Tavern Tea Stall, Second-Floor Street-Side Private Room
A porcelain cup of clear tea and delicate pastries were neatly arranged on the table.
The Wei King’s Heir and Yanxia’s Prime Minister sat across from each other, silent, the stillness eerie. Each harbored their own schemes, plotting in secret.
Outside, Chang’an’s streets buzzed with merchants and peddlers from afar, their calls for candied hawthorns, fried rice cakes, pickled radishes, and spring rain noodles filling the air with the allure of tasty snacks.
“Prime Minister, with your busy duties, what brings you to me?” Ji Yanqing finally broke the silence, unable to endure further. Despite two lifetimes, his composure paled against Liu Sili’s seasoned cunning.
He rose to pour tea for Liu, his demeanor respectful. It wasn’t yet time to clash openly with the Prime Minister.
“Just to clear up some misunderstandings,” Liu replied calmly.
“What misunderstanding could there be between us?” Ji Yanqing asked, feigning ignorance.
“When you returned to Ye City from Yanyun, the assassins weren’t my doing. Someone’s trying to sow discord between me and the Wei King,” Liu said.
“How did you know I was attacked?” Ji Yanqing asked, his gaze pure and clear.
“I’ve held sway over Yanxia’s court for years. If I claimed ignorance, would you believe me?” Liu paused, his tone grave. “Coming to this Bronze Sparrow Chamber tavern shows my sincerity. What does Master Jinghuan think?”
“I don’t follow, Prime Minister,” Ji Yanqing replied noncommittally, sipping his tea.
“Then I’ll take my leave. I hope Your Highness stays safe and leaves Chang’an alive,” Liu said, rising steadily. Rumor had it he walked 1,769 precise steps from Tixiang Gate to Daming Palace, each landing on the same brick.
Ji Yanqing didn’t stop him, merely picking up a fresh osmanthus cake and biting into its soft, fragrant sweetness. “No wonder this tavern does so well for the Chamber,” he mused, gazing at Chang’an’s bustling streets.
He wasn’t here just for tea—he was waiting for someone.
While waiting, Ji Yanqing liked to ponder, keeping his mind sharp to avoid laziness.
Liu’s visit was an unexpected gain. A stranger in Chang’an’s treacherous web, where danger lurked, having powerful friends was better than powerful enemies.
Liu sought a truce, even cooperation, with the Wei King’s Mansion. Though he and Ji Yang weren’t exactly bosom allies, they weren’t mortal enemies either.
They shared a foe: Liu aimed to reform land taxes, while Ji Yang’s military nobles sought higher status. Both threatened local aristocratic clans, an irreconcilable conflict.
With the western war reignited, the court’s coffers strained. Winning required not just troops but wealth.
Squeezing the commoners risked rebellion. Liu, schooled in the classics, knew water could carry or capsize a boat.
Striking the clans might spark short-term unrest but promised long-term national benefit—a whale’s fall nurturing myriad lives.
The Wei family’s ferocious cavalry was their lifeline. This war demanded not just victory but a splendid one.
The Xiao clan’s spies in the Wei King’s Mansion and the Yanyun ambush likely bore their mark. If Ji Yanqing allied with Liu to crush the Xiao’s millennium-old foundation, no one could blame him for ignoring blood ties.
He didn’t detain Liu because, new to Chang’an with no foothold, hasty alliance would make him Liu’s puppet.
With his long beard and phoenix eyes, Liu must’ve been a dashing youth once, yet he impeached his mentor to switch allegiances and forced a classmate’s family to death for power.
For reform, nothing was unsacrificable.
As Ji Yanqing mused, a commotion rose from the street: “Who’s in that painted sedan?!”
“Show yourself, girl from Xiaoxiang Pavilion, let this official see!”
Glancing out, Ji Yanqing saw armored Imperial Guards surrounding a finely decorated sedan.
Chang’an’s streets teemed with riffraff; guards harassing women was common. The sedan’s occupant was from Xiaoxiang Pavilion—courtesans who sold art, not bodies, but weren’t “virtuous” women.
The guards, likely connected wastrels, made offending their families a poor bargain for a stranger’s sake.
As the guards closed in, the sedan’s maid, Jingjing, screamed, drawing a dagger from her sleeve.
The sword White Silk, one foot two inches, ranked seventy-seventh in the Sword Inquiry Catalog, a mid-grade Heaven-tier spirit weapon, passed down by the Fire-Worshipping Demon Sect’s saintess’s sword attendants, with over three thousand recorded kills, including sect disciples and elders.
One more step, and those guards were dead.
[Xiaoxiang Pavilion’s fame crowns Chang’an. Its girls are curvaceous beauties, rivaling palace consorts. The sedan’s occupant is this year’s top courtesan. Bedding her would be ecstasy, tasting her fresh allure…]
Ignoring the narrator’s vile temptation, Ji Yanqing grabbed his cloth-wrapped ferocious sword and leapt from the tavern.
No longer the powerless wastrel, he’d broken through to Radiant Sun Realm.
But don’t misunderstand—he wasn’t after the courtesan’s beauty.
The kind-hearted Heir merely aimed to save those suicidal guards.
Seeing their ugly faces, Jingjing frowned, her eyes brimming with killing intent. With her half-step Transformation Realm cultivation, one sword could end them.
Before she acted, a scream rang out.
A stunning white-robed youth landed silently, his peach-blossom eyes enchanting. With a wrist flick, his cloth-wrapped sword swept like a steel whip.
A fierce clash, laced with mind-rending ripples, toppled the armored guards in a blink, their pupils rolled back, faces paper-white, fingers twitching.
Five Gathering Spirit Realm cultivators, felled in one strike!