Atop the central tower of Xuanyuan Fortress, in the same room, with the same people, Zhang Tie and Zuo Qiu Mingyue sat facing each other...
Zuo Qiu Mingyue sat cross-legged beside a low tea table, gathering his spirit and calming his breath as he slowly brewed tea with movements full of ritual. As hot water flowed in, a delicate, misty fragrance of tea gradually drifted through the room...
For some reason, although he had met this old man many times before, this Zuo Qiu Mingyue felt utterly unfamiliar to Zhang Tie.
The mournful cries that had shaken heaven and earth from the more than ten million Great Xia citizens who had died outside the Devil Race camp two days ago, the blood that had soaked into the earth, the corpses strewn across a thousand miles of ground—none of it had left the slightest trace in this room, or upon Zuo Qiu Mingyue's face and hands.
The old man remained composed, his expression tranquil, his hands not trembling in the slightest as he unfolded the essence of Great Xia's tea ceremony within the room.
Zhang Tie sat upright on the other side of the tea table, but his heart slowly sank.
Zuo Qiu Mingyue pushed a cup of tea, clear and jade-green like glazed crystal, before Zhang Tie. The porcelain cup was white as the moon, carrying its gentle radiance. Several tea leaves spun, tumbled, and chased each other through the water, like clouds and mist rolling up through mountain valleys, like the mysterious laws born from the transformation of yin-yang fish. This single cup of tea seemed to contain the whole of heaven and earth.
"Seated, I sip the clear, tinkling water; I watch the jade-green dust being steeped. With no way to hold out a bowl, I send it