Raising the Banner, Establishing the Prefecture

The candle was nearly spent when Liu Shen turned through the family genealogy.

Jinghai Prefecture City. The Liu Family's old residence. The study, deep in the night. No moonlight shone beyond the window. In the distance, the harbor tide rose and fell like slow breathing in the dark.

Liu Shen was sixty-seven, at the middle stage of the Blood Changing Realm.

In his youth, he had held a fifth-rank post at the prefecture city's Martial Dao Office. Later, he had resigned and returned home to look after the three-courtyard residence, fifteen mu of Spirit Fields, a dozen or so guards, and a son who taught boxing at a martial hall.

Once, that had been a respectable little estate.

But that was then.

His finger stopped on a yellowed page. His grandfather's cousin, Liu Wan, had married a steward of Cangming Dao's outer disciples fifty years ago.

The steward's surname was Zhou. He had died in a shipwreck ten years ago. Liu Wan had spent three years as a widow before dying of illness, and the Liu Family had had no dealings with Cangming Dao since.

"Cangming Dao..."

The door opened. His wife came in carrying a fresh oil lamp. "Master, it's the third watch. You still have to go to the inner city tomorrow."

Liu Shen did not look up. "That True Person came from Cangming Dao."

"I heard people saying so today, but what does that have to do with us? No one in our family has even reached the Qi Eating Realm. Surely that True Person won't trouble small folk like us?"

Liu Shen raised his head. Lamplight flickered in his clouded eyes.

"You don't understand," he said. "The sky over Jinghai Prefecture has changed."

His wife fell silent. Three days earlier, at dusk, she had been drying