Blood soaked into the earth. Shattered organs mingled with murky fluid and flowed across the ground. Cang Linzu stood atop the corpses, one hand gripping the neck of the last rider, who was barely clinging to life, and drew a deep breath.
The air was cold and damp, tinged with a sour, rotten stillness. More than a dozen bodies, torn to pieces, lay scattered unevenly around the convoy.
Death had come so swiftly that Cang Linzu found himself regretting it. He regretted killing them far too quickly, without inflicting enough fear and despair—but he also regretted killing them too slowly. All of this had been foreshadowed long ago. As a Companion Star of Heavenly Fate, serving in Da Chen's military, he should have gathered this information much sooner. Yet he had only learned of it now.
"Phew..."
After calming down a little, Cang Linzu raised his head. His eyes, usually narrowed to slits, now shone with the glint of Cold Stars. He stared into the eyes of the rider, who was looking back at him in terror. "You..."
"What exactly were you going to do with those children?"
"How could you... How could you turn the Ascension Path, founded by Senior Brother, into this?!"
The surviving rider coughed up a mouthful of blood. A trace of bewilderment and indignation surfaced in his eyes. "I... I'm innocent, General..."
"Yankui have existed since ancient times... They didn't... They didn't originate with the Ascension Path..."
His words came haltingly. It might have been a pathetic excuse, or an explanation, but he clearly believed every word he said. "There have always been nobles who thought commoners were filthy and refused to touch them with their own hands."
"Yankui concubines, Yankui consorts... Things like that have always existed. The methods for granting them intelligence go