Xue Moren ignored them both.
He stepped to the center of the red-black patch once more. Then he pressed his palm flat against the earth.
This time, he released his aura.
Not much.
Only a thread.
But it was enough.
A dark red ring spread from his palm. The cold land stirred. Buried blood residue rose in thin streams, pulling itself from cracks, soil, stone, and old ash. It gathered above his hand into a small sphere no larger than a plum.
Inside the sphere, something beat once.
Luo Xuechan's expression stilled.
That was not ordinary residue.
That was the last stubborn fragment of the dead demon's heart-blood, too damaged to form a message, too scattered to preserve memory, but not entirely gone.
Xue Moren curled his fingers around it.
The heart-blood resisted.
For a brief moment, a faint demonic face appeared within the sphere. Twisted. Furious. Silent.
Then Xue Moren crushed it.
The blood did not splatter. It sank into his skin.
His eyes turned fully black-red.
Images struck his mind in fragments.
A flash of movement.
A beast roar.
A demon's curse.
A young man's smile.
A blade? No. Not a blade.
A point.
Narrow.
Clean.
Something entering the heart and drinking the surge before the demon body could ignite.
Then talisman flame.
Too late.
Too bright.
Too false.
The vision ended.
Xue Moren opened his eyes.
A thin line of black blood ran from one nostril. He wiped it away with his sleeve.
Luo Xuechan's voice softened.
"You saw him?"
"Not enough."
"But enough."
"Yes."
Lu Shenzhi watched carefully.
Xue Moren turned toward him.
"Night Ledger man."
Lu Shenzhi paused.
"If this information is bait, I will peel the truth from your bones."
The threat was spoken without heat.
That made it worse.
There are threats meant to frighten. This was not one of them. Xue Moren sounded as if he had simply named a future procedure, no different from opening a corpse or measuring a wound.
Lu Shenzhi's smile did not move.
"That is fair."
…
River Ridge City had become tense.
Not openly. Not enough for panic to spill through the streets. The markets still opened at dawn. Spirit herb shops still hung their jade plaques outside. Sword youths still gathered in training courtyards to compare techniques, and inn servants still carried wine through crowded halls with lowered heads.
But the city had changed.
Conversations ended too quickly when strangers passed. Formation lamps along the main roads were checked three times a day. Patrols from the Qin Family moved more often, but always under excuses: inspecting trade routes, guarding storage halls, escorting envoys.
Everyone with eyes could tell something had gone wrong.
Everyone with sense pretended not to know.
And at the center of it all, inside the Three Ridges Spirit Inn, the person everyone feared to discuss was living as though River Ridge's storm had nothing to do with him.
Long Shenyu spent his days in leisure.
To the outside world, that was arrogance. To Mei Qingxue, Shen Lanyue, and Ning Huang, it was worse.
It was habit.
He cultivated when he pleased, ate when he pleased, teased when he pleased, and spent most nights in dual cultivation with Mei Qingxue and Shen Lanyue until both women were too exhausted to answer his shameless remarks properly.
By morning, Mei Qingxue would often sit at the edge of the bed with flushed cheeks, her hair loose over her shoulders, refusing to meet his eyes.
"Young Master," she said once, voice soft but strained, "daylight has already come."
Long Shenyu rested on one elbow and looked at her with open amusement. "I noticed."
"You said we would cultivate for one cycle."
"We did."
"Then you said another cycle would stabilize the flow."
"It did."
"Then you said the third was necessary because Lanyue's Sky Qi was too cold."
"Also true."
From the other side, Shen Lanyue opened her eyes.
Her face was calm. Her voice was not.
"Shenyu, if you continue using cultivation theory as an excuse, I will start treating every explanation from your mouth as deception."
Long Shenyu smiled. "Only now?"
Shen Lanyue stared at him for a moment, then turned away.
Mei Qingxue lowered her head, shoulders trembling. Whether she was embarrassed or trying not to laugh was difficult to tell.
Long Shenyu reached out, pulled Mei Qingxue gently back into his arms, and kissed her forehead before she could escape.
Her face reddened at once.
"Young Master…"
"You complain less when you're not speaking."
"That is because you never let me finish."
"Good. Then I'm improving."
Shen Lanyue sat up, robes slipping slightly over one shoulder before she adjusted them with sharp dignity. Her cold eyes cut toward him.
"Qingxue indulges you too much."
"She does," Long Shenyu said. "You pretend not to."
Shen Lanyue's expression did not change, but the faint color at the base of her ear betrayed her.
Ning Huang saw everything.
That made her mood worse.
She stood near the window that afternoon, arms crossed, lightning faintly flickering beneath her sleeve. Below, River Ridge moved like a city pretending nothing was wrong. Above, thin clouds drifted past the tiled rooftops.
Behind her, Long Shenyu sat in a wide chair, one arm resting lazily across the back. Mei Qingxue was beside the table, preparing tea with movements still a little slower than usual. Shen Lanyue sat across from him, quietly circulating cold Sky Qi to smooth the lingering warmth in her meridians.
Ning Huang did not look back.
"You three are impossible."
Long Shenyu glanced at her. "Only three?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"Do not include me."
"I didn't say your name."
"You were about to."
"You know me well."
"I know enough to be annoyed."
Long Shenyu laughed and stretched his hand toward her.
"Come here."
"No."
"You answered too quickly."
"That means the answer is clear."
"It means you're nervous."
Ning Huang turned around.
Her face was cold, proud, and beautiful in the way lightning over a palace roof was beautiful—too sharp to approach carelessly, too brilliant to ignore.
"I am not nervous."
Long Shenyu's smile deepened.
"Then come here."
For a moment, silence held.
Mei Qingxue lowered her eyes to the teapot. Shen Lanyue's gaze drifted toward the window, as though she had suddenly discovered the clouds were very interesting.
Ning Huang knew exactly what they were doing.
They were not helping her.
Traitors.
She stepped forward with the air of someone walking to battle. Long Shenyu waited until she came close enough, then caught her wrist and pulled.
Ning Huang's body stiffened as she landed in his lap.
"Long Shenyu."
The warning in her voice could have frozen weaker men.
Long Shenyu wrapped one arm around her waist.
"Mm?"
"Release me."
"You haven't tried to leave."
"That is because I am deciding how much force is appropriate."
"Use less. I'm fragile."
Her eyes flashed.
"You are the least fragile person I have ever met."
"Then use more."
Ning Huang froze for half a breath.
Mei Qingxue's hand trembled. Tea nearly spilled.
Shen Lanyue closed her eyes as though refusing to acknowledge the conversation.
Ning Huang's face changed by a single degree. To most people, it would have been nothing. To Long Shenyu, it was as clear as sunrise.
Her ears had turned red.
"You are shameless."
"You say that often."
"Because you keep proving it."
"And yet here you are."
Ning Huang opened her mouth, then stopped.
Because his arm had settled around her naturally. Because the warmth of his chest was steady behind her. Because despite herself, the tension in her shoulders had already begun to loosen.
She hated that.
Not truly.
That made it worse.
Her words remained sharp, but her breathing slowed. Her back, which had been rigid at first, gradually leaned against him. She still looked annoyed. She still held her chin high. But she no longer tried to move away.
Long Shenyu lowered his voice near her ear.
"Your body is far more honest than your mouth."
Ning Huang's fingers clenched.
"I can still strike you."
"You can."
"I should."
"You won't."
Her voice dropped. "Do not be too certain."
Long Shenyu smiled but did not tease further.
There were moments when provoking Ning Huang was delightful. There were also moments when silence was better.
He understood the difference.
Ning Huang stared out the window from his lap, eyes fixed on the city beyond the glass. Her face still carried pride, but beneath it was something heavier.
River Ridge was no longer only River Ridge.
It had become a place where her own background was approaching.
Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace was not a family one could ignore. It was not a small sect that could be threatened, bought, or frightened away by a few shocking deaths. It was an upper Noble Domain power, one that raised disciples as weapons and symbols. Its war-heiresses were not merely talented women. They were banners.
Ning Huang knew what that meant.
She had known from the day she chose not to leave.
Long Shenyu's hand rested lightly at her waist. He did not ask what she was thinking. He did not need to.
The room remained peaceful.
Then the peace broke.
It began as a change in the air.
Not sound. Not light. A weight.
Across River Ridge City, ordinary cultivators felt it first as pressure in the chest. A fruit vendor in the east market stopped halfway through naming a price, his mouth suddenly dry. A group of sword disciples in a training courtyard lowered their wooden blades at the same time. Horses pulling a spirit-iron cart screamed and reared. Formation lamps along the city walls flickered, their flames bending inward as if the sky itself had inhaled.
Then three auras descended.
The first was sharp and green.
Verdant Edge sword pressure swept across the city like a blade drawn slowly from its sheath. It was clean, polished, and cold. Wherever it passed, hanging banners split along their edges. Leaves on courtyard trees trembled, then fell in thin, even halves.
The second and third auras came after it.
Thunder.
Not wild thunder. Not the chaotic roar of a storm breaking over mountains.
This thunder carried command.
It rolled over the city with heavy, restrained authority, as if two storms had chosen not to destroy River Ridge only because they had not yet been given permission. The clouds lowered. The light dimmed. Blue-white arcs crawled through the sky, disappearing and reappearing between rooftops.
Every cultivator below Sky Lord felt their knees weaken.
Some resisted.
Most failed.
Across the city, people knelt without knowing why.
Inside the Three Ridges Spirit Inn, Mei Qingxue turned pale.
Shen Lanyue's hand moved to her sword.
Ning Huang's entire body went still.
Long Shenyu looked up.
Not sharply. Not with alarm.
He looked up the way a man did when a pleasant meal was interrupted by someone knocking too loudly at the gate.
"So this is how peace ends."
Ning Huang stood at once.
This time, Long Shenyu let her go.
Her expression had changed completely. The embarrassed tension from moments ago vanished. In its place came the cold, trained alertness of a Heaven's Edict war-heiress who knew exactly what kind of power had arrived.
"Sixth layer Sky Lords," she said.
Mei Qingxue's fingers tightened.
Shen Lanyue's eyes narrowed.
She could feel it too. Not just cultivation realm, but quality. These were not loose cultivators who had scraped their way upward with half-broken arts. Their Qi was stable, dense, and disciplined. Their pressure carried inheritance.
Ning Huang turned to Long Shenyu quickly.
"Listen to me."
Long Shenyu raised an eyebrow.
That alone almost made her angry. Almost. But the pressure outside was too serious for pride.
"Our middle layer Sky Lords are not like the ones you have seen in small places. Heaven's Edict Thunder Palace does not train soft disciples. Their arts suppress body, will, and aura together. A Heaven's Edict enforcer at the 6th layer can crush ordinary cultivators at their own level even if the opponent's foundation is good."
Her voice tightened.
"And behind them are Protectors. Peak Sky Lord powerhouses. Elders. Judgment Hall. This is already beyond River Ridge."
Long Shenyu watched her.
For once, Ning Huang did not sound proud. Her words were sharp, but the edge shook.
There was anger in her eyes. Fear too, though not the simple fear of death. Shame. Helplessness. A deeper hatred that did not point outward cleanly because part of it had been planted inside her by the very sect that raised her.
She feared what her background meant.
Not because she despised Heaven's Edict entirely. That would have been simpler. She had been forged there. Her pride, her discipline, her techniques, her status, her lightning—much of it came from that place.
But so did the chains.
Long Shenyu reached out and placed his hand on the top of her head.
The gesture was gentle.
Ning Huang stiffened.
"Don't. This is serious."
"I know."
"Then stop smiling."
"I'm smiling because you're warning me instead of leaving."
Her breath caught.
For a moment, all the thunder outside seemed to fade behind those words.
She stared at him, lips parted slightly, then shut them again.
Long Shenyu's voice lowered.
"Since you don't want to leave, no one will force you."
Ning Huang's throat tightened.
She wanted to say something cold. Something dismissive. Something safe.
Nothing came.
Her eyes trembled once before she forced them steady.
"You don't understand what kind of sect Heaven's Edict is."
"Then they can explain while bleeding."
Before Ning Huang could answer, a cold voice came from the doorway.
"Are you done flirting while insects shout over the roof?"
Long Shenyin walked in.
Her black spear rested over one shoulder. Her expression was bored, but her eyes carried killing intent so natural it looked like part of her beauty. The pressure outside had not shaken her in the slightest. If anything, it had improved her mood.