Chen Ping'an had originally planned to head straight for Ji Du Spirit Source Duke's water palace, but he changed his mind at the last minute and decided to go elsewhere. With a single thought, he ignored the distance between mountains and rivers. Clad in green robes, he appeared beneath a wutong tree in the capital of the Great Origin Dynasty. After glancing into the distance, Chen Ping'an took another step and arrived in an imperial palace containing only black and white, like a man without boundaries entering a realm without people.
The Great Origin Dynasty had been founded upon Water Virtue. Last time, when Chen Ping'an had met the Lu Clan Emperor at Cloud Palace of the Chongxuan Bureau to discuss a deal, the emperor had brought only one young prince with him: Lu Jun, who was now His Highness the Crown Prince. Besides giving Prince Lu Jun a calligraphy copybook personally written by his teacher, Chen Ping'an had also presented the boy with a hand-copied martial arts manual—the Mountain Shaking Fist of Gu You, the Limitless Martial Cultivator of the Great Seal Dynasty.
As for Lu Jun's cultivation and martial aptitude, both had been quite ordinary. Chen Ping'an had been frank about that from the start, telling the truth rather than fobbing him off with empty pleasantries.
Yet somehow, as though led by ghosts and driven by gods, they had ended up becoming master and disciple in all but name.
Before dawn, with some time remaining before the morning court, Emperor Lu Yang had awakened early and found himself unable to sleep again. He simply had a eunuch light the lamps, then sat cross-legged on the heated brick bed in a small warm chamber, reviewing memorials. He rubbed at his brow. Beneath the chamber lay underfloor heating; even in