Sect disciples of the Huawel Sect. It's a long story—many things happened along the way. Let's get everyone settled first."
Xu Kanshan exclaimed in shock, "Good heavens! One goes out and comes back with a whole group!"
"Follow me," Zhou Xiaoyun smiled, speaking to the young disciples who looked anxious yet couldn't conceal their excitement. "Everything will be fine now that you're back."
For some reason, sobbing suddenly erupted from the group.
Meng Heze examined the formation and city defenses: "What happened here? These weren't in place when I left."
Ji Chen hesitated. Xu Kanshan's expression turned bitter.
Meng Heze suddenly realized something was wrong: "Speak quickly!"
Ji Chen transmitted his voice: "Senior Brother Song was assassinated during the Harvest Festival..."
Meng Heze's vision darkened, the world suddenly spinning upside down.
Ji Chen caught him by the arm: "Fortunately, it wasn't serious. Brother Meng, Brother Meng, what's wrong with you?"
Coming back to his senses, Meng Heze gritted out four words through clenched teeth: "Where is Wei Ping?"
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