“What are the different approaches to body-refinement techniques?”

In the courtyard, Shen Yi was taking his customary post-meal walk.

“There’s quite a few. The Jingang School’s qi-refinement method, dietary refinement, blood and essence refinement—”

Zhang Tuhu had considerable knowledge here and spoke easily. “But generally speaking, Jade Liquid Realm is about where body-refinement arts tail off. Most of them are Threshold Realm techniques.”

“Why?” Shen Yi didn’t quite follow.

The Golden Sun technique had seemed like a strong addition to him — refining both the qi reserves and the flesh, which should theoretically overwhelm someone at the same cultivation level.

“Lifespan.”

Zhang Tuhu shrugged. “Before Jade Liquid, practitioners don’t live past a hundred or so. But crossing into Jade Liquid adds a century, and Perfection adds another. A body-refinement art might give you the power output of a Jade Liquid practitioner — but without the breath of heaven and earth permeating your organs, it doesn’t extend your life. And at that point, these slow grinding techniques become somewhat redundant. A few movement arts or striking methods would serve better.”

The point landed cleanly. Shen Yi nodded, something clarifying.

Probably because of his background with the panel’s simulations — for him, the Golden Sun technique had cost far less demon lifespan than any comparable Jade Liquid art. In reality, reaching Perfection in forty-some years was the same timeline regardless of the practitioner’s talent, without pharmaceutical assistance.

The difference was just that he was unusually slow with everything else.

While they were talking beside the tree, a figure moved quickly through the courtyard gate.

Li Muqing reached the stone table under the tree and sat, pulling a document from her front. She didn’t bother acknowledging the unfamiliar large man present — just looked directly at Shen Yi.

“You have a problem.”

Her expression was completely serious. No joke anywhere in it.

“Do you know what’s been happening at Qingfeng Mountain?”

Zhang Tuhu, who had been about to nudge Shen Yi with an elbow at the arrival of a striking young woman, registered the words and his face changed.

Li Muqing watched Shen Yi’s face carefully. He showed nothing.

She exhaled slowly. “I see you’ve heard. I received word — the Linjiang Prefecture General has ordered a further five hundred Outer Division Commanders reassigned. Xinhan and Ma Tao are injured, but the rest of us are on the list. That includes you.”

She paused.

“My family and Qingfeng Mountain have a long-standing relationship. My father isn’t going to let us go.”

“And setting that aside — Qingzhou hasn’t seen a siege against a Condensate Realm practitioner in years. The danger is extreme. Nobody can predict what might happen.”

Li Muqing opened the document and looked at it with careful eyes.

“The family arranged for a separate order to be prepared. Think of it as going somewhere for a change of scenery.”

The document already listed Li Muqing, Liu Xiujie, and Little Er. One space remained.

“You’re not someone who needs things dressed up, and you’ve saved my life. I’m not going to talk around it — this decision isn’t entirely mine to make.” She looked at him directly. “Come with us.”

In three sentences, she’d laid out exactly what the Li family was capable of.

A Demon Suppression General had issued a troop assignment — and they had the means to quietly remove their own people from it ahead of time.

For other Commanders, this was a matter of life and death to be faced helplessly. Li family members had the luxury of worrying about how to maintain a friendly relationship with Qingfeng Mountain while managing the situation.

“…”

Zhang Tuhu’s expression had been making a slow journey from hopeful to confused.

He stared at the document, something nagging at him. It was ostensibly a reassignment order. The way it was being presented felt considerably more like a contract of a different kind.

Shen Yi looked at the table and said nothing, but the mild lack of surprise suggested he’d seen some version of this coming.

Li Muqing kept her voice quiet and even. “The message came fast. We have half an hour at most before a Deputy Commander arrives with a formal summons.”

She wasn’t giving him time to think. That was deliberate.

The Division had finally shown its teeth — forcing a choice by removing all alternatives.

Li Xinhan’s team would gain a capable member. Shen Yi would have no one to blame, either — the document was the Li family’s arrangement, and these were all young people simply following their elders’ instructions.

Even the other superiors in the Division weren’t naive. Being quietly pulled away during a volatile situation would say everything about whose banner he’d placed himself under.

Then she saw something in his eyes — something like a quiet wistfulness.

Shen Yi reached for the document.

The corner of Li Muqing’s mouth started to lift — and froze.

He folded it shut and pushed it back to her.

“It’s not the right fit.”

Li Muqing’s chest shifted sharply. She seized his wrist, fingers tight, and when she looked up, her composure had cracked in a way he’d never seen.

“Are you being recklessly proud? People die in these things!“

Whatever the gap between expectation and outcome, whatever the image of that dark blade cutting through the forest in her memory — none of it made any difference. Throwing a life away for the sake of a point was an act of profound foolishness.

This wasn’t demon-slaying to protect people. This was a military operation against sect members.

“…”

Shen Yi pulled his wrist back and started to speak.

A door opened quietly.

Fang Heng stepped out, voice flat. “One reassignment order. Did it really require the Li family to find a side door for it?”

Li Muqing’s eyes moved to him and narrowed slightly.

She hadn’t expected another person in the courtyard.

Coming from anyone else, the comment would have been beneath notice. The forces that could pull someone from a Demon Suppression General’s assignment — there were perhaps a handful in all of Qingzhou.

But this was Fang Heng.

Among the generals holding the twelve prefectures, two positions were occupied by his martial siblings.

“My mistake. Overstepped myself.”

Li Muqing collected the document and looked at Shen Yi again.

She couldn’t quite piece together how two people who’d been so sharply at odds a few days ago had ended up here together.

So it wasn’t self-sufficiency. He’d quietly attached himself to the thickest branch in the Division.

By comparison, the Li family looked somewhat less impressive.

She stood, withdrew her gaze with a certain coolness. “If you don’t need me — farewell.”

Fang Heng moved to stand beside Shen Yi, a glimmer of something in his expression.

This casual gesture — it felt like being taken under a teacher’s wing was drawing fractionally closer.

Neither his senior siblings nor he himself had ever stepped back from an assignment. Fang Heng was prepared to make an exception, to go find Senior Brother Bai and arrange something. The man had already proven his nerve — there was no reason he needed to keep demonstrating it.

Honestly — Shen Yi had been in the Division for days. He hadn’t received a salary payment yet. He hadn’t been raised here from childhood the way the others had been. There was no rational basis for him to go into a slaughter.

Three people stood under the tree, each with a different expression.

From outside the gate came the sound of rapid, purposeful footsteps.

A black-cloaked Deputy Commander led more than forty Commanders, standing at the entrance with an expression that made the instruction unnecessary.

“By order — reassigning Outer Division Commander Shen Yi. You will accompany—”

He stopped.

His brow pulled together. His eyes moved between Li Muqing and Fang Heng.

Suddenly his throat was somewhat dry.

He’d come to collect a minor Commander. He hadn’t anticipated walking into a courtyard full of people he recognized.

Li Muqing said nothing. Fang Heng drew a breath and opened his mouth — it was clearly the first time he’d ever appeared on someone’s behalf, and it didn’t come naturally.

Before he could speak, Shen Yi turned slightly, tapped him back with the scabbard, and walked toward the gate.

He stepped into the group of Commanders.

“Your subordinate acknowledges the order.”

His reasoning was far simpler than anything Fang Heng or Li Muqing had been working through.

If he couldn’t watch the flood dragon die with his own eyes, the thought of a Condensate Realm demon somewhere out there waiting for the right moment would give him no peace whatsoever.

The Deputy Commander let out an involuntary breath.

He had no idea what Shen Yi’s movement had done to the three people still standing in the courtyard.

Zhang Tuhu and Fang Heng looked at each other. “…”

Li Muqing stared at the group of Commanders receding into the distance, her breathing coming slightly faster.

Perhaps it was the world she’d grown up in — she’d always operated on the assumption that everyone needed to lean on something, or there was no solid ground. Even all the back-and-forth had just been about negotiating for better terms.

But now — the black robes moving in the distance, the image of someone vanishing into a mountain forest, covered in blood, pulling a dark blade from a skull with no particular expression—

None of it had ever been about the Li family or the General.

It had never been in the calculation at all.

She bit her lip, watching the Commanders disappear around a corner, and something faint and uncharacteristic settled in her eyes.

(End of Chapter)