The following morning.

A carriage was waiting outside the General’s residence, with a Deputy Commander drafted to drive it.

Inside, Shen Yi looked across with mild puzzlement.

“Shouldn’t you rest a few more days?”

Xiao Qiangwei had changed into a wide-sleeved jacket, using it to cover the wrist.

“No need. It’s bandaged properly, and the physicians prepared medicines. A month or two and it’ll be healed. No point delaying.”

Right now she was more concerned that Yan Xingkong might return the Solar-Splitting Bow before they even set out. If he sent it to Tingyang Prefecture, that was one thing — but if it went back to the Qingzhou Division compound, getting it out again would be considerably harder.

She steered the conversation back to the matter at hand.

“I thought it over last night, and it still feels wrong. Yan Xingkong knows perfectly well that both his life and his wife’s are held in the Division’s hands. Why would he steal the bow without provocation, and then use it to destroy the Baiyu Monastery’s ancestral shrine? That’s not a small matter — that’s the kind of offense people swear blood revenge over.”

Shen Yi raised an eyebrow and glanced at the bag of silver beside them.

Blood revenge. Compensated with two hundred taels.

He didn’t know much about these factions. “Framing the Division?”

Xiao Qiangwei shook her head. “No point. The Monastery wouldn’t dare show open resentment toward the Division, but they’d certainly ask questions. Yan Xingkong knows the demon-hunters have his qi trace. The Monastery would trace it to him through us.”

She frowned slightly. “He’s known for his movement arts — but when it actually comes to fighting, he’s no match for those Daoist priests’ Twin-Harmony True Intent. Stealing something like this from them — they’d fight to their last breath to make him pay for it. A Sword Intent method isn’t something you can simply return and have everything forgiven.”

Even if the original were handed back intact, who could say there wasn’t a copy already made.

“What’s True Intent?” Shen Yi was genuinely curious.

“Not something body-refinement practitioners use.” Xiao Qiangwei gave a brief explanation. “Condensing astral force into a higher expression — draws heavily on reserves, but converts the ambient qi of heaven and earth into something tangible. It’s uncommon even in all of Qingzhou. Jiang Chengyun cultivates the Cloud Crane True Intent, which is why he could hold the mountain lord across cultivation tiers.”

Shen Yi nodded thoughtfully.

The General wasn’t back yet, and he still hadn’t had any real exposure to Condensate Realm techniques, nor fought a Condensate Realm practitioner in a genuine exchange.

Two first-tier forces in a dispute — worth being careful.

He closed his eyes and rested.

Xiao Qiangwei wasn’t given to much conversation either. She lifted the curtain and watched the scenery pass, occasionally glancing at the young man and looking away again just as quietly.

Two or three days.

The carriage stopped on a small mountain path. To one side, a continuous range of peaks lay half-hidden in pale white mist, their shapes large and indistinct.

Two Daoist priests in blue robes stood beside the path with hands clasped, fallen leaves on their shoulders — apparently they’d been waiting here for some time.

Both had white hair and young-looking faces, hair gathered with wooden pins, eyes half-lowered, expression deep.

“Elder Chunyang, Elder Qingjing.”

The driving Deputy Commander reined in with some surprise. “Why come down the mountain to wait? We would have come to the monastery.”

The tall, lean Elder Chunyang and the slightly shorter Elder Qingjing held positions second only to the monastery’s abbot, having spent many years in the full-core stage.

“…”

Elder Chunyang had a more direct temperament. At those words, he was already drawing breath to speak.

The ancestral shrine destroyed, the technique stolen — he didn’t exactly feel like sitting in calm meditation.

Elder Qingjing stepped forward slightly and held him back, offering a bow instead.

“The Monastery has suffered a loss, and the Division has come all this way to help. We couldn’t remain seated without offering proper courtesy. May I ask which honored official has come? Would you be willing to step out and speak with us?”

At that, Xiao Qiangwei picked up the silver and stepped out of the carriage alongside Shen Yi, passing the bag to the Deputy Commander to hand across.

“General You heard about this and asked me to bring an apology. To put your minds at ease — the Division had nothing to do with it. The Solar-Splitting Bow was also stolen.”

Elder Qingjing received the silver with a respectful gesture.

The ancestral shrine of a first-tier force, reduced to rubble, the tablets all destroyed — two hundred silver taels felt like a slap to the face.

But he was satisfied. Anyone capable of what had been done was almost certainly from the General’s hand, and the message through this woman meant this Demon Suppression General’s personal stance.

He put the silver away. Both priests looked at Xiao Qiangwei, then at the dark-robed young man beside her, then looked back at the carriage again.

Elder Chunyang was already struggling to contain his impatience.

“Would the honored official inside please step out — we have an urgent matter to request.”

For something of this scale, the Division couldn’t possibly have sent only a clearly-injured full-core practitioner and a young man.

“…”

Shen Yi watched the two old Daoist priests bow to an empty carriage and fell into brief silence.

Xiao Qiangwei pulled the curtain back to let them see for themselves, then said: “There’s no one else. Commander Shen is in charge of this matter.”

Elder Chunyang went still. After quite a long pause, his gaze finally settled on the young man. The look on his face suggested difficulty believing it.

“Might I ask the Commander’s surname?”

“Shen.”

Even after answering, Shen Yi couldn’t help noticing a faint disappointment cross the calmer, shorter priest’s eyes too.

Elder Chunyang muttered, not quite under his breath:

“What is this — what is this — a treasure like the Solar-Splitting Bow in the hands of a thief who consorts with demons, no one knows how much trouble he could cause across the twelve prefectures, how many people could die, and the Division doesn’t even take it seriously—”

Elder Qingjing pulled him back and produced a smile.

“No matter. We will do everything in our power to help the Division recover the treasure. We understand the demon-hunters have the thief’s qi trace — please, lead the way.”

Hearing Elder Chunyang’s instinctive words, Shen Yi found himself revising his impression of these first-tier sects upward slightly. Their sect’s most precious technique was gone, and their first concern was for what might happen to other people.

If it were possible, he’d want to demonstrate a core-nurturing stage presence and put both priests somewhat at ease.

He measured the Jade Liquid Perfection level in his qi sea.

He let the thought go. He wasn’t going to walk up to two old men and pin them down to demonstrate remarkable body-refinement talent through demonstration.

“Leave the court’s business to us.” Xiao Qiangwei drew Yan Xingkong’s qi trace from the bell, then closed her eyes to feel for the direction.

Her expression shifted subtly.

Both priests caught the change. “Has something changed?”

“Not exactly.”

She put the trace away and looked at Shen Yi.

“He’s within three hundred li. At most.”

Three hundred li — for an ordinary person walking on foot, that was a few days at most.

For a Condensate Realm thief king renowned specifically for his movement arts—

It was essentially saying that after taking the Baiyu Monastery’s technique, he had simply stayed nearby and waited. He hadn’t even made a real attempt to flee. As if worried the demon-hunters might have trouble finding him.

(End of Chapter)