Nearly ten thousand li away, night was about to fall over Great Jin's Capital City.
An exquisite, elegant wooden pavilion stood beside a lake, with green mountains faintly visible in the distance all around it. Wisps of drifting mist made the place seem like an immortal paradise in the mortal world!
Lotus leaves swayed thickly along the lakeshore, a few blossoms poking their heads out to reveal half-open buds. A dragonfly circled beneath the setting sun and alighted, as though adding the final, life-giving touch to this exquisite painting...
The pavilion's furnishings were simple, yet elegance and luxury showed in every detail: palace lanterns studded with South Sea pearls, rosewood furniture, plain silk gauze curtains, ebony floorboards...
A carpet of white fox pelts from the northern plains, and kneeling upon it, a stunning young woman wearing almost nothing at all!
The beauty seemed to be in the flower of her youth. Her glossy black hair hung loose, and one slender, jade-like hand held a silk undergarment, barely covering a body as pure as jade and wreathed in immortal aura.
Marks left by fierce lovemaking still dotted her fair, delicate body... Her eyes were like autumn waters, pitiful and pleading. Her red lips slightly parted, she gazed toward the low couch with a trace of hurt.
A faint, derisive chuckle sounded... A man's bare foot, pale and lustrous, slowly extended from the low couch and settled onto the fox-pelt carpet.
An equally naked, handsome man stepped down, draping a thin, plain gauze robe over himself as he walked.
His age seemed impossible to discern. His flawless face and body appeared to be in the very bloom of youth!
Yet his eyes held a faint trace of world-weariness and disdain... Like an old man in his twilight years who had long since tired of all the myriad sights of this world!
The man fastened the ties beneath his ribs, walked up to the woman, and looked down at her. His slightly hoarse yet magnetic voice sounded... "What is it? Do you feel wronged because I kicked you off the couch?"
"I would never dare, Venerable One. Whatever you bestow upon me is an opportunity and a blessing..."
The man tilted his head, an inscrutable smile hovering at the corner of his mouth, and said softly, "Don't play your little games... Is my Immortal Bloodline something your paltry Mount Zhilin can covet?
"You clung to me and used those petty tricks because you wanted me to leave offspring in this filthy, tedious lower realm of yours, so your Liu Clan of Mount Zhlin could shelter beneath a great tree?"
Terrified, the beauty Liu Xian'er hurriedly prostrated herself, pressing her smooth, pale forehead tightly against the man's cold toes. Her voice trembled. "I would never dare! It was only... only that deep passion is hard to restrain... Boundless pleasure clouded my mind for a moment, and I forgot the rules! Please forgive me, Venerable One..."
Liu Xian'er raised her head and gazed pitifully at the man standing before her, tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Cold sweat had already broken out along her white neck...
The man addressed as Venerable One glanced at the purplish bruise his kick had left across her chest and abdomen, and at the blood still faintly visible beside her lips despite her desperate efforts to swallow it.
He gave a soft, scornful chuckle. "That loathsome father of yours put you up to all this, didn't he?
"Go back and tell him... In consideration of his attentive service, I will preserve your Liu clan's standing among the immortal sects! But tell him to curb those thoughts he has no business entertaining. The sovereignty of Great Jin's imperial house, with its immortal bloodline, is not something his Liu clan can covet merely by scheming a little and offering up a daughter...
"Beware lest an appetite too greedy bring your entire clan to ruin! Go back... Send your little sister here. Let me have a look at her..."
A flicker of terror passed through Liu Xian'er's eyes, but she immediately agreed, declaring that this was a blessing her younger sister had cultivated over three lifetimes... The man reached out and pinched a patch of warm, silky flesh. Just as he was about to tease her further, he abruptly raised his head and looked south!
With a slight lift of his hand, an invisible force instantly hurled the stark-naked Liu Xian'er several feet away! She crashed down beneath the couch in a disgraceful heap.
The man's long, dark-green hair stirred without wind. Faint, mysterious golden lines actually began to emerge across his face and muscular body! A dim gray radiance gleamed deep within his eyes...
"Interesting! Interesting... Your Liu clan first castrated those surviving boys of the Wei clan and threw them into the eunuchs' temple behind the imperial city. Now you've put those little vermin on Mount Yuekong as bait.
"And that worthless Wei Wuchen you let escape back then actually came running to his death, instead of hiding in his rat hole on Two-World Mountain and clinging to life? Let me think... He's here to kill you, and he wants to destroy that Investiture Stele bearing the immortals' decree for the Liu clan as well, doesn't he?"
Mount Yuekong was not large, but a Mystic Order Stele towered on its summit! Legend held that it had been bestowed by an immortal in years past, bearing the decree that appointed the Liu Clan of Mount Zhlin as one of the Twelve Immortal Sects.
As for why the Liu clan had later left this stele, imbued with a trace of immortal aura, on Mount Yuekong south of Great Jin's Capital City rather than transporting it back to Mount Zhilin, perhaps only the imperial Sima clan and the Liu clan themselves knew.
Naturally, the Immortals Stele was heavily guarded. Outside the mountain stood five hundred soldiers of the Talisman-Clad Army assigned by Great Jin's emperor, while the Liu clan of Mount Zhilin stationed its Immortal-Sect Armored Soldiers and four Fourth Realm cultivators on the mountain itself.
Halfway up the mountain, four Daoist temples formed a great array, concealing most of Mount Yuekong and the stele within drifting, ethereal mist.
At the foot of the mountain lay the dwellings of the Liu clan's servants and mortal disciples. At that moment, three thin, filthy youths knelt before a house with their heads bowed.
A fat man who looked like a steward coldly surveyed the three kneeling youths and cursed, "Surviving vermin of the Wei clan, eh? Looks like the imperial family's castration methods really do work. Where's that lofty, haughty nature your Wei clansmen had back then, that way they wouldn't even bow their heads before our Twelve Immortal Sects? Heh heh heh... Getting out of that deserted temple full of old eunuchs is a blessing for you three!"
"Heh heh, what's the fun in a bunch of castrated eunuchs living together? Eunuchs need to be with men for things to get interesting! Hahahaha... Someone, scrub them clean. Send the prettiest one on the left to my room, and put the other two in a couple of empty rooms. Then tell our Immortal Armor Soldiers brothers up above who enjoy men... They can come play whenever they like! Hahaha, plenty of Immortal Armor Soldiers died in the Wei clan's old stronghold back then. I imagine they'll be delighted to come take good care of the little bastards the Wei clan left behind!"
Half an hour later, the sky had darkened. Well fed and flushed with drink, the fat steward swaggered toward his bedroom carrying two bottles.
Handling the supplies and purchases for the Liu Clan Immortal Armor Soldiers down here every day was a modest but lucrative post. Though his aptitude left him no hope of cultivating immortality, being able to rely on the Liu immortal sect for a few decades of carefree pleasure was a blessing in itself!
An ordinary guard stood watch at the courtyard gate and asked curiously about the bottles in the fat steward's hands. The steward laughed. "One bottle of strong liquor, one bottle of sesame oil... Heh heh heh, you little fledgling. Pour the liquor down that little eunuch's throat, and he'll be easier to handle! But do you know what marvelous use this sesame oil has on his body?"
"Well... I don't know, sir!"
"Hahahaha... I knew a wooden-headed fool like you wouldn't know! Watch the gate properly. Don't let anyone wander in and spoil my pleasure!"
Through the night, a thin figure in white slowly approached, gazing from afar at the Talisman-Clad Army's camp at the foot of the mountain. Then he took a step and vanished.
Inside Great Jin's imperial city, a translucent jade orb in a purple-robed old man's hand suddenly flickered... "He's here. He came after all."
A young man with a gentle bearing, dressed in a python-patterned robe and jade belt, sighed and asked, "Royal Uncle Linhe, what is Wei Wuchen's cultivation now?"
The purple-robed old man shook his head. "I don't know. There is something strange about that Land God Temple on Two-World Mountain to begin with. Wei Wuchen has remained there for over a decade, neither advancing nor retreating. I fear he is no simple man. This time, the Liu clan harbors malicious intentions. They suddenly brought out Liu Xian'er and those three Wei boys because they want to drag our imperial house into this as well! You must understand that the Wei Family once had some standing within the Mystic Order. Back then, Mount Zhilin used Liu Xian'er's service to the Immortal Venerable to force the Wei clan into defiance, then swallowed up its power. That had already stirred considerable public outrage. And slaughtering the Wei clan to the last, leaving only three castrated children to slip secretly into the imperial city, was an even more despicable trick... A pack of contemptible wretches!"
The young man in the python-patterned robe nodded. "Had you not intervened back then, Royal Uncle Linhe, and forced Liu Xian'er, who had grown arrogant on the favor she enjoyed, into thirty years of seclusion over this affair, the Liu Clan of Mount Zhlin would probably be even more unbridled today."
The Prince of Linhe curled his lip. "Nothing but contemptible wretches. They underestimate our Sima clan far too much! Do they think currying favor with an immortal will send the Liu clan soaring straight into the heavens? What a joke... This time, we'll give the Liu Clan of Mount Zhlin another warning, and let them learn... Even an immortal will not lightly vent his anger on our Sima imperial clan!"