Pain.

The world dissolves into a brutal symphony of it. My ribs are a shattered cage, each ragged breath a fresh agony. The polished floor of the Elder's office is cold against my cheek, the coppery taste of my own blood thick and cloying in my mouth. Lu Mian stands over me, a silent, impassive executioner, her Wood Qi a suffocating forest that has choked the last embers of my inner fire.

"Perish, knowing you have earned my respect."

The darkness closes in, a final, merciful curtain…

…

Cold.

A biting, impossible cold that seeps through stone and into bone.

My eyes snap open.

I am no longer in the office.

I am high in the mountains, chained to a jagged pillar of black stone, surrounded by a heavy aura of Frost-aspected Qi. Before me, a circular platform is etched with pulsating: blood-red runes. A demonic formation!

And, in its center, I see him.

Jiang Li!

Naked.

Vulnerable.

Star-metal rods pierce his flesh, linking him to that sick Elder in a grotesque parody of an embrace. A vicious, ugly part of my soul feels a flicker of grim satisfaction. "Serves you right, you bastard," it hisses. But the sight is a blasphemy, a violation so profound that a deeper, nobler part of me recoils in horror…

No-one deserves to experience whatever vile, blasphemous ritual that is.

Not even him.

…

Their voices are a distant, echoing murmur, filtered through the haze of my own dawning dread.

"…a living cauldron…" Elder Yue Qingxue's voice, a silken thread of madness.

"…my physique converts and claims all Qi…" "…and you did it all to yourself!" Jiang Li's speech.

A mad laugh that hangs in the thin mountain air.

An absurdity that defies all reason.

I watch, a helpless spectator, as he reveals the final, terrible truth. The words are madness, a blasphemy against the known laws of the Dao. And yet… what do I even know about those supposed laws? In the grand scheme of things, a provincial brat like me is but a frog in a well. A chilling, unwelcome part of my soul begins to believe him.

It would explain so much—the impossible wealth, the miraculous breakthrough, the very reason the Heavens themselves now gather to smite us. Indeed, it is all so clear now. The Jiang family was never as simple as everyone believed! They were never the upstarts of the cultivation world. Secretly, from the very start, they were always its masters! After all, compared to such a physique — which puts the famous Imperial bloodline to shame — even a "genius" like me… is mere dirt.

…

The sky itself breaks. There is a silent, screaming tear in the fabric of reality.

The clouds roil, turning a bruised, sickly black, and from their heart descends a terrifying bolt of lightning unlike any I have ever seen—a spear of incandescent pink and purple energy, the very wrath of the Heavens made manifest.

It strikes him viciously. The world is bleached white for a single, blinding instant. Which drags on.

And on.

And on.

I suddenly realize that something is wrong.

The lightning does not vanish. It actually looks… stuck?

I squint at it and watch as it writhes and struggles, tethered to Jiang Li's body like a reckless tongue that decided it was a good idea to lick cold metal.

And then… Ice. I watch in shock as the shimmering frost crystals proceed to crawl up the lightning, not merely defying the sacred symbol of Heavens' judgment, but… utterly violating it. Defiling it. Raping it.

I watch as the bolt of divine fury is frozen solid before my eyes — becoming a grotesque, beautiful icicle hanging down from the heavens. I watch as the thundercloud itself shudders — then collapses, sucked into a strange swirling vortex of purple, indigo, and black that is drawn, impossibly, into Jiang Li's body.

The other clouds in the sky — as if possessing a consciousness of their own — quickly scatter in every direction as if fleeing in primal terror…

…

The final tribulation shockwave is a silent, invisible tsunami of power.

It does not harm me. It frees me.

The spiritual chains binding me to the pillar shatter into dust. Now free, I stare at the deep molten crater where Jiang Li now sits peacefully — eyes closed and without a care in the world — as a glowing, terrifying maelstrom of Qi rages all around him.

The Elder's words — Phoenix Body… fallen dynasty… — all of them hit me with the force of a war hammer, setting off frantic alarm bells in my mind.

There is no time to wonder. I immediately know that I can never return home. If the Elder was right about my physique — and she had no reason to lie — then my mere existence is an affront to the Imperial family's face.

No-one could ever discover the truth about me. At least, not until I've left the Empire's borders far behind me.

…

The jarring rattle of a heavy wooden wheel hitting a deep rut in a sun-baked road was the sound that pulled her, finally, from the depths of the dream. Su Lian's eyes fluttered open, the harsh, unforgiving light of the southern sun a physical blow against her senses. The air was thin, dry, and smelled of dust, of the exotic, pungent spices of the desert, and the sour, sweaty musk of overworked pack animals.

"Wake up, Young Miss." The voice was a gravelly rasp, belonging to a grizzled old merchant named Yao, his face a roadmap of wrinkles carved by a thousand sunrises. He pointed a calloused thumb over his shoulder. "We've reached Onyx Pass. This is as far as my wares—and my courage—go."

Su Lian sat up, her body aching not from injury, but from the bone-deep weariness of spending the last six months on the run. She caught her reflection in a polished bronze water flask hanging from the side of the cart. The face that stared back was dirty, weary, and unnaturally, impossibly symmetrical. Her skin was smudged with dirt, and she had deliberately matted her hair with ash and grime… but the deception was a thin layer of filth over an undeniable, obvious truth. Beneath all of that dirt, her hair was now an eye-catching shade of fiery red. And her eyes, when they caught the light, held a faint but distinct amber glow.

Worse; her hands, though stained with grime, remained stubbornly, insultingly smooth and uncalloused. They were a sculptor's hands, long and elegant, with perfectly formed nails that resisted chipping or breaking no matter what rough labor she put them through. Six months of traveling through the Azure Province wilderness, gripping reins, gathering firewood, and sleeping on hard ground should have left them rough and calloused.

Instead, they remained annoyingly flawless.

Her skin, where it wasn't deliberately covered in dirt, was a canvas of impossible perfection: — unmarked by even a single drop of sweat; without a single scar from a thorny branch, nor a blemish from an insect bite, nor even the slightest hint of sun-damage! Her entire body, though she tried to hide its lithe grace beneath a hunched posture and ragged clothes, betrayed the truth about her far too easily.

Even now, while perfectly at rest, she could feel the sheer power coiled within it. The strength to casually punch through solid rock and not suffer so much as a scraped knuckle. The resilience to walk through a bonfire and not be burned.

The aftermath of the fight with Lu Mian, and the awakening of the Heavenly Phoenix bloodline, had resulted in another breakthrough…

And she was finding out the hard way that a Foundation Establishment cultivator's body, nourished by the pure liquefied Fire Qi of her lineage, fully resisted the wear and tear of mortal life — and acted as a constant, damning testament to her true nature. She was a Phoenix trying to pass as a common sparrow, and the disguise felt thinner and more fragile with every passing day.

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Onyx Pass was not a city of jade and silk; it was a brutalist fortress town carved from black volcanic rock, the last festering sore of Imperial law before the endless, shimmering expanse of the Great Southern Deserts. The streets were a chaotic, jostling mix of cynical merchants, hard-eyed Imperial soldiers whose discipline looked frayed at the edges, nomadic traders in strange, hardened leathers, and opportunistic mercenaries whose gazes lingered on everything and everyone like vultures sizing up a meal. The most striking sight were the absolutely massive, six-legged Sand Salamanders: mostly docile, gentle giants; fire-aspected spirit beasts famously used for long-range desert transport. Their skin — surprisingly smooth and silky to the touch — ranged in color from a dusty brown to the midnight black of polished obsidian; and their breath was a constant, shimmering heat haze that distorted the air around their heads.

Su Lian stared at the magnificent creatures, a fresh wave of awe and alienation washing over her. Just how large was the world beyond her home province? How much was there to see? To experience?

The world of her youth — of courtly manners and political games — now felt a lifetime away.

…

"Oi! Mind the line or get out of it!"

The shout, rough and impatient, snapped Su Lian from her reverie. She realized she was standing motionless at the back of a long, shuffling queue of travelers, merchants, and mercenaries waiting to enter the city proper, her admiration of the Sand Salamanders having brought the entire line to a standstill. A flush of hot embarrassment rose to her cheeks. A few months ago, no one in the world would have dared to casually speak to her in such a manner… but then, a few months ago, she wouldn't have been caught dead wearing rags and walking alone across muddy provincial roads either.

Forcing down her pride, she nodded mutely and moved forward.

The guard at the gate was a perfect embodiment of Onyx Pass itself: a man whose face seemed carved from the same black, unforgiving volcanic rock as the city walls, his eyes holding a bored, cynical indifference. He couldn't care less about the people passing through here, and had no desire to hear of her story, nor her destination.

"Thirty coppers," he grunted, holding out a gauntleted hand.

Su Lian reached into a concealed pouch beneath her ragged tunic. Her money, along with every other valuable possession, had, of course, been taken from her when she was captured by the contemptible Azure Cloud Elder. Everything she had on her now was what she had managed to scavenge or… liberate… from the bandits and rogue wandering Martial Artists she had encountered during her treacherous six-month journey South.

Her fingers closed around the gritty, unfamiliar texture of the base metal coins. She counted out thirty pieces — the act itself feeling like a small, sharp humiliation — and dropped them into the guard's waiting palm. He swept them into a pouch without a second glance and waved her through with a gesture of profound disinterest.

She stepped through the gate, and the city embraced her. At its core, it was a fortress, pure and simple — a defensive structure carved into the tiered slopes of a long-dead volcano. The architecture here was a vertical, desperate climb for security rather than a comfortable sprawl of the safer and more prosperous towns. The streets were narrow, winding canyons between tall, windowless buildings of black stone, designed to become killing grounds for any nomadic raiders foolish enough to breach the outer walls.

There were no gentle gardens here. No tranquil plazas full of picturesque statues, well-manicured trees, or gratuitous fountains like those in Yuhang City — or even her home of Fallen Star. No. Every building and street here was utilitarian. Every Cun of space was utilized, every structure built with a grim, martial purpose in mind.

The population was a mix of hardy craftsmen, their faces stained with soot and dye, and an endless stream of hospitality workers—barkeeps, innkeepers, prostitutes—all catering to the lifeblood of the town: the desert caravans. The air smelled of hot stone, roasting meat, and the strange, sweet smoke of Yara Incense, a local specialty that was the town's primary spiritual export. It was a weak, calming incense, useful for clearing the mind during meditation, but its Qi was not only thin, but also tainted by the ever-present Frontier's Breath that made attempts at true cultivation in these lands a fool's errand.

The town's richer districts were higher up the slope, closer to the summit where the current senior official in charge — a Peak Foundation Establishment level Commander of the Imperial Garrison — resided in his stark, functional fortress. This place wasn't part of the Azure Province's civil administration; it was — first and foremost — a military outpost, a bulwark against the "savages" of the desert. Civilian cultivators were a rare sight, and those she did sense were almost exclusively in the Qi Gathering stages, their auras weak and stagnant.

It was, she remarked to herself, almost as much of a shithole as Qingshan Town.

…

Almost.

…

Her introspection ended as she spotted a sign hanging precariously from a second-story balcony: "The Scorpion's Tail Inn. Clean Beds, Strong Wine." It looked cheap, anonymous, and far enough from the main gate to, hopefully, offer a few hours of relatively-undisturbed peace.

She needed a room.

And then, she needed to find a caravan that could take her into the Deep South: away from the Empire, away from her past, into the vast, unforgiving unknowns of the desert sands.

The interior of the Scorpion's Tail was a cavern of smoke, noise, and mortal mediocrity. The air was a thick stew of sweaty, unwashed bodies; spilled wine that had soured on the rough-hewn wooden floors; and the greasy, savory smoke of roasting meat that wafted from a large, open fire pit in the center of the room. The innkeeper — a mountain of a man with a single, milky-white eye and arms as thick as small trees — barely glanced in her direction as she entered, his attention fixed on a brutal game of dice being played at the bar.

She stood for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the gloom, a part of her recoiling from the sheer, unfiltered vulgarity of the place. But then, another, more primal sensation asserted itself with a sudden, almost violent intensity.

Hunger.

It was a deep, gnawing hollowness in the pit of her stomach, a craving so powerful it momentarily eclipsed her disgust.

She was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, yes. Her body was a fortress of refined Qi, capable of enduring for days — and, indeed, weeks — without a proper meal… But, she was not yet a Golden Core expert, not yet a truly supernatural being who could survive on Qi alone. It had been nearly two weeks since she'd had anything more substantial than dried mushrooms and stream water. The rich, savory aroma of the roasting pig — which, only a moment before had seemed merely part of the squalor — now smelled like a feast from the Heavens themselves!

She made her way to a secluded corner table, the rough wood of the chair scraping against the floorboards. A serving girl with weary, cynical eyes took her order without a word.

As she waited, Su Lian's gaze swept the room. It was generally filled with the dregs of the Empire: Martial Artist mercenaries cleaning their blades, their laughter harsh and brittle; merchants with hard, calculating eyes, negotiating deals in low, urgent murmurs; and nomadic traders, their faces hidden in the shadows of their strange cloth-wrapped desert hoods, their presence an island of quiet menace in the boisterous room.

Her food arrived quickly: a strange, flatbread disc covered in a tangy red sauce, melted cheese, and chunks of savory roasted meat. "Here you are: the Qingshan Special," the serving girl grunted out.

She gave the strange dish a tentative bite — and found it delicious.

A fresh wave of bitter irony washed over Su Lian.

This bizarre concoction, a delicacy that was the "house special" of this place, had originated in that provincial backwater she had so despised?

The world has truly gone mad, she thought, taking another, surprisingly satisfying bite.

It was then that she saw them. A group of four rough-looking mercenaries had cornered a young woman near the fire pit. The woman was mortal, her clothes cheap but provocative, her face a mask of practiced indifference that didn't quite hide the unease in her eyes. The men were laughing, their hands reaching without restraint, their intentions as clear as they were vile. The other patrons pointedly ignored the scene, their gazes fixed on their cups or their dice. It was the law of the strongest out here, and a single, harassed mortal woman wasn't something they thought was worth caring about.

Su Lian, acting on pure instinct — the ingrained, aristocratic philosophy of the Su family that it was the Heaven-Mandated Duty of all righteous cultivators to protect the weak — rose to her feet.

"You there! Leave her be!" she said, her voice quiet but carrying with an authority that cut through the tavern's din.

The men turned, their expressions shifting from lecherous amusement to surprise, then to contemptuous dismissal as they took in her ragged clothes. The ringleader, a man with a cruel smile, pointedly looked her up and down.

"Well now, look what we have here! Eager for attention, are we?"

He paused contemplatively while undressing her with his eyes.

"Hmmm… a bit dirty around the edges, but nothing a bucket and a good scrubbin' wouldn't fix. Just stand there and wait for your turn like a good girl. We'll be right with you as soon as we're done with this one."

One of his companions reached out a grimy hand to "sample" her backside.

A surge of pure, cold rage — as potent as any fire — washed through her.

She didn't even think.

Her hand moved as if on its own — and a single, almost invisible needle of potent spirit fire shot from her fingertip. It struck the man's outstretched hand.

He didn't scream, not at first. He simply stared at his hand in confusion as a small, black, perfectly circular hole suddenly appeared in his palm, the flesh around it instantly charring and turning to ash. Then the sensation hit, and he howled, a high-pitched, animalistic sound of pain — and pure panic. The other men scrambled back in terror, their faces suddenly draining of all color. They quickly fled the tavern without a backward glance.

A tense, expectant silence fell over the tavern. Su Lian stood there, her heart pounding with a mixture of adrenaline and a faint, satisfying flicker of righteous pride. She had done the right thing. She had upheld her code. She waited for the woman to offer her thanks, perhaps a grateful nod.

It did not go as planned.

The woman smoothed down her cheap, revealing dress with a practiced, almost weary motion and then stomped towards Su Lian. Her steps were forceful, her expression strangely cold — even angry. She stopped a few feet from Su Lian's table, her hands on her hips, her gaze full of disgust and contempt.

"Mind your own business, you stuck-up bitch!" she hissed, her voice a venomous whisper that carried easily in the silent room.

Su Lian stared, her mind struggling to process the injustice, the sheer, galling wrongness of the words. "I… I was only trying to help?" she stammered, the words sounding weak and foolish even to her own ears.

The woman let out a harsh, humorless laugh. "Help? You call that 'helping'? I had them right where I wanted them! A few more drinks, a few more empty promises, and they would have paid me a fortune to entertain them! And what am I to do now? Who will compensate me for the lost business? Some hero you are!"

A prostitute! A cheap prostitute! Well yes, of course she must be, Su Lian thought with a dawning comprehension. I should have realized immediately. How could I have been so stupid?

The woman shot Su Lian a look of pure, unadulterated contempt, her gaze sweeping over Su Lian's ragged clothes. "But you… you come waltzing in here with your high-and-mighty airs, playing some righteous rescuer. You didn't save me. You just cost me a week's earnings! And worse," her voice dropped, laced with a genuine, chilling fear, "now you've marked me as a friend of a troublemaker. They… why, they might think I'm with you! They might even think I set them up!"

Su Lian opened her mouth to try to explain herself. To apologize. To offer reassurance… but it was no use.

"Just forget it," the woman spat, turning away in disgust, the finality in her voice a physical blow. "Now I can only hope they don't blame me for this." She stormed off, leaving Su Lian standing alone in the center of the tavern, the gazes of the other patrons now fixed on her with a new, wary curiosity.

She had tried to do a good deed. To uphold the code of conduct she had been raised with.

But, in this harsh, unforgiving frontier, it seems that no good deed went unpunished.

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