Night fell. The Deng family’s main hall grew lively.
Crocks of fine wine arrived. Dish after dish came to the round table.
Lin Rou took her seat with Deng Mingxu in attendance. Jiang Chengyun settled in beside them with the easy confidence of a man who owned the space.
The two exchanged a quiet glance.
Shen Yi’s unfamiliarity with great family customs made the cold, composed persona convenient. He’d cited illness and stayed away — a reasonable excuse that also added a note of additional prestige to the supposed Lin family of Yushan Prefecture.
“What a shame.” Deng Mingxu adjusted the fine blue-green jacket he’d taken such care selecting. He also felt, privately, a thread of relief.
However hard he’d worked to project courtesy and warmth, the dark-robed young man’s presence carried an instinctive quality — don’t come closer — that suggested the Deng family didn’t quite reach his standards. Simply standing there in plain clothes had put a chill into the room, while Deng Mingxu had tried his best and still felt somewhat provincial by comparison.
At least the great-grandfather’s standing was holding everything up.
As long as the old man was alive, the Deng family remained second-tier in Qingzhou.
At that thought, Deng Mingxu looked toward the host’s seat — and found it empty. His father was arriving instead, escorting a woman in vivid red, posture loose and gestures bright.
A face like something between a fox and a beauty. The cosmetics were heavy but the features underneath were genuinely striking.
The more he looked, the more familiar something seemed.
Something clicked. Deng Mingxu bit down quietly on the inside of his cheek.
Could father please, for once, not make a spectacle of himself?
He invited Miss Lin to a proper dinner and father shows up with a courtesan.
Beside him, Lin Rou’s expression had shifted. She dropped her gaze. Jiang Chengyun had narrowed his eyes slightly, something colder moving through them.
Couldn’t hook the younger one, so she’s going for the older.
She’d decided to compete after all.
“…”
Xiao Qiangwei settled into her seat and let a casual, provocative glance find the two of them.
Lin Rou drew her neck in slightly.
“Miss Lin is cold? Bring a fur cloak — wait, not fox fur, that’s too much. Mink.”
Deng Mingxu pointed at the servants while saying something else entirely, making his position clear.
“Thank you.” Lin Rou answered very quietly, feeling the back of her neck grow somewhat colder regardless.
The small scene moved on. When everyone was seated at last, a gap became apparent.
Beyond Shen Yi’s absence, the seat at the head of the table was also empty.
Jiang Chengyun and Xiao Qiangwei both looked up at the same moment. Something passed through both their expressions.
By comparison, the small side courtyard was quiet.
Shen Yi sat alone. A cup of plain water. A dish of braised meat.
The panel open in front of him, he moved through the martial arts list and quietly calculated the ceiling of what he could produce.
The techniques from the General’s lineage — even against someone like the Jingang School abbot, a half-step Condensate practitioner, they’d shown real effect.
The Bodhi Vajra Sacred Body at Perfection was a reliable defensive base.
The main factor remained the Heavenly Demon Yama external pill.
From careful observation through the journey, the danger Jiang Chengyun presented felt roughly comparable to what Zhang Hengzhou had before the blood pool — both probably at the stage of having condensed a rough core. One step further for either would be Condensate Perfection, and then core-nurturing.
If the external pill counted as his actual cultivation—
Then Shen Yi stood roughly at the same level as these two. Which in practice wasn’t quite true. Jiang Chengyun certainly had Condensate Realm techniques. Zhang Hengzhou had demon instincts and a flood dragon’s body. In an actual fight, being overwhelmed was the likely outcome.
Using those two as the boundary: anyone one tier below them was probably a manageable fight.
The difficulty was finding a real comparison. Theorizing in a vacuum wasn’t reliable.
“…”
He picked up a piece of braised meat, placed it in his mouth, and turned to look toward the courtyard entrance.
A thin old man in loosely draped white clothing came swaying in, set a wine crock down on the table, and let out a small belch. “You’ve got meat and no wine. I’ve got wine and no meat. What do you say we put them together?”
“And you are—?”
Shen Yi asked the question knowing the answer. In all of Yongan City, there was really only one person capable of producing even a slight sense of threat in him.
Jiang Chengyun and the others had done a great deal of preparation. No point ruining their arrangements.
“Just a useless old man living in this compound, about to be collected by the sky.” Deng Jianyuan grinned, a slight flush in the thin cheeks.
Perhaps sensing Shen Yi might think more of it, he added:
“Too old. The heavens are coming for me.”
Hearing this explanation that very much protested its own innocence—
Shen Yi smiled slightly, moved aside to make room, and said with mild indifference: “I’ll pass on the wine. Please.”
Someone who has lived this long, a local fixture of this much experience — noticing something would be natural.
“You come from Yushan Prefecture? I’ve never been.” Deng Jianyuan didn’t push the wine. He poured for himself, alone, face growing redder, eyes growing brighter. “Didn’t have the chance when I was young. Too old to dare now. Too many people watching. The moment I leave, they all get anxious.”
“Go on.”
The old man hugged the wine crock, turned, and stared blankly at Shen Yi. “Do you think I still have a chance to go?”
“…”
Shen Yi was quiet for a moment. His instinct was that Jiang Chengyun would be out of his seat and pinning the old man down before the thought could become action.
Fortunately, Deng Jianyuan didn’t seem to expect an answer. He waved it off. “Forget it. I don’t actually want to anymore. Yongan City is good. It would be nice if it stayed good.”
After that sentence, the old man became considerably more ordinary.
He talked like a thin, plain old man reminiscing about nothing in particular.
“When I was as young as you, I was too lazy to really put in the work. I learned just enough of everything. Mastery seemed too much effort. Minor Mastery was enough to get by. And then there was the luck—”
Shen Yi didn’t take this as false modesty.
That was how most second-tier forces actually worked. Either extraordinary luck and a chance encounter, or some unconventional path. The founding ancestor marked the peak, and once they died, the family almost never produced a second Condensate Realm practitioner. The slow slide to third-tier came in time.
“Well. Thank you for humoring an old man’s rambling. Usually I can’t find anyone worth talking to. Young people don’t have much patience anymore.”
Deng Jianyuan shook the wine crock, produced another belch, smiled, and stood. He reached over and took the last piece of braised meat on the way out.
“Off I go.”
The courtyard was quiet again. One cup of plain water. One dish—
Shen Yi looked at the empty dish and sat with his thoughts for a moment.
At least now there was a real comparison.
Condensate Realm wasn’t all the same — what the old man had given him was a sense of danger roughly forty or fifty percent above what the Jingang School abbot had produced. Barely qualified as the rough core condensed stage by any generous measure.
No developed techniques, no killing moves — that was the ordinary state of jianghu practitioners. The Division’s approach of combining a Condensate method with corresponding martial arts, even supplemented with War Temple refinement — a systematic production line for Condensate Realm strength — was simply something the jianghu couldn’t conceive of.
Not long after, Jiang Chengyun and Lin Rou came back in from outside, expressions slightly off.
“…”
Lin Rou clasped her hands behind her back and said gently: “Big brother Jiang, what’s the rush. If you’re really worried the old ancestor figured something out, you could — well, if it comes to it — just give him a small lesson and keep him in line.”
Jiang Chengyun didn’t argue with this. His voice was flat. “What I’m worried about is Xiao Qiangwei.”
All that preparation had been aimed at three tiger demons most likely close to breaking through the Condensate Realm. If he could avoid splitting any of that credit, he intended to.
Brief exchanges, and everyone went to their rooms.
The following morning.
First light. Roosters calling.
A cluster of Deng family members gathered at the courtyard gate to see the old ancestor off.
He stood there in fine clothing, thin face carrying the composed dignity of the strongest practitioner in Yongan City, silver-streaked hair arranged with meticulous care. Every trace of last night’s lonely wandering was gone.
“…”
(End of Chapter)