Climbing onto the city wall, Cha Fuli and Jie Anhuai looked at Li Qingxian, dressed in the robes of a duke of fortune, and were startled. They had not seen him for only a few months, yet his bearing had changed completely.
Before, he had seemed more like an ordinary Fate Cultivator. Even in official robes, he still gave the impression of an idle cloud or a wild crane, aloof from worldly affairs, as youthful as a disciple from a great sect.
Now, Li Qingxian wore a smile. Though he still retained a little of youth's brilliance, a profound majesty surrounded him. At a glance, he possessed neither a civil minister's weight of authority nor a military general's killing intent, but a sense of vastness, as though he held dominion over a corner of heaven and earth.
Both men's hearts lurched. Could the Demon Race have been right? Was Li Qingxian truly a son of fortune, or even the one and only Heaven's Mandate True Son?
"Greetings, Duke Xian!" Cha Fuli and Jie Anhuai bowed in unison, but a moment later, a trace of awkwardness flashed through their eyes.
One held an imperial decree; the other held the Royal Edict Banner and Token.
As though the emperor himself were present.
On the city wall, the assembled generals watched the two with faint, knowing smiles.
Jie Anhuai's face reddened. Cha Fuli's pale, beardless face betrayed nothing. His gaze swept over the generals present, lingering especially on the former Northern Garrison Army officers, and he sighed inwardly.
Under his command, these generals had muddled through their days, eating their fill and waiting to die. They had been passable, but had always seemed to lack something of a great general's bearing.
Yet today, every one of these former Northern Garrison Army officers looked