Within the Liu compound, lineage alone did not define allegiance.
Blood had fractured into factions.
The longer Liu Shiye observed, the clearer the internal divisions became—not spoken openly, but evident in seating arrangements during feasts, in who trained beside whom, in whose hunts were celebrated… and whose were quietly ignored.
Three factions shaped the Liu family's internal power.
The first were the Purists.
Old blood.
Old pride.
They believed the Liu should remain unbound to outside influence—no political marriages, no shared command structures, no concessions to either the Xue or the Ouyang. Strength, in their eyes, came from independence.
Many among them had supported Liu Zhen.
Some had sworn loyalty to his line even after his death.
Their presence explained why Liu Shiye, despite losing the heir's title, still held quiet protection within the compound. They treated him not as a successor—but as unfinished inheritance.
The second faction consisted of those married into the Xue.
Political unions forged over decades had braided the two families together in places. These Liu saw an opportunity in alignment with the Xue's rising military strength—particularly their mounted forces and beast-taming advantage.
To them, unity under the Xue partnership promised expansion, dominance over trade routes, and eventual leverage against the Ouyang war chiefs.
And at the center of that alignment stood Liu Feng.
The current heir.
Engaged to Xue Ruo. The eldest daughter of Lord Xue.
The third faction were those bound to the Ouyang through marriage and oath.
Older unions, some predating Liu Shiye's birth. These members valued stability over ambition. The Ouyang had ruled the tribe for generations; aligning with them ensured continued favor, resource priority, and political insulation.
They did not seek to overturn the tribal order.
They sought to remain indispensable within it.
From a distance, the Liu appeared unified.
From within, they were a battlefield waiting for a signal flare.
Standing beneath the rain-darkened eaves of the compound, Liu Shiye let the implications settle fully.
His poisoning resurfaced in his thoughts—not as trauma, but as data.
An heir's son.
Last direct blood of Liu Zhen's line.
A symbolic rally point for the Purists.
If he died quietly—through illness, through "misfortune"—the Purist faction would lose its most legitimate banner.
Their influence would fracture.
And with Liu Feng formally bound to Xue Ruo…
The Xue-aligned faction would gain overwhelming leverage within the Liu.
From there, the path widened.
If the Xue consolidated the Liu fully, their combined military strength—beast cavalry and elite ground warriors—might rival even the Ouyang war chiefs.
The tribe's leadership could shift.
The Ouyang might remain in power—but weakened, forced to suppress a rising Xue bloc from a defensive posture.
Or—
If pressure mounted enough—
The Xue could move to remove the Ouyang entirely.
War chiefs replaced.
Tribal command restructured.
A new ruling axis formed.
Yet the equation was not so simple.
The Ouyang did not lack power.
Many elders across the tribe owed them loyalty forged through generations of war leadership. Their central warbands remained the largest unified fighting force.
They would not yield quietly.
Which left the third outcome.
If the Purists retained strength—if Liu Shiye lived, matured, and claimed influence—the balance could remain even.
Three powers.
None dominant.
All forced into uneasy coexistence.
Stability through tension.
Rain slid from the palisade posts as Liu Shiye's gaze hardened.
"Liu Shiye….Liu Shiye" he said to himself, "Someone definitely wants you dead. A preemptive strike in a war fought through marriages, succession, and bloodline legitimacy rather than open battle. And I had been born—reborn—directly into its center."
He exhaled slowly, decision forming not from emotion, but calculation.
Observation alone would no longer suffice.
Understanding this conflict required proximity to its architects.
His thoughts settled on one figure in particular.
Xue Ruo.
Liu Feng's betrothed.
A woman positioned at the junction of two factions—future matriarch of a potential power bloc and the daughter of patriarch Xue.
If anyone embodied the political currents shaping the Liu family's future…
It was her. While Liu Feng was an uncertain individual. Possible enemy. She held potential as the most to lose and the least to gain. Her fiancée already held power, and even if he died, she can engage herself to another. All of that aside, how many ancient women truly dabbled in political warfare. It's more certain that Liu Shiye's own fiancée would poison him before the fiancée of the winner and daughter of a major player. All this aside, it was his fiancée that kept him stable. He could only tread carefully until certainty prevailed.
Water dripped steadily from the compound roofs as Liu Shiye stepped out into the rain.
For the first time since awakening in this world, he moved with deliberate purpose.
If this was the war he had reincarnated into—
Then it was time he met one of its generals.
The market lay along the southern slope of the settlement, where Corpse Mountain's stone spine flattened just enough to allow trade wagons and beast caravans to gather.
Rain had thinned to a cold drizzle by the time Liu Shiye arrived, but the ground remained dark and heavy beneath his boots. Mud clung to every step, churned by hooves, wheels, and bare feet into a thick, living paste.
The Tiger Blood Tribe's market was not refined.
It was loud.
Dense.
Violent in its own way.
Stalls were little more than timber frames draped in hide or cloth. Skinned carcasses hung from iron hooks. Bone charms, beast fangs, and cured pelts swayed from crossbeams. The scent of blood mingled with spice smoke and wet leather.
Traders shouted over one another—tribal dialects mixing with foreign tongues from caravan outsiders brave enough to cross the mountain passes.
Liu Shiye moved through it without drawing attention.
He wore plain furs. No heir markings. No visible clan insignia. Even his complexion and features look more of Zhengqi.
He had come to observe. Watching the crowd until the face he had been waiting for arrived. She was just as the painting depicted her, a rare, sharp beauty, with deathly allure. Her maturity made her beauty sensual, and her slim frame embolden her curves.
"Xue Ruo." he thought, not daring to whisper with so many experts in the market.
She stood beneath a scaled-hide awning, examining a tray of polished bone hairpins laid out by a traveling craftsman. Even in the crowded market, her presence parted space naturally.
She was dressed ostentatiously—but everything about her bore refinement sharpened into strength. White-furred mantle clasped at her shoulders. Layered leather armor dyed in pale ash tones. Her dark hair braided with silver-thread cord.
Two guards lingered several paces behind her—not close enough to crowd, not far enough to fail protection.
Her posture was relaxed.
Her eyes were not.
They scanned constantly.
Calculating. So, Liu Shiye observed longer.
Two hours passed as she went from stall to stall, exploring and buying without a care in the world. Liu Shiye stepped out and began to flow with the crowd, adjusting his path ever so slightly, allowing the flow of bodies to carry him into her peripheral space.
The collision was light.
Intentional.
His shoulder brushed hers just enough to warrant acknowledgment.
She turned instantly—hand already half-raised in reflex before recognition halted the motion.
Their eyes met.
For a breath, surprise flickered across her features.
"Young Liu," she said, voice calm but edged with curiosity. "You've recovered well."
"Barely," Liu Shiye replied evenly.
The exchange lasted no more than a few heartbeats. Long enough for politeness. Too brief for suspicion.
As he shifted past her, his hand moved once—subtle as adjusting his sleeve.
A folded scrap of treated parchment slipped from his fingers into the inner seam of her mantle.
Neither guard noticed.
Neither trader paused.
By the time Xue Ruo registered the faint foreign weight against her side, Liu Shiye was already three stalls away, blending into the market's restless current.
Xue Ruo did not open the note immediately. She finished her transaction first, paid in stamped iron scales bearing the Xue fang-mark, then withdrew toward the quieter edge of the trade slope where her attendants waited.
Only once screened by supply wagons did she retrieve the parchment. Her maid—Lian—leaned close, eyes sharp despite her lowered posture.
"A message, Lady?" Lian frowned.
Xue Ruo unfolded it carefully. The script was clean. Controlled. Written with deliberate intent.
Tonight. Western training pits. After moonrise. Alone. — Liu Shiye
She read it twice.
Not because it was complex—But because it was unexpected. Her thoughts moved quickly beneath her composed expression.
Liu Shiye…
The heir-that-was-not. The sickly survivor. The quiet variable the Liu elders had not removed—but had not elevated either. He should have remained cautious. Invisible.
Yet he had approached her directly… and in public no less. Xue Ruo smirked to herself, no longer than it took a man to blink.
Lian spoke softly beside her, "Will you attend, lady?"
Xue Ruo did not answer immediately.
"Do you believe it a trap?" the maid pressed.
"If it were," Xue Ruo murmured, "it would be a crude one."
She tapped the paper lightly against her palm.
"He gains nothing from assassinating me. It would unite both Xue and Ouyang against the Liu's Purists instantly."
"Then perhaps he seeks alliance," Lian said.
"Or leverage."
Silence lingered between them as rain ticked against the wagon hide above.
"Should I arrange guards?" Lian asked.
Xue Ruo considered it seriously this time.
Attending with guards projected caution—but also mistrust.
Attending alone projected confidence—but invited risk.
"Hidden escorts," Lian suggested. "At distance."
Xue Ruo's gaze drifted back toward the market where Liu Shiye had vanished.
"No," she said at last.
Lian blinked in surprise.
"If he wished me dead, poison would have sufficed," Xue Ruo continued. "That seems to be the tribe's favored method lately."
The maid's eyes sharpened at the implication—but she did not comment.
"I will attend," Xue Ruo decided. "Alone."
"But armed."
Liu Shiye continued through the market. Now that his primary objective was set in motion, he allowed himself to study the stalls more openly.
He paused at a weapons rack displaying bone-reinforced daggers—light, easily concealed. Arrows with metallic heads, axes, hammers, blades of sorts. Next, a trader selling toxin-resistant herb pastes used by hunters venturing into corpse-miasma valleys.
"Old Boss, tell me about this." said Liu Shiye, observing a small flask with emerald powder within.
"Hehe, Medicinal powders." he replied, look, he gestured for Liu Shiye to come closer.
A small lizard was pulled from nowhere and the old stall keeper sliced it open. The medicinal powder fell like snow and the lizard began to slowly heal.
Liu Shiye's expression went crooked. He then waved bye.
"Keep it, keep it." he sang, walking away.
"What do I really need?" he asked himself, "Medicinal powder is great, but I'll be dead before I can use it."
He walked absent mindedly for a few moments.
"Manual and Dafas from around the world!" A stall keeper shouted.
Liu Shiye froze. He tilted his head back and to his surprise.
"Zhengqi!" the stall keeper pointed and shouted, "You're from Zhengqi?"
Liu Shiye smiled on the inside. Then pointed at himself incredulously. 'What luck. It isn't a golden finger, but old school nepotism and bias is the next best thing'
Liu Shiye smirked and sauntered over, "Big Bro, my mother is Amara of Kush, daughter of Iman of Babylonia."
He waited hopefully, his eyes searched for a reaction. Time passed and the Zhenqi man smiled softly. He stepped forth, his chest big, swollen with pride.
"You're a Kushite?" he asked, " You're mother's mother?"
'Got him…' Liu Shiye thought.
He remembered his mother's heritage. Her voice in the void speaking repetitively so that his soul remembered.
"Zipporah of Ka…"
The man's breath hiked and he stepped back in a hurry. His voice went submissive and he spoke in a language never heard in the Corpse Mountain region, but every word carried Amara's voice and Liu Shiye found understanding.
He quickly stopped the man and straightened his back. He looked at the stall keeper with wide horrid eyes.
"Never again." Liu Shiye growled, "I am a man that can not be tolerated. Give me influence and they will see me dead. I merely need help to survive , help provided by your goods."
"Well young lord," the Zhengqi man began, "I am Ahmose of Nubia. House of Khufu. You are…"
"Liu Shiye," he answered.
"House of Heka…" Ahmose added, his body trembling with every symbol.
"I am small in the house of Khufu, but it is my blessing to meet the son of the travelled daughter of Heka. I do not have much, but I assure, that I can get you more." Ahmose swore.
Liu Shiye chuckled, "Be at ease. I do not know much of the world of Zhengqi. I do not know much about the world of Hongmeng. But I know of corpse mountain. Here, I need something of medicine, something to hone the senses, something that can make a big man small, and something that can tell me of my place in this world."
"I have something about medicine, something to hone the senses, and something that can make a big man small." Ahmose laughed.
"Well show me, Ahmose. Show me what you have brought to corpse mountain."
"Little bro," Ahmos whispered, his hand waved slowly from left to right, just above the surface of his stall table. A scroll made of pure white bone slats appeared, bound by a red tassel. A vertical line of character etched with emerald brilliance was read, "Three score war healer bones."
"The Three Score War Healer Bones teaches acupuncture from the Huangfu Manor, Tendon and bone reconstruction–Tui Na, and pharmacology. You must master this, but some say, once you do, its method of observation, listening, questioning and palpitation will expand the senses beyond the master's potential." Ahmose spoke
Liu Shiye raised an eyebrow and tilted his head.
"I don't have enough for this. Bye" he then walked away without another word
Ahmose hesitated then allowed Liu Shiye to go. He remembered the young man's words and looked around cautiously. He then pretended to forget the encounter and began to advertise his stall again, vying for new customers.
Currency. Liu Shiye had none.
His predecessor's stores had been consumed during recovery. As a non-active heir, he received sustenance—but not spending authority.
He considered seeking aid from the elders.
Dismissed it instantly.
Debt of that scale demanded allegiance in return—political, military, or both.
Too early.
Joining a hunting party surfaced as the next logical path.
He dismissed that even faster.
Venturing into Corpse Mountain's predator zones while only half-understanding his body—and less than half-understanding Liu family politics—
That was not bravery.
It was volunteering for burial.
He walked deeper into the market, thoughts narrowing.
Then memories surfaced again.
A face.
A name.
Liu Mingfei. Even after he heard rumors of his good will fiancée, he could not remember, but now, she was at the forefront of his mind and he couldn't help but see it as a sign.
His lips curved faintly. She was another pillar behind Purist support for him. The only daughter of his Second Uncle. Sharp-tongued. Fiercely loyal to Liu Zhen's line.
And her mother…Not Liu by birth. A former slave taken from the Nine Lance Hell Widow Tribe—a matriarchal warrior people conquered two decades prior.
Mingfei carried both lineages visibly: Liu discipline… and Hell Widow ferocity.
If Purist sentiment needed a rally voice within the younger generation—It was her.
Liu Shiye's smirk deepened slightly as he turned away from the last stall.
Political insight.
Financial leverage.
Faction sentiment.
He could acquire all three through one conversation.
His gaze lifted toward the darkening sky where evening clouds gathered beyond the mountain ridge.
"I suppose," he murmured under his breath, "I can meet my fiancée now."
He stepped off, then suddenly he became sick.
'I chose Xue Ruo to meet because I can be considered a threat to this Liu Mingfei. If I'm not the Ideal fiancée, you don't divorce the hero's son, you kill him and call yourself a widow. Mourn and find a new engagement to acquire more power. A black widow.'
Liu Shiye rubbed his head with a frown, pushing away his thoughts.