The hall grew colder.
Almost together.
Those two words crushed the last shred of comfort left in the room.
If Qin Duanhai had died after a long battle, they could still explain it. A trap. A forbidden talisman. A Heaven-rank spear consuming its user's life force. Perhaps even Ning Huang secretly interfering.
If the squad had been killed first, then Qin Duanhai had fought alone. That too could be explained. Surrounded, tricked, pressured, forced into error.
But almost together meant something else.
It meant the spear-wielding woman had not been struggling.
It meant she had killed the others without spending meaningful effort, then killed Qin Duanhai before the jade could even complete a proper recording.
It meant she had never regarded a half-step Sky Lord as a true opponent.
Qin Roujian closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, his gaze was sharper, but not calmer.
"Play it again."
The steward's hands trembled as he lifted the cracked Blood-Echo Jade.
A thin red light spread across the hall. The image that appeared above the jade was unstable. It flickered violently, breaking into bloody fragments.
Stone courtyard.
Dark spear.
A pressure like a furnace dropping from the sky.
A flash of green sword light.
Then a blur.
Not speed that the recording could not follow.
Power that had destroyed the recording's perception.
The projection shook. A half-formed image of Qin Duanhai appeared. His sword was raised. His face was twisted with disbelief, pain, and something that looked too close to fear for anyone in the Qin Family to accept.
Then the spear moved.
The image broke.
A second later, the jade dimmed.
No one asked to play it a third time.
Lu Jiangheng stood beside the table, arms folded, staring at the broken fragments with a face that was still trying to remain proud.
The effort was visible now.
When the first probing party died, he had been angry.
When the second group died, he had been cautious.
When the perfection Origin Core expert died, he had been unsettled.
When Qin Duanhai went out, Lu Jiangheng had told himself the matter would finally become clear.
A half-step Sky Lord was not a real Sky Lord, but he was not prey for an Origin Core cultivator either. Even if that spear-wielding woman possessed a Low Heaven-rank weapon, even if her combat sense was unusually refined, Qin Duanhai should have forced her to reveal something.
A forbidden art.
A hidden cultivation base.
A protector.
A weakness.
Something.
Instead, he had died.
Within seconds.
Lu Jiangheng's pride still tried to hold its ground.
Luo Zhenmu was coming.
His senior brother was a 4th layer Sky Lord inner deacon of Verdant Edge Sword Sect. Not an outer envoy like him. Not a name borrowed to frighten Lower Domain families. A true inner deacon, one whose Sky Qi had already passed through several refinements, one whose Verdant Edge Sword Canon could split mountain stone and sever protective arts with ease.
A half-step Sky Lord and a 4th layer Sky Lord were not in the same world.
This should still be controllable.
It had to be controllable.
Yet the feeling in Lu Jiangheng's chest did not lessen.
It grew heavier.
Why?
That question circled in his mind like a blade.
Why could everyone around Long Shenyu kill above their apparent realm?
Long Shenyu was only Origin Core, yet he had injured him at the gate with one strike. The spear-wielding woman was also Origin Core, yet she had crushed Qin Duanhai. Even the quiet maid and the cold sword woman weren't ordinary companions.
What kind of group was this?
What kind of inheritance allowed this many abnormal people to gather together?
And above all—
Why had the Heaven's Edict disciple not left?
That thought pierced through Lu Jiangheng's pride more deeply than any of the others.
At first, he had dismissed her.
Heaven's Edict disciples were arrogant. They often moved according to their own whims. Some would watch smaller conflicts like one watched insects fight beneath a stone, never involving themselves unless their dignity was touched.
But days had passed.
If she had only been traveling with them for convenience, she should have distanced herself after the gate incident.
If she feared being implicated, she should have sent a message to Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace.
If she disapproved of Long Shenyu, she should have acted, warned him, restrained him, or left.
Instead, she remained at the Three Ridges Spirit Inn.
Not reluctantly.
Not under visible guard.
She remained as if the matter had nothing to do with fear.
That was wrong.
Lu Jiangheng hated wrong things. They did not fit inside the narrow world pride had built for him.
A Qin elder suddenly spoke from the left side of the hall.
"There is another matter."
Qin Roujian turned his gaze toward him.
The elder hesitated, then raised a separate jade slip. "One surviving fragment from the second failed night probe recorded an aura inside Long Shenyu's group that was not present at the gate."
"What aura?" Qin Roujian asked.
The elder's lips pressed together.
"Sky Lord."
The hall stirred.
Another elder frowned. "The Heaven's Edict disciple?"
"No. The Heaven's Edict disciple was already Sky Lord. This was different."
The elder looked toward Lu Jiangheng, then back at Qin Roujian.
"The cold woman who injured the captain."
A low murmur broke out.
"Impossible."
"She was not a Sky Lord at the gate."
"She was Origin Core. Everyone saw it."
"Could she have concealed her cultivation?"
"If she concealed it, why reveal it now?"
"Could Long Shenyu have given her a pill?"
"A pill that creates a Sky Lord in days? In River Ridge?"
The last question silenced the others.
Lu Jiangheng's voice cut through the murmurs.
"Neither should an Origin Core kill a half-step Sky Lord so easily, even with a Heaven-rank weapon."
The hall fell quiet again.
No one answered.
Because there was no answer that did not lead somewhere worse.
At the head of the hall, Qin Roujian slowly released his sword hilt. The leather grip retained the imprint of his fingers.
"Continue the investigation," he said. "No assumptions. No pride. No half-truths. I want her identity. I want the identity of every woman around Long Shenyu. I want to know which sects they came from, which roads they used, and which enemies will come if they die here."
His gaze swept across the elders.
"And no one moves without my order."
This time, not even the most aggressive Qin elders objected.
The broken tablet remained on the table.
No one dared remove it.
It sat there like a corpse.
A warning.
A humiliation.
And a promise that the matter had already grown beyond the shape they had first given it.'
…
Several days of frantic investigation followed.
The Qin Family's intelligence network moved like ants beneath the stone of River Ridge. Servants were bribed. Gate records were checked. Merchant caravans were questioned. Contact points in neighboring towns were awakened. Even old portrait archives from Noble Domain messengers were searched.
The Qin Family had not survived this long by relying only on swords.
River Ridge called them aggressive, but aggression alone did not produce a 3rd layer Sky Lord ancestor, a 2nd layer Sky Lord patriarch, and formal ties to Verdant Edge. Beneath the sword glare and public arrogance, the Qin Family possessed a brutal instinct for danger.
Now that instinct screamed.
On the third evening after Qin Duanhai's death, a trembling intelligence officer entered the ancestral hall carrying a sealed jade box.
The elders had already gathered again.
No one had slept well.
Qin Roujian sat at the head of the hall, his expression as sharp as a drawn blade. Lu Jiangheng stood to one side, more silent than before. The message from Verdant Edge had already been sent. Luo Zhenmu was on the way.
That fact should have given everyone confidence.
It did not.
The intelligence officer knelt and placed the jade box on the table with both hands.
"First Sword Elder," he said, voice tight, "we found a matching record."
Qin Roujian leaned forward.
The officer opened the box.
Inside lay a portrait jade.
When he activated it, light rose and gathered into the image of a young woman.
The projection was not perfect. The face was slightly blurred around the edges. The spiritual markings were incomplete. But the posture was clear.
White-gold robes.
Straight back.
Cold, noble eyes.
A spear-bearing stance that looked less like a weapon choice and more like a verdict waiting to fall.
And at the edges of her robe, faint lightning marks curved like heavenly script.
The intelligence officer swallowed.
"We compared the robes seen at the gate, the artifact traces, the lightning pattern, and the posture. At first, we assumed she was an ordinary direct disciple, perhaps one from an outer judgment branch."
His hands tightened around his sleeves.
"She is not."
Qin Roujian's gaze sharpened.
"Who?"
The officer lowered his head.
"Ning Huang."
For a moment, the name seemed to strike the floor and rebound through the hall.
Then chaos erupted.
An elder shot to his feet so quickly his chair cracked beneath him.
"Ning Huang? That Ning Huang?"
Another elder's face lost all color. "Impossible. Why would she be in River Ridge?"
"Are you certain?"
"Could it be a disciple imitating her robes?"
"Who dares imitate Ning Huang?"
"Enough!"
Qin Roujian's voice crashed across the hall.
The elders went silent, but the panic did not vanish from their faces.
Lu Jiangheng's expression had finally changed completely.
He had known the Heaven's Edict disciple was important.
He had not known she was that important.
Ning Huang was not merely a talented disciple. In a power like Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace, talented disciples were numerous. Direct disciples were respected. Core disciples were feared.
But war-heiresses were different.
They were raised not only to cultivate, but to represent doctrine.
Heaven's Edict did not present itself as a mere sect of lightning cultivators. It called its lightning judgment. It called its battles verdicts. Its elders did not simply punish enemies; they declared them guilty before heaven. In smaller cities, a Heaven's Edict direct disciple could make patriarchs bow their heads. A war-heiress could make entire sect branches weigh their words before breathing.
Ning Huang was the youngest reigning war-heiress of that generation.
Young, proud, terrifyingly talented, and watched by people whose anger could travel farther than any sword message.
If she died in River Ridge, the question would not be whether the Qin Family had killed her.
The question would be why the Qin Family had allowed the situation to reach that point.
A Qin elder spoke at once.
"Notify Heaven's Edict."
Lu Jiangheng's pride flared by instinct.
"Verdant Edge can handle—"
Qin Roujian cut him off.
"Can Verdant Edge handle being accused of hiding information about Ning Huang?"
Lu Jiangheng's mouth closed.
The words struck with perfect aim.
Qin Roujian did not raise his voice. That made it worse.
"If she is injured here, if she dies here, if she later returns to Heaven's Edict and says River Ridge knew her identity yet concealed it while probing the people around her, what then?"
His eyes were cold.
"Heaven's Edict will not ask who was proud. They will ask who is alive to punish."
No one spoke.
Another elder added carefully, "And if she is being coerced?"
That possibility had hung in the hall for days, but now, with the name Ning Huang attached to it, the weight changed.
Ning Huang remaining at the inn voluntarily was strange.
Ning Huang being forced to remain was terrifying.
If Long Shenyu had somehow subdued or manipulated a Heaven's Edict war-heiress, then the matter was no longer a Qin Family humiliation. It was a sect-level disaster waiting to unfold.
Qin Roujian's eyes narrowed.
"Then Heaven's Edict will owe us for the information."
Lu Jiangheng understood at once.
It was not only fear.
It was insurance.
If Verdant Edge arrived and succeeded, then the Qin Family could still regain face, claim the Heaven-rank weapon, and present the matter as a dangerous but resolved conflict.
If Verdant Edge failed, Heaven's Edict would already be involved.
The Qin Family would not stand alone beneath the falling blade.
They could say they had acted responsibly. They could say they had reported Ning Huang's presence the moment they confirmed it. They could say they had never intended to endanger a war-heiress.
It was not noble.
It was survival.
Lu Jiangheng's face darkened. For several breaths, his pride struggled against reason.
Then he exhaled slowly.
"Send the message."
The Qin elders looked toward him.
Lu Jiangheng's voice turned colder.
"But write carefully. Do not make us look afraid."
Qin Roujian looked at him for a moment.
Then he said, "At this point, looking cautious is better than looking dead."
This time, Lu Jiangheng had no answer.
The message was written before midnight.
The words were polished, weighed, and rewritten three times.
It did not accuse Long Shenyu directly. It did not admit Qin Family losses in full. It did not mention panic.
It said only that Ning Huang, youngest reigning war-heiress of Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace, had been confirmed in River Ridge City in the company of an unknown group currently in conflict with forces tied to Verdant Edge.
It said her situation appeared unusual.
It said River Ridge wished to avoid misunderstanding.
It said the Qin Family reported this out of respect.
When the jade message shot into the night, it left behind no sound.
But every elder in the hall watched it go as if they had just released a blade into the dark and did not know whose throat it would reach first.
…
Morning came pale and cold.
At the Three Ridges Spirit Inn, light spilled over the rear courtyard in long golden lines. The broken stones from the previous night had been replaced with temporary slabs, though no one had bothered to hide the darker stains between them. The withered tree near the wall had been cut down to a stump. A few splinters still remained embedded in the bricks.
The inn servants moved quietly.
Long Shenyin sat beneath the eaves, cleaning her spear with a white cloth.
Long Shenyu walked into the courtyard not long after sunrise.
Mei Qingxue followed half a step behind him, quiet and graceful, her gaze flicking once toward the spear before she softly sighed. Shen Lanyue walked on his other side, her expression calm, her aura restrained so tightly that most people would not notice the change unless they had seen her before.
But those who had seen her at the gate would have understood.
She was different now.
The faint separation between her and the world had vanished. Her breath carried the first trace of Sky Qi's loftiness, not strong enough to be oppressive, but pure enough to make the nearby air feel cleaner and colder.
Ning Huang stood beneath the courtyard tree.
Her arms were folded. Her posture was composed. The white-gold lightning patterns on her robes caught the morning light, and for a moment, she seemed less like a traveler lodging at an inn and more like a spear of judgment planted beneath heaven.
Yet her eyes were thoughtful.
She looked at Long Shenyin's spear.
Then at the blood-darkened cloth.
Long Shenyu glanced at it too and smiled.
"Busy night?"
Long Shenyin did not raise her head.
"Pathetic night."
Mei Qingxue looked at the cloth again.
"How many this time?"
Long Shenyin did not even glance at her.
That indifference was not coldness aimed specifically at Mei Qingxue. It was broader than that. Long Shenyin simply did not care who stood beside Long Shenyu, who followed him, who blushed at him, who argued with him, or who slept in his room. Unless they attacked her, blocked her path, or became strong enough to interest her, they barely existed.
Long Shenyu knew this better than anyone.
It was one of her more annoying qualities.
It was also impossible to change.
At least for now, she was not trying to kill them.
That made the matter tolerable.
Long Shenyin finally looked up, but only at Long Shenyu.
"Enough that counting them would make them sound more important than they were."