Star Luo City's nights were colder and more grim than those of any city in the Heaven Dou Empire.
The moonlight was like a razor-thin, icy greatsword, slicing obliquely across the sharp edges of buildings made from dark gray boulders and casting broad, ink-black shadows over the wide flagstone streets.
In this city, where martial honor was revered, even the wind seemed to carry a faint metallic tang of rust. In the distance, the orderly footsteps of patrolling soldiers sounded now and then. The dull thuds of their heavy metal boots striking the ground were mechanical and cold, like the breathing of some colossal war machine.
"Gu Yue, you and Xiao Wu stay at the hotel. This is the heart of Star Luo City, after all, so there's no need to worry about my safety. If anything urgent comes up, Na'er and I will teleport back immediately." Gu Tian stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, his eyes reflecting the imposing residence in the distance. His tone was calm.
"Don't worry, Young Master. Anyone in this city who could hurt Xiao Wu hasn't been born yet." Gu Yue's expression was cool as she gave a slight nod, a glimmer of dark green elemental light dancing over her hand.
"Big Brother Gu Tian, let's go!" Na'er wore a snow-white dress. Beneath the moonlight, her silver hair shimmered faintly, as though draped in a sacred starlight.
The two exchanged a nod. The next moment, a fine spatial fissure soundlessly opened in the middle of the room. Gu Tian took Na'er's cool, jade-like hand, and their figures vanished into the void.
The Zhu Residence.
As the supreme military headquarters of the Star Luo Empire and the residence of its second-ranked superfamily, the Zhu family estate was astonishingly vast. It was less a private residence than a miniature fortress in the heart of a bustling city.
The entire Zhu Residence had an exceedingly rare concentric-circle defensive layout. The outermost layer was a wall about ten meters high, built entirely from basalt quarried in the Dragon Flame Mountain Range. It was as hard as iron, and its ramparts bristled with hooked, spike-tipped iron thorns. Every spike was coated in a poison potent enough to paralyze a Soul Ancestor. Beneath the moonlight, the wall gave off a faint, cold glow.
On this first line of defense, a watchtower stood every ten paces, each manned by elite private soldiers wielding heavy long-range crossbows. Soul Masters tasked with sensing fluctuations in spiritual energy also patrolled the ramparts. Thanks to the Nether Civet Martial Soul within them, their eyes glimmered with an eerie green light in the darkness as they watched for the slightest unusual disturbance.
"They've done a very professional job with security." Gu Tian and Na'er swept through a crack in space. Looking down, they saw several fully armed patrol squads weaving through the grounds in intersecting routes. They moved without a sound, save for the faint clink of armor plates.
The Zhu family's power structure was reflected in its architecture down to the last detail. Moving inward, the buildings grew more solid and their colors shifted from gray to black. The outer ring housed the guards and the Zhu family's extended relatives; the middle ring held the core family members and a vast intelligence center. At the very heart of it all stood a castle encircled by a deep moat.
There, even the air seemed frozen.
"Big Brother Gu Tian, they've set up a detection array to interfere with spatial fluctuations, but to Na'er, its flaws are obvious." Na'er lightly swept her slender fingers through the air, slipping past every detection node as easily as a hot knife through butter.
The next moment, the two had crossed the layers of defenses and appeared in the shadows of the beams above the Zhu Residence's central council hall.
The council hall had an astonishingly high ceiling, supported by twelve black stone pillars thick enough for a person to wrap their arms around. The pillars bore no ornate carvings; instead, they were hung with battle standards and battered armor captured by the Zhu family's ancestors during the wars of the empire's founding. Though the hall was brightly lit, the enormous shadows cast across its cold, hard floor made the atmosphere so oppressive it was almost suffocating.
Below them stood a tall, stern-faced middle-aged man with his hands behind his back. He wore a perfectly tailored black military uniform, its collar embroidered with the imposing emblem of a spirit cat. Three golden stars on his epaulets gleamed with a piercing cold light in the candlelight. The stars represented the highest command over the Star Luo Empire's navy, army, and air force.
He was Zhu Ganglie, current head of the Zhu family and the empire's marshal, who commanded all three branches of its armed forces.
"Smack!"
Zhu Ganglie slammed his palm down on the Ten-Thousand-Year Iron-Strength Wood table before him. Under that single blow, the hardwood cracked in several jagged lines, as though it were fragile porcelain.
"That coward! That disgrace to the imperial family! That rat who fled in the face of battle!" Zhu Ganglie's voice was hoarse and shook violently with rage. Every word seemed to be forced through gritted teeth. "Dai Mubai really ran! On the eve of the duel, when both our families' reputations were being roasted over the fire, he actually climbed over the wall and ran! I've searched the whole city, combed every hideout he has outside the city, even turned over the filthy slums and the dark sewers. There's no trace of him!"
Below, several Zhu family elders in military uniforms stood with equally grave expressions, their auras steady.
One of the elders spoke in a low voice, the words echoing through the vast hall. "Head of the family, what exactly is the emperor's stance? Two years ago, the imperial family personally decreed the betrothal of the eldest prince, Dai Weisi, to our eldest daughter, Zhu Yun, and also arranged the marriage between the third prince, Dai Mubai, and Zhu Zhuqing. Now that Dai Mubai has gone missing, this isn't merely a scandal for the Dai family. It strikes at the very foundation of the Star Luo Empire."
At the mention of the two betrothals, Zhu Ganglie's face turned an even darker shade of green, the veins at his temples throbbing.
"His stance? That mad old Star Luo Emperor!" Zhu Ganglie turned around, a look of utter grief flashing in his eyes. "He told me the Dai family's rules of succession were a sacred edict laid down by their ancestors, an iron law that could not be changed. Even if Dai Mubai was nothing but a worthless nobody, as long as he humbled himself in the dueling arena and knelt before Dai Weisi to beg for mercy, then even if he lost his right to inherit the throne, the Zhu and Dai families could still spare his life and ensure he lived in luxury."
Zhu Ganglie drew a deep breath and ground out a message that could make all of Star Luo City tremble:
"But now Dai Mubai has become a deserter! It's the greatest disgrace a soldier can suffer! The emperor just sent me a secret order. If we can't find Dai Mubai within three months, or confirm that he died out there... then, to uphold the sanctity of the imperial blood covenant and prevent the imperial bloodline from flowing outside the family, our family's second young lady, Zhu Zhuqing, as his betrothed... must be buried alive with him according to the ancient custom!"
Buried with him.
Those two words fell into Gu Tian's ears from above the beam like a needle soaked in ice water, stabbing straight into his nerves.
He lowered his head slightly and looked toward the darkest corner of the council hall. At the edge of the shadows cast by the enormous pillars, he sensed an exceedingly faint fluctuation of Soul Power, steeped in isolation and despair.
Zhu Zhuqing had clearly been hiding there all along, listening with her own ears as her biological father angrily discussed the date of her death in this cold military hall.
"For the sake of a worthless coward who ran away, they're going to make his own daughter die with him?" An unnamed fury surged within Gu Tian. He looked at the imperial marshal below, shackled by chains of honor, his eyes full of contempt.
In this family, twisted by its grotesque rules of survival, the walls of the Zhu Residence were not merely meant to keep out enemies. They were also a prison for the family's own blood.
"They'd really take Zhuqing's life over some bullshit rule?" Gu Tian sneered inwardly. "Dai Mubai, since you've chosen to be a deserter, then I, Gu Tian, will take Zhu Zhuqing away right in front of everyone."
Gu Tian turned to look at Na'er and saw that she was gripping the hem of his clothes tightly, her eyes brimming with sympathy and kinship for Zhu Zhuqing.
"Come on. Let's go see her."
Gu Tian whispered in Na'er's ear, the corner of his mouth curling into an imperious, sinister smile.