Fate Plays Tricks on People

After Mister Qi left, the heavens began to rain again.

With the human voices gone, only the crackling firewood remained indoors. Drizzling rain seeped through the sandalwood windows. Wrapped in a beast-fur blanket, Li Yunqing sat alone in a recliner by the hearth, half-squinting as he glanced at the city beyond the window, a jade command token Mister Qi had left behind clenched in his hand.

Within Cold Mystic City, pedestrians came and went through its neatly ranked streets. Oil-paper umbrellas of every color threaded through avenues and alleys, while merchant ships and enormous vessels flowed without end through the Sea Border docks.

As one of the largest cities in the Three Northern Prefectures, this colossal city was undoubtedly fortunate.

The southward cold-wave disaster had destroyed many regions, while the northward advance of the imperial army had smashed many more. Yet this port city had remained exceptionally intact amid both natural calamity and human disaster.

Influenced by the warm ocean currents, even during the catastrophe a few years ago, when cold snow and ice sealed thirty thousand li of land, this great port city had never ground to a halt. And by the time Li Zhaoyuan's army reached this city, the northern sects were already beyond saving. After putting up a token resistance, they had simply surrendered, fresh as you please.

After Li Zhaoyuan took over the city's administration, it took only a few months of governance for the military controls and lockdown over the entire port city to be lifted, restoring its usual maritime trade and commerce.

Upon the scarred and devastated lands of the north, Cold Mystic City might truly deserve the words "Auspicious City."

Li Yunqing lowered his gaze to the exquisite jade token in his hand, a trace of complexity in his black eyes.

This was