The Saints were still unraveling the mist shrouding Guanjiangkou.
The Heavenly Court was still reckoning with the storm Yang Jian and Nezha had stirred up.
Yet in mortal Chaoge, the lights still shone as brightly as day.
On Vermilion Bird Avenue, carriages and horses streamed past without end, taverns rang with clamor, and merchants wove through the streets.
Above the city's splendor, a Dark Phoenix formed of Fortune circled low.
It should have spread its wings and soared into the clouds.
Now, however, its feathers glimmered dimly, and pink demonic energy tangled around both wings.
Thread by thread, that demonic energy burrowed into the Dark Phoenix, gnawing away at Great Shang's six hundred years of dynastic Fortune.
At the street corner, a Daoist in blue robes walked slowly along.
He looked young, his features calm and unassuming, utterly inconspicuous amid the crowd.
Yet with every step, an exceedingly faint layer of primordial purple mist concealed his aura.
Even the Human King's Fortune above the royal palace failed to notice his arrival.
He was an avatar of Gu Changqing.
Since breaking through to Great Luo, this was his first true journey through the mortal world.
He disturbed not the slightest trace of the laws.
He merely let a strand of Dao sense, concealed by the system, sweep silently across all of Chaoge.
In the next instant, everything in the city, hidden or revealed, lay before his eyes.
He saw that the common people were still reasonably well dressed, yet fear lurked in their eyes.
They loudly hailed their king as wise and enlightened.
But once they turned away, they lowered their voices to discuss taxes, conscription, and the Demon Consort in the palace.
He saw soldiers in battered armor dragging their wounded bodies past a street corner.
They had just withdrawn from the North Sea and the Eastern Yi frontier; the baleful aura of warfare and the pall of defeat still lingered in the seams of their armor.
He saw musicians upstairs in a tavern still singing of the Human King's virtues.
Below, patrolling guards passed with their hands on their blades.
The murmurs that had barely risen among the people were immediately forced back down their throats.
Gu Changqing lifted his gaze toward the depths of the royal palace.
There stood a tall tower, piercing the clouds.
The Star-Picking Tower.
The pink demonic energy originated there.
It coiled around the palace halls, taking root against the Human King's Fortune.
The closer he looked toward the Star-Picking Tower, the clearer the Great Shang Dark Phoenix's mournful cries became.
"The human Dao wanes, and a fiend gnaws away at the kingdom."
Gu Changqing's expression remained calm.
He had not come to Chaoge to save Great Shang.
The bloody game of the Investiture of the Gods Tribulation was destined to unfold in the mortal world.
The Chan Sect, the Interception Sect, the Western Teachings, the Heavenly Court, the Human King, and the feudal lords would all be dragged onto this board.
All he needed to do was place a piece.
An apparently insignificant spare piece, yet one capable of shifting the course of events at a critical moment.
Gu Changqing's Dao sense continued to reach inward.
Deep within the royal palace, Di Xin reclined beside a pool of wine, holding Daji in his arms. The last vestiges of the Human King's majesty in his eyes were being worn away by strands of demonic energy.
In the State Preceptor's residence, Shen Gongbao examined a list, a cold smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
The names of numerous Interception Sect disciples were written plainly on it.
Farther away lay the North Sea battlefield.
Wen Zhong was still suppressing the rebellion.
The Ink Qilin beneath him pawed the ground restlessly, as though already scenting Chaoge's rot across ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers.
Gu Changqing withdrew his gaze.
These people were all focal points of the tribulation in plain sight.
The slightest disturbance to any of them would draw the Saints' attention.
They were unsuitable.
His gaze shifted to eastern Chaoge.
There stood a residence.
Two large characters were written on the plaque above its gates.
Grand Chancellor.
Before the gates, two elderly ministers with white hair and beards were arguing.
One had upright, resolute features, with anger barely contained in his eyes.
Grand Chancellor Bi Gan.
The other wore a grief-stricken expression and clutched his sleeve tightly.
Shang Rong, a veteran minister of the previous reign.
"Grand Chancellor, you must not go again!"
Shang Rong's voice trembled, almost pleading.
"You saw how many remonstrating ministers were dragged away outside the Star-Picking Tower today. His Majesty has eyes only for Daji now. Going there would be delivering your heart beneath the Demon Consort's knife!"
Bi Gan jerked his sleeve free.
He straightened his court robes, his expression betraying not the slightest intention of retreating.
"The late king entrusted his heir to me. I have drawn my stipend from Cheng Tang's dynasty."
"Now the Demon Consort beguiles our ruler, and the order of the court crumbles. If I remain silent, how could I face our ancestors?"
Tears streamed down Shang Rong's aged face.
"We both know something is wrong with that Su Daji! But what good does knowing do? Demonic energy fills the palace and rises to the heavens. His Majesty can no longer hear loyal counsel!"
Bi Gan gave a bleak smile.
"Even if he will not hear it, I must speak."
He raised his head toward the Star-Picking Tower, his voice hoarse, yet every word rang like iron.
"Even if my blood stains the Star-Picking Tower today, I will use this heart to ask His Majesty one question."
"Should Cheng Tang's realm be ruled by the Human King, or manipulated by the Demon Consort!"
Shang Rong shuddered, and his loosened hand fell limply to his side.
Gu Changqing stood among the crowd, watching Bi Gan in silence.
In this old minister, he saw a flame.
It was very faint.
Yet its purity was dazzling.
The demonic energy filling the city could not extinguish it.
The Human King's blindness could not conceal it.
It was the last keen edge of humanity's loyal, unyielding spirit.
Cause and effect flowed through Gu Changqing's eyes.
He had already seen the end of Bi Gan's Fate Trajectory: a Seven-Orifice Exquisite Heart cut from his chest.
Hot blood spilled over the steps of the Star-Picking Tower.
The loyal minister died.
The Demon Consort laughed.
And the hearts of Chaoge's people would only grow colder.
You are the one.
Gu Changqing stirred his intent slightly.
The next moment, he stepped forward and brushed past Bi Gan.
No one noticed.
Only Bi Gan heard a calm voice suddenly sound beside his ear.
"A heart with seven orifices can illuminate heaven and earth."
"Cutting out your heart can reveal your loyalty."
"Living can also affirm your Dao."
Bi Gan stopped dead.
He spun around.
The crowd surged past.
The blue-robed Daoist had already vanished.
"Cutting out my heart can reveal my loyalty..."
"Living can also affirm my Dao?"
Bi Gan murmured the words again, but a sudden coolness spread across his chest.
He looked down.
At some unknown moment, a jade pendant had appeared inside his robes.
The jade was warm and smooth, without markings, seemingly an ordinary object.
Yet the instant he grasped it, all the grief and indignation in his heart subsided.
Even the eerie aura emanating from the distant Star-Picking Tower seemed to be shut out three feet away.
Bi
Gan's pupils contracted slightly.
Though he was a mortal minister, he possessed the Seven-Orifice Exquisite Heart.
At that moment, he vaguely understood.
A master was secretly offering him guidance.
More than that, the master was giving him a path to survival that even fate had never granted him.
Gu Changqing had already left the Grand Chancellor's residence.
He had condensed that jade pendant from a wisp of Great Luo Dao resonance.
It could not kill Daji.
It could not withstand a Saint.
But it could protect Bi Gan's heart meridians and preserve a spark of his Divine Soul's true spirit.
Even if his Seven-Orifice Exquisite Heart was cut out, Bi Gan's soul would not immediately scatter into oblivion.
This piece carried little weight.
So little that the Saints might not even spare it a glance.
But when the day of the heart's removal arrived, this ember of the human Dao would truly sink its teeth into Chaoge's tribulation nexus.
Gu Changqing did not look back.
His figure passed through the long street and quietly faded away.
A breath later.
His gaze returned to the barren mountains outside Guanjiangkou.
Demonic mist filled the air there.
A black dog, so emaciated that he was little more than a skeleton, gripped a bloodstained piece of Divine Bone in his jaws and fled desperately through the scattered rocks.
Behind him, three mountain demons pursued him.
Their rank wind was already closing in on the back of the black dog's neck.
Yet the black dog still clamped his jaws around the Divine Bone, the ferocity in his eyes undiminished.
Gu Changqing's gaze flickered.
"Xiaotian."
"It is your turn to enter the game."