Shattered Peace

In a forbidden region of the Central Divine Continent, mountains rose above clear waters for a hundred miles in every direction, the scenery lovely and inviting. Only one building stood there, two stories high and three bays wide, like a little study plucked from a wealthy household and left all alone.

The plaque was small, but its meaning was immense: Town Bai Ze.

In the central hall hung a portrait of Venerable Master Confucius.

If not for the plaque giving away the secret, any Dao Cultivator who wandered in would have taken the owner for a Confucian disciple living in seclusion.

A middle-aged man was leafing through a book.

Every year, Gentlemen and Virtuous People from Liji Academy delivered books here. There were no restrictions on subject: commentaries on the sages, scholars' notes, Strange Tales—anything would do. The academy left them on a small hill at the edge of the forbidden region. There was nothing remarkable about the hill, save a fallen, broken stele shaped like one borne on a turtle's back. Its inscription was still faintly legible: "In the first month of spring under the king, heavy rain fell with thunder; thus begins the record." The Gentlemen and Virtuous People needed only to place the books on the stele. A woman would collect them and bring them to her master, the Great Demon Bai Ze.

Bai Ze put down his book and looked toward the woman in palace attire outside the door. "Are you worried that the situation in Tongye Continent will endanger Madam Huan Sha, who severed one of her own tails?"

At the question, the woman immediately turned and replied respectfully, "Master, after seeing the wretched fate of the Yulong Sect, this slave girl truly is worried for Madam Huan Sha's safety."

Madam Huan Sha was not