The Ning Family

Li Fuchan sat cross-legged outside Narrow Gorge, his eyes closed in concentration, silently counting the days.

Two months had passed since Huici entered the gorge.

The day of the Wisdom King attaining the Dao was drawing ever closer.

He opened his eyes and gazed into the deathly still darkness within the gorge, making his calculations in silence. If his reckoning was correct, the fluttering wings of a little butterfly like him had yet to introduce any variable into anyone's life or any event great enough to divert its course. Then that heaven-shaking upheaval was probably about to arrive.

Meanwhile, in the Southern Border.

A frail old man clad in green slowly made his way down Greenbriar Mountain. His cheeks were sunken, his back ramrod straight, and his eyes calm and deep.

Someone was already waiting for him at the foot of Greenbriar Mountain.

The man wore a dark blue-green robe with narrow sleeves, cinched at the waist with a plain silver belt. He stood as straight as a pine.

His face was lean, his brow bones high, and his lips thin. An icy reserve suffused him, like an icicle frozen beneath the eaves in the deepest winter; one look from afar was enough to make him seem unapproachable.

Yet this very man lifted the hem of his robe, sank to both knees, and bowed with the utmost reverence. "Xiu Cong pays his respects to the ancestor."

Ning Xinping reached out and slowly helped him up.

The old man studied the aloof face before him, his eyes brimming with more emotion than words could express.

When he had entered seclusion, Xiu Cong had been only a half-grown boy who shut himself indoors to pore over Daoist scriptures. Now he could lead the family's Clan Troops deep into the Southern Border on