The walls of the Great Jin Imperial Capital were coated in mottled moss. The iron locks on the wide-open city gates had long since been pried away by the departing citizens. Years of wind and rain had gradually weathered the gates, and within the city, the rolling buildings, too, bore the marks of time. Like an old man with one foot in the grave, the city no longer echoed with the bustle of carriages and crowds.
There were not many people left in the city. Some loyal ministers and valiant generals who had always refused to leave the Great Jin Dynasty had chosen to guard the traces of Great Jin's existence, spending the rest of their lives as its pillars.
There were two people in the imperial palace: Central Peak Fairy of the Divine Sect, and Mountain. They had waited eighteen years for Li Xinnian to come before them in person and take their lives, yet Li Xinnian never came. Day after day and night after night in the Great Jin imperial palace, death advanced with the sun, while the sword hanging over their heads simply refused to fall. The feeling drove them to despair. It made them want to rush out of the palace and face Li Xinnian, who lived in some small alley—but if they truly had that kind of courage, they would not have clung to life for eighteen years.
The sound of carving in the little courtyard became the empire's final echo of life.
Old Wolf of the Demon Race was still carving as he always had.
But now he had an apprentice.
Li Xinnian rolled up his sleeves, clamped a near-rotten piece of wood between his legs, and gripped a carving knife whose handle was wrapped in cloth strips. Its slender tip shaved away the