Above the blue sky stood the immortal palace, wreathed in white cloud.

A powerfully built middle-aged man in heavy armor sat astride a fierce beast. It looked like a tiger, and yet somehow like a male lion too, with a thick ring of dazzling golden mane around its neck.

He held the reins and kept his eyes straight ahead.

The lion-tiger beast's massive legs moved at an unhurried pace, and its broad paws came down on the long corridor of immortal jade without a sound.

There was no need to put away one's mount inside the immortal palace. That was the privilege of a fifth-rank immortal general.

“I hear Senior Brother Azure Luan is sending you down to the mortal world to attend the ceremony in his place. Why haven't you left yet?”

He asked it calmly. Behind the lion-tiger beast, a woman of graceful bearing followed on foot.

Only at the question did she lift her head a little. “Purple-Caltrop was in too much of a hurry and forgot the rules,” she said softly. “Fortunately, the Protector of the Horses reminded me, so I was held up for a while.”

“……” The man was silent a moment. At last he deigned to glance back, but he said nothing more.

In rising to fifth-rank immortal general in the Immortal Court, he had met more women like her than he could count. Whether she was putting on airs on purpose, angling to stir something up, or truly sorry, he didn't care.

“Since you've been held up, you'd better get moving. I remember you're from Hongze too. While you're down there, do me a favor and go to Hongze to look in on that worthless nephew of mine.”

With that, he looked away. He and the nephew weren't especially close. In aptitude and in character alike the boy had been simply too poor, and back in the day he had made no small mistake.

Still, he had been on good terms with the boy's parents as fellow disciples and had received a great deal of help from them. After his senior brother…