The night wind wailed, and the Eastern Depot's inner courtyard lay in dead silence.
"Hmm?"
Lu Xuan, who had been absorbed in refining the Great Supplement Medicine, suddenly stopped what he was doing.
He slowly raised his eyes and looked toward the door.
Within the halos cast by the lanterns on either side, a black shadow stood motionless like a statue.
The two red lanterns hanging beneath the eaves swayed gently in the wind.
Candlelight passed through the white gauze over the door, spilling a fiery red glow across the floor.
Whoosh!
A streak of azure light abruptly tore through the night!
That azure sword radiance was so swift it surpassed mortal vision, leaving only a paper-thin trail of light upon the retina.
The door slid down soundlessly. Its cut was smooth as a mirror; not even a trace of the wood grain had splintered.
Shen Wanbao stepped in beneath the bright moonlight. As the soles of his boots crushed over the threshold, the hanging lanterns all dimmed for an instant.
When the flames brightened again, the Imperial Guard Commander had already entered the room.
The hem of his Flying Fish Robe still swayed faintly, yet he himself stood rooted in place as though forged from iron.
"Director Lu, it is time for you to take the Yellow Springs Road..." Shen Wanbao's voice was especially clear within the deathly silent room.
He stared straight at Lu Xuan, his gaze blade-sharp and cold without the slightest ripple, as though the man before him were already a corpse.
"Presumably, my beloved disciple has been waiting for you on the Yellow Springs Road for quite some time."
Every word Shen Wanbao spoke seemed squeezed from between his teeth, wrapped in bone-piercing chill.
Whether it was to avenge his beloved disciple Yuan Qian or