The True Monarch's Grotto nestled within Qiyun Peak's crown like a jade hairpin thrust through stone. Its entrance—a narrow fissure barely permitting two men abreast—belied the cavernous splendor within. Carved through millenniums of monastic labor, the subterranean complex ascended in tiers of pillared halls, their vaulted ceilings lost in perpetual twilight. At the apex gleamed the Golden Sun Palace, its mercury-moated dais awaiting Hua Yang Zhenjun's return.
But today, the throne stood empty.
Mingsong Zhenren—Hua Yang's brother-disciple and interim steward—paced before a sandalwood incense burner when the mountain trembled. Scrolls cascaded from lacquered shelves as novice acolytes stumbled.
"Earthquake?" A disciple steadied himself against cinnabar pillars.
Mingsong's crane-feather brows knitted. This tremor carried the metallic tang of annihilated qi. Before he could order reconnaissance, a panting sentry burst through vermilion curtains.
"Elder! Abbot Three Lives lies at our gates—mortally wounded!"
The chamber stilled. Mingsong's porcelain teacup hovered mid-sip. Three Lives—that blustering peacock of Wanshou Peak—reduced to death's doorstep?
"Bring him."
They carried the abbot on a stretcher woven from phoenix feathers—extravagance even in ruin. Three Lives' once-proud beard hung in bloody clumps, his left arm ending at a cauterized stump. Mingsong recoiled at the stench of charred marrow.
"Three Cavern Revival Elixir!" Mingsong barked. A jade vial materialized. As golden droplets trickled between cracked lips, he channeled qi through the dying man's meridians—only to recoil. The pathways seethed with foreign energy, corrosive and... hungry.
Three Lives convulsed awake. "M-Mingsong... demons... Shanghai Shi..."
Through rasps and bloody froth, the tale unfolded—of jade mines and vanished mountains, of a furred titan and his shadow-cloaked master. Mingsong's nails bit crescents into his palms.
"They... obliterated Wanshou Peak?" A novice whispered.
Mingsong's gaze snapped to the trembling disciple. "Silence."
Three Lives clutched his sleeve with remaining fingers. "Avenge... Hua Yang's honor..."
"Rest, old friend." Mingsong pried the mangled hand loose. "True Monarch's Grotto remembers its debts."
As attendants bore the abbot away, Mingsong's first disciple, Xuan Shi, lingered. "Elder, if we don't retaliate—"
"Retaliate?" Mingsong's laugh held winter's edge. He gestured to a mural depicting Hua Yang's triumph over the Nine-Tailed Fox Spirit. "Our patriarch topples primordial demons while you quake before upstarts? Three Lives reaped his karma."
"But our prestige—"
"Prestige?" Mingsong inhaled sandalwood smoke—calming lies. "Hua Yang nears Tribulation Transcendence's pinnacle. Let these vermin gnaw at minor sects. When our patriarch returns..."
His fingers closed around the empty elixir vial. It shattered to diamond dust.
Shanghai's neon jungle pulsed below Shi Tower's penthouse. Yun Fang traced the city's skyline reflected in Zhao Rui's pupils—a queen surveying hard-won dominions.
"Gone?" She repeated. "The entire mountain?"
Dun Che belched, his claws dripping with stolen Wagyu. "Mountain? Pah! More like anthill!"
Shi Shen's teacup rattled. "But True Monarch's Grotto... their retaliation..."
Zhao Rui's thumb brushed Yun Fang's knuckles—a casual intimacy that froze the old cultivator's rebuke. "No witnesses. No evidence."
As Shi Shen retreated bowing, Yun Fang's composure fractured. "You risked..."
"Risk?" Zhao Rui's mouth claimed hers with tectonic inevitability. Her back met chilled glass overlooking the Huangpu River. Somewhere between the 63rd floor and oblivion, her fingers found purchase in his hair—anchor in the storm.
Dun Che's guffaw shook crystal decanters. "Room! Need room for digestion!"
The door slammed.
Alone amidst swirling qipao silks and upturned contracts, Zhao Rui broke the kiss to whisper against her throat: "Repayment's just begun."
Yun Fang's laughter emerged breathless—a girl's giggle trapped in a CEO's armor. "Arrogant fool. What if I—"
His teeth grazed pearl-adorned earlobe. "You'll what? Fire me?"
Her retort dissolved into gasps as his palm mapped the dragon-embroidered zipper down her spine. Twenty years of boardroom ice melted under touch.
Across the river, lightning veined thunderheads—nature's drumroll to their reckless defiance.
Deep within Qiyun Peak's gut, Hua Yang's mercury throne rippled. The True Monarch's astral projection materialized—features blurred as a half-remembered dream.
"Brother." Mingsong kowtowed. "Three Lives' folly has—"
"Invitation received." Hua Yang's voice resonated from every droplet in the mercury moat. "Let the Raksha's heir come. My Tribulation nears... and celestial lightning hungers for kindling."
The projection dissolved. Mingsong stared at the concentric ripples—omens written in liquid metal.
Far below, in a hospice carved from cursed jade, Three Lives' remaining eye snapped open. Black veins crawled across his face as the Revival Elixir's gold fought the foreign qi's corruption.
"Zhao... Rui..." The name emerged garbled—half curse, half prayer.
Somewhere, a jade shard pulsed in time with his rotting heart.