The immortal realm map vanished. The light faded from the chamber walls, leaving behind only the silent glow of pearlescent lanterns. Lu Feng stood, the two halves of the ancient jade pendant now a single, seamless whole in his palm. It felt warm, a faint pulse of true essence thrumming within it. Beside him, Xue Feng, his Empress, watched his face. Her eyes, once blind, now saw more than any other. She saw the storm of ancient memories swirling behind his calm facade. "The road ahead is long," she said softly, her voice a balm on the killing intent that always lingered at the edge of his soul. Lu Feng merely nodded, his gaze distant. The Regent King. The Foreign Tribes. The secrets of the jade. One by one, he would crush them all. Days later, the Imperial procession snaked its way across the land. It was a river of gold and steel, a testament to absolute power. Ten thousand soldiers of the Dragon God Hall marched in perfect, silent unison, their black armor seeming to drink the sunlight. Their combined qi was a suffocating pressure that made the very air heavy. At their head rode the War Goddess, her silver armor brilliant, her expression colder than the divine sword on her back. Commoners and cultivators alike knelt for miles on either side of the road, heads bowed, not daring to look up. At the heart of this formidable force was a palanquin of impossible grandeur. Carried by thirty-six Grandmaster-level bearers, it was crafted from spirit-wood and inlaid with celestial gold. Living dragons and phoenixes seemed to chase each other across its surface, their eyes glinting with captured sunlight. Within, seated on cushions of cloud-silk, were Lu Feng and Xue Feng. He had his eyes closed, his presence as vast and empty as the void. The world outside was less than an afterthought. Xue Feng poured him a cup of thousand-year spirit tea, her movements graceful and serene. The chaos of the world could not touch them here. Suddenly, the procession slowed. A ripple of disturbance traveled down the line. The War Goddess raised a hand, and the ten-thousand-man army halted as one. The silence that followed was absolute. Up ahead, a commotion. A squad of local imperial soldiers, eager to impress their new Emperor, were clearing the road with brutal efficiency. Whips cracked. Curses flew. "Out of the way, filth!" "You dare block the Emperor's divine procession? Are you courting death?" A small, wretched group of beggars was being beaten. They were skeletons draped in rags, their faces caked with so much grime their features were almost indistinguishable. An old man, his body frail, tried to shield a weeping woman and a younger girl from the leather whips. Each lash left a bleeding welt on his back. "Please, my lords, spare us!" the old man groveled. "We are just hungry! We meant no disrespect!" The soldier sneered, his boot connecting with the old man's ribs. "Hungry? Then eat dirt! The Emperor's path must be cleansed of trash like you!" Inside the palanquin, Lu Feng did not stir. But Xue Feng, attuned to his very soul, felt a flicker. A microscopic disturbance in his boundless inner sea. It was not anger. Not pity. It was... nothing. The cold, empty void of a memory being discarded. She gently parted the silk curtain, her gaze falling upon the scene. She saw the broken old man, his cultivation long since shattered, his meridians in ruin. She saw the cowering woman, her spirit broken. And she saw the girl. Matted hair, a face streaked with tears and mud, her clothes little more than tatters. Even in this state, there was a ghost of former arrogance in her bones. The girl looked up, her eyes filled with terror and a sliver of defiance. The whip cracked again, catching her across the cheek. She screamed, a raw, animal sound of pain and humiliation. Her name was Ye Yao. Once the proud jewel of the Ye family, the heiress who held her head high and looked down on all others. The woman who had sneered at Lu Feng for three years. The fiancée who had torn their engagement contract and thrown it in his face to marry the Young Master of Hua Shan. Now, she was less than the dust on the road. The Hua Shan Sect was ash. Her fiancé, a smear of blood on Lu Feng's path. Her family, stripped of all wealth and status, had been cast out, their assets seized to repay the imperial treasury for their foolish allegiances. They had been reduced to this: begging for scraps, beaten by the lowest-ranking soldiers of the empire her former servant now commanded. Through her tear-blurred vision, Ye Yao saw the procession. The banners that blotted out the sun. The silent, terrifying soldiers whose killing intent alone could stop a man's heart. The breathtaking War Goddess on her spirit beast. And the palanquin. The dragon-and-phoenix palanquin that radiated an aura of supremacy so intense it felt like a physical weight on her soul. This was the man who had destroyed her world. This was the source of all her misery. Then, the wind shifted the curtain just enough. She saw the profile of the man inside. Cold. Aloof. Impossibly powerful. A face she had once deemed worthy only of cleaning her family's stables. Lu Feng. The name exploded in her mind, shattering the last fragments of her sanity. It wasn't a nightmare. It was real. The useless servant, the trash son-in-law, the man she had mocked and humiliated, was the Emperor. The Sword God everyone whispered about in terror. All her suffering, her family's ruin, her unending hunger and pain—it all clicked into place. It was her fault. Her arrogance. Her choice. A desperate, primal scream tore from her throat. Hope, twisted and ugly, surged through her. He had lived in her house for three years! He had served them! Surely, there was a shred of feeling left? A memory? Pity? "Lu Feng!" she shrieked, her voice cracking. Ignoring the soldiers, ignoring her cowering parents, she scrambled forward. She crawled on her hands and knees over the sharp gravel, her palms and knees tearing, leaving bloody prints in the dust. The soldiers tried to stop her, but a cold glance from the War Goddess froze them in place. She reached the palanquin, her filthy hand smearing grime on the celestial gold. She looked up, her face a pathetic mask of mud, blood, and tears. "Lu Feng! It is I! It's Ye Yao!" she sobbed, her words a garbled mess of desperation. "I was wrong! Please, I was a fool! Forgive me! Help us! For the sake of the past, please..." She clawed at the palanquin's base, prostrating herself in the dirt before the man she once considered an insect. The entire procession was silent, a thousand eyes watching her pitiful display. Ye Yao saw him seated on a dragon-and-phoenix palanquin, worshiped by ten thousand, and crawled to him sobbing for help. Lu Feng swept past like a gust of wind, cold: 'Dust and cloud share no road.' A guard kicked her into a puddle of mud.

Chapter 12: Ye Yao's Misery