Intercepting Secrets

Capital City, Third Prince's Estate, underground secret chamber.

Dim lamplight cast shifting shadows across Third Prince Xiao Jinghong's unsettled face.

He clenched a communication jade talisman that had just lost its glow, his knuckles whitening slightly from the force of his grip.

"Gray Valley... Poison Dragon Ridge... a frontal assault..." He quietly repeated the scattered fragments transmitted by the jade talisman from the Northern Frontier command manor, a cold glint flashing in his eyes. "Xu Polu, Lu Chen... what colossal nerve! They actually intend to take the initiative—and launch all three routes at once!"

He was not alone in the secret chamber. There was also a middle-aged man dressed in a dark blue scholar's robe, lean-faced and refined, yet with eyes as deep as an abyss. He was the Third Prince's chief strategist and one of the core figures of his maternal clan's influence at court—Shen Mo, Right Vice Minister of Personnel and Grand Academician of Wenyuan Pavilion.

"Please calm your anger, Your Highness." Shen Mo's voice was tranquil, like an ancient well without a ripple. "The plan may be bold, but that does not mean it will succeed. Wolf Owl is no easy opponent, and the Longevity-realm elders of the Ten Thousand Gu Sect are even more unfathomable. Lu Chen is too sharp, and what is too rigid is easily broken. This journey to the Northern Frontier may well become the place where he falls."

"Falls?" Xiao Jinghong sneered. "Mister Shen, you and I both know that this boy's fortune is simply beyond belief! Green Ridge Mountain, Jiangnan, the secret realm, Wolf Howl Valley... How many certain-death traps has he survived? And each time, he emerged stronger! Now he has even condensed the embryonic form of a Dharma Form, been granted the title Duke Who Stabilizes the Nation, and