On the rooftop of the Dashun Pavilion, unnoticed by anyone below.

Jiang Chengyun stood with resigned patience. Whether it was an occupational habit or just her nature, whenever Grandmother came back to Qingzhou she preferred strange perches like this, and spent the rest of her time performing the appearance of something small and harmless.

Aqian sat with her white legs crossed under her. “Tell me. You came back this quickly — what exactly did you do?”

“Watched from a tree.” Jiang Chengyun’s expression was entirely level.

“And then?” Aqian looked back, puzzled.

“Then I came back.” He pressed his lips together. He genuinely didn’t know what he’d been sent out there to accomplish.

At the look on his face, Aqian couldn’t hold back a laugh. “He’s really that capable?”

Her grandson had been skeptical of Shen Yi not long ago. One trip out and the attitude had reversed completely.

“More capable than you imagined.”

He exhaled slowly, something complicated in the lines of his face. “Stronger than I was at that age. Stronger than you and General You at the same stage. And more decisive — more final. Given time, he won’t be below me.”

“And your plan was to take him with you and replace us old ones?” Aqian stretched without concern.

“I don’t have the ability to lead anyone, and I’m not going to look after him.” Jiang Chengyun’s hand slowly closed.

Surprise actually crossed Aqian’s face.

The way he’s saying that — he’s treating the boy as a competitor.

A practitioner who had condensed a core, feeling pressure from someone at Jade Liquid Perfection?

“Ha. Log the credit under his silver-bell demon-hunter standing — keep it out of the Division’s channels. Once he’s accumulated enough, get him a Condensate method and a War Temple refinement as fast as possible.”

The Division wanted Qingzhou stable, which meant they were wary of anything internally disruptive.

Demon-hunters were different. They loved a blade like this, even if it might eventually cut back toward them.

“Wait — where is he?” Aqian tilted her head.

“Came back ahead of the others. He’s supervising the Commanders clearing out the Jingang School.”

Jiang Chengyun sighed despite himself.

At that age, having that level of strength was already remarkable. Beyond strength — the care he took, the thoroughness, the way he worked through things in order.

First the decisive encirclement of the Jingang School. Then going outside the city to deal with the abbot. Then not caring at all about the visible credit, pulling himself back, staying to make sure even the cleanup was done properly.

He glanced down at the gathered young heirs below.

The moment you compared, it became clear what kind of material you were looking at.

“You’re here anyway with nothing to do — go deal with those fake monks before you leave. Looking at them is irritating.” Aqian dispensed with the Jingang School’s remaining practitioners in one sentence, then stood. “I was going to find someone to help the boy get his bearings. Since you think so highly of him, take him to Yongan City. Let him see something.”

“Understood.” Jiang Chengyun nodded.

Western district. The Jingang School.

Countless Commanders moved across the cracked stone steps.

At this kind of work — searching and stripping a compound — they were thoroughly practiced. Nothing hidden in the gap behind a bedpost would be missed.

The great Buddha statues were broken open to confirm nothing was concealed inside, then moved on from.

Shen Yi leaned against a carriage and leafed through the technique in his hands.

Two Commanders stood nearby and said respectfully: “Commander Shen — should we copy it out? So you can look it over more carefully at home.”

After a moment, Shen Yi closed the volume and tossed it back.

“No need. Catalog it directly.”

“The Jingang School used to be a great sect with a real name. A few hundred years, and they’re this stripped out.”

The Commander was mildly uncomfortable. The resources here were not just inferior to Qingfeng Mountain — they fell well short of an ordinary second-tier sect. Where had the money gone?

“Burning through everything they had, trying to force out one body-refinement practitioner who could approach the Condensate Realm, to reclaim what they’d once been—”

The second Commander caught himself and stopped.

If Commander Shen had come back and started them working, the abbot was almost certainly gone.

“Get back to it.”

Shen Yi gave a small nod. When both of them had moved off, he opened the panel.

New text had appeared. Something in his clear eyes flickered briefly.

【Condensate Realm · Life-Death Zen Body, Volume One — Untrained】

As expected.

When he’d first seen the Jingang School abbot, Shen Yi had noticed the qi signature didn’t have the quality of a sinister method.

From the quick read-through just now, his rough understanding was this:

The Zen Body required sitting meditation — drawing the essence of life and death from the breath of heaven and earth, using it to refine the physical body. Two colors. Dark and pale. One was killing force. The other was regeneration.

The abbot’s Buddhist insight was probably comparable to his own — sitting in meditation hoping for sudden comprehension wasn’t going to work. So he’d taken the most readily available sources of life-and-death essence instead.

And it had actually worked.

Shen Yi looked at the roughly four hundred years of demon lifespan remaining and exhaled quietly.

He’d only been back from Qingfeng Mountain for how long, and it was already down this far again.

The technique only had the first volume.

He’d dealt with incomplete texts before. The Golden Sun Eight Treasures Mysterious Body was the closest comparison — brought to Perfection, it just barely entered the Jade Liquid tier, but against a genuine Jade Liquid Realm demon it didn’t hold up.

This half-volume Life-Death Zen Body, at Perfection, would certainly enhance him — and not a little — but it wouldn’t produce a fundamental transformation on its own.

What actually drew him was something else: this was a Condensate Realm body-refinement method. It touched a domain beyond the Jade Liquid tier. And he had the Demon Crystal as a tool — with sufficient lifespan, he could attempt to derive it into a complete demonic technique.

A complete Condensate Realm body-refinement method was the kind of thing great sects built their founding identity around.

He’d been in this world a long time now. For the first time, he had a genuine path toward higher-tier martial arts.

Everything currently missing could be borrowed from demons.

He turned the silver bell over in his fingers. With this, obtaining demon lifespan had become considerably less difficult.

No need to rush.

By the time the sky had darkened, the last of the boxes were loaded onto carts and transported to the Division compound.

Shen Yi caught a ride back. The side courtyard was quiet.

A few voices drifted from inside.

A table set with food still holding warmth. Cups filled most of the way. No one had touched the chopsticks.

Zhang Tuhu was playing with the boy in his arms. Fang Heng was watching them both with a distant look, something in the expression that was almost memory. He heard footsteps outside.

Both of them turned. They put away the worry in their eyes, and stood.

“You’re back.”

Shen Yi blinked slightly. He tossed the wolf cloak across a chair-back and sat down at the table. He picked up a cup and took a sip.

“Something happen?”

Fang Heng sighed. “We were worried you’d had something happen.”

Pressing down the entire young establishment of Qingzhou — most people couldn’t have pulled that off.

Every one of those young people had an elder standing behind them.

Shen Yi had done it. And done it without giving anyone anything to catch.

But everyone made mistakes eventually. He’d need to keep showing his strength, keep making those resentful eyes look away and not meet his again.

If he could manage that—

Fang Heng privately thought the General should step down early and give Shen Yi the seat.

“I—”

Zhang Tuhu raised his cup toward Shen Yi. Said nothing. Drained it.

Great debts don’t lend themselves to words. Sometimes the right thanks was not knowing what to say.

He wiped the wine off his beard.

“Wherever, whenever, whatever needs doing. One word from you, and I’ll have the coffin ready and go handle it.”

(End of Chapter)