“Finally found you! These black-coat — these Commanders — have absolutely no respect for jianghu practitioners.”

Zhang Tuhu hooked an arm around Shen Yi’s shoulder, let out a breath. “Good, good. Nothing happened to you, that’s what matters.”

Looking at the state of him — caked in mud and road dust — and each friendly pat landing a clear handprint on a clean uniform that Shen Yi had just put on—

The question of where exactly this man had been spending the last half-month was becoming genuinely concerning.

That playful, apparently.

“Hold on — you got promoted already?”

Zhang Tuhu’s eye caught the cuff embroidery, and his expression became one of genuine shock.

Shen Yi looked briefly at the protruding stomach. “You look like you’re about to give birth.”

“Ha — that’s what body refinement does. You wouldn’t know if you haven’t done it.”

The big man scratched the back of his head and grew briefly serious. “Look — I know you’re capable. But keep your head down for a while, yeah?”

Getting to the point, finally.

Shen Yi led him inside and poured two cups of well water that had been boiled and left to cool. “What’s happened?”

Zhang Tuhu took the cup without ceremony and poured it down his throat. “You don’t know? Something big has happened in Linjiang Prefecture.”

Shen Yi sat on the edge of the bed, sipping his own water, looking sideways.

If he was not mistaken, he had just returned from Linjiang Prefecture.

The next sentence cleared it up. “Remember the swordsman from Qingfeng Mountain I mentioned before? The one with twenty-some family members, tender devotion for every concubine?”

“The one with more feeling for each mistress than the last?” Shen Yi’s expression went complicated.

“That’s him.”

Zhang Tuhu wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “You should know what Qingfeng Mountain is…”

“I don’t.” Shen Yi shook his head honestly.

Zhang Tuhu’s mouth worked, producing the particular expression of someone who’s started telling a neighbor’s business only to be asked what a neighbor is.

“You’re actually a Division Commander and you don’t know the territory you’re responsible for.” He pushed past it. “Qingzhou’s first-tier forces — six sects, four great families. Every one of them has a Condensate Realm practitioner. The Zhao, Qian, Sun, and Li families. Qingfeng Mountain’s swordsmen. Pingsha Valley’s thieves. The Baiyu Temple Taoists.”

He ran out of fingers and extended the other hand. “Xiaofeng Villa with its transcendent bladework. Point is — in Qingzhou, they’re second only to the Division.”

“What about the Jingang School?” Shen Yi said, without particular investment.

Zhang Tuhu clicked his tongue. “No Condensate Realm internal art — should technically be third-tier. But the abbot has that half-volume body-refinement text, and with it he’s pushed his physical body past Jade Liquid, which makes him weaker than a true Condensate Realm practitioner but more than capable of handling Jade Liquid Perfection. Barely qualifies as second-tier.”

Something caught Shen Yi’s attention. “What body-refinement text?”

“I have no idea.” Zhang Tuhu sighed. “And on top of exceptional talent, you’d need to spend fifty years in prayer and fifty more teaching the doctrine before there’s any chance of being passed it.”

He was in his forties and still hadn’t reached Jade Liquid.

A shadow crossed his face briefly.

“Never mind me. Back to you.”

He cleared his throat. “That Qingfeng Mountain swordsman — the most talented disciple on the mountain. Young as these things go, not even a hundred and fifty, and already showing faint signs of approaching the Condensate Realm.”

Shen Yi listened, not yet sure what this had to do with him.

“A few months ago, he left Linjiang Prefecture on some matter. One of his concubines, pregnant at the time, secretly went to the yamen. In broad daylight, in front of witnesses, she gave birth to—”

Zhang Tuhu’s whole body had gone rigid, his expression very serious.

“A flood dragon.”

The cup in Shen Yi’s hand swayed slightly.

“Born too early, the young dragon turned on the mother. A few bites and there was nothing left.”

“Even more alarming — this swordsman had been on Qingfeng Mountain for over a century. Wives and concubines constantly disappeared, supposedly taken by demons. Who knows how many he actually fathered.”

“When the swordsman came back, the Linjiang Prefecture General brought people straight to Qingfeng Mountain and surrounded it. On the spot, numerous disciples were killed — all identified as his offspring.”

Zhang Tuhu speculated, “Qingfeng Mountain’s a name worth protecting, so the Division surrounded but didn’t destroy — probably waiting for your General to return and make the call. Word in the jianghu is the mountain’s people are trying to quietly get the swordsman away.”

He sighed. “All the Inner Division people not guarding Qingzhou have been pulled to hold the perimeter — a hundred li around the mountain. This time it’s serious. From what the gate guards say, units with the golden wolf emblem have been moved there too. Lie low if you can. You just got here, this isn’t your problem yet, and it’d be a shame to go under before collecting what you’re owed.”

Shen Yi set down the cup. His face was still.

He finally understood what those two Commanders had been talking about earlier.

“This place is going to be unsettled for a while.” Zhang Tuhu rubbed at a headache, drawing his slaughter knife and turning it over repeatedly in his hands as if the familiarity of the thing provided some comfort.

“That so-called chivalrous genius swordsman is almost certainly a Condensate Realm old flood dragon. Left its kind in the Yangchun River to seek some entertainment up here. Gradually revealed more and more of its real cultivation while wearing a human face.”

“The General’s representative in Linjiang Prefecture is formidable, but facing multiple Condensate Realm demons at once — best outcome is a costly victory. Total elimination is unlikely.”

“If any of those flood dragons escape — and whatever offspring of unknown standing are still out there — their first move will be retaliation against the Division. They know exactly what the Division cares most about protecting.” He spread his hands. “Ordinary people, like the rest of us.”

Having delivered his message, Zhang Tuhu made himself comfortable without being asked. “Right — squeeze over. I’m staying a few days. The going rate for a good teacher for a young child has gotten outrageous. Took me ten days of hauling cargo to put together the tuition.”

“Take the bed. I’ll go get some air.”

Shen Yi stepped out into the courtyard.

His thoughts moved in quiet currents.

Wariness — and underneath it, something that was unmistakably a faint edge of killing intent.

If the flood dragon escaped and moved to retaliate — would he be on the list?

By now, every detail fit. He’d known since before Zhang Tuhu opened his mouth whose young flood dragon that had been.

Even the river deity had been able to smell the flood dragon’s core.

Now that the core was inside him, transformed into the Flood Dragon’s Power — was there something similar that might linger in his scent?

He didn’t know. His understanding of these things was still too thin. When you couldn’t determine the answer, assume the worst.

His eyes settled, and the panel opened.

Before, the Thunder-Wind Demon-Subduing True Interpretation had served as a kind of recovery method — a slow but reliable way to refill after expenditure. At Jade Liquid Perfection, that efficiency was far too low for the scale of what he was carrying.

If the qi sea ran completely dry — without medicinal pills, how much demon lifespan would it take to refill instantly?

He began feeding lifespan into the Solar-Fusion Scripture slowly, not expecting derivation results — just feeling for the changes in the qi sea — and channeled it in year by year.

A notification passed.

His expression shifted slightly.

【Year five — your cultivation level shows no increase, but the qi and blood are vigorous beyond expectation. The Solar-Fusion Furnace, originally connected across two hundred and seventy apertures, has added one more.】

An unexpected benefit. He didn’t yet know what use it served — but any improvement was good.

Shen Yi closed his eyes and sensed the breath of heaven and earth quietly dispersing from his body, then arrived at his conclusion.

Even with the Solar-Fusion Scripture’s refinement efficiency far exceeding the old Thunder-Wind Interpretation, what he carried now was more than a hundred times the reserves he’d had before.

Limited by how thinly the breath of heaven and earth was spread through the world — if the qi sea actually ran dry, if the centuries of accumulated jade liquid were consumed entirely — even with the internal art at Perfection, the meridians expanded, and the body saturated by years of cultivation—

Without medicinal pills, twenty years of demon lifespan would be the minimum to refill completely.

Before finding a technique capable of producing a genuine transformation, this was his deepest safeguard.

Medicines took time to absorb, no matter how potent.

But as long as he had demon lifespan in sufficient quantity, he could maintain peak condition indefinitely.

(End of Chapter)