Night cloaked the desolate path outside the city in pitch-black darkness. The bright moon and stars overhead were all veiled by dark clouds. A cold, damp gale swept past from time to time, rolling up the wild grass beside the road and sending it spiraling through the air.
Xiang Yang wore a tight-fitting black warrior's outfit as he traveled alone along the barren road. Each step carried him more than thirty yards. The cold wind rushed into his face and whipped up his long hair. In the blink of an eye, his figure vanished without a trace, his movement art as elusive and unpredictable as a ghost.
According to Xiang Yang's knowledge, Fengxi lay thirty li east of Renhua City, between the narrow gap formed by two mountain ranges. A long, winding creek ran through it, nourishing the soil and allowing vegetation to flourish, hence the name Two Peaks Creek.
And because the Empress of Great Zhou had once stayed here more than a century ago, and an empress was a phoenix among people, it came to be called Fengxi as well.
Xiang Yang had also seen this old account mentioned in the archives of the Divine Constable Gate. The empress of that dynasty bore the title Xuanhui. Because she possessed peerless beauty and was virtuous, gracious, and generous, she had been deeply favored by the emperor of her time.
Her childhood had been fraught with hardship. She had originally been the daughter of the An family, a great clan of the Imperial Capital in Divine Province. Her father died young, and her mother succumbed to grief. She followed her maternal grandmother to live in Xiangzhou, and after her grandmother passed away, she was fortunate enough to enter the palace through the imperial selection of beauties. Step by step, she