# Chapter 3: The Pulse of a Coward and the Shadow in the Night
The Imperial cart bounced violently over the cobblestones, rattling Li Xuan's teeth.
To the outside world, the Ninth Prince was still locked in a terror-induced coma, his limp body swaying with every bump. The Imperial Guards escorting him walked with their heads held high, studiously ignoring the snickers of the commoners who had witnessed the heir of the Marquis of Iron get liquefied, only for the prince to instantly pass out from fright.
Inside the cart, however, Li Xuan was wide awake, his eyes squeezed shut, performing complex calculations.
*Mu Qingxue's response time: 0.2 seconds. Her kinetic output: approximately 80,000 pounds of force per square inch. Her killing intent: unrestrained and highly toxic to standard Qi.* He analyzed her strike against Wang Teng over and over. It was a masterpiece of Golden Core violence. But what interested Li Xuan more was the political implication. She hadn't just punched a young master; she had punched a hole squarely into the Third Prince's pride.
*She protected me,* Li Xuan reasoned, the cart hitting a pothole. *But not out of affection. Out of territorial dominance. She views me as her humiliating property, and she won't let others break her toys. This is good. A territorial Asura is a predictable Asura. She will serve as an excellent meat-shield.*
The procession finally arrived at the Ninth Prince's estate.
Eunuch Gao, the corrupt and lazy steward, stood at the gates with a handful of sleepy maids and ill-equipped guards. He had prepared a half-hearted welcoming speech.
Then, the Blood Vanguard rounded the corner.
Three thousand heavily armored, blood-soaked veterans marched in perfect, silent unison. At their head was Mu Qingxue on her massive Frost-Lion, her halberd resting casually over her shoulder, the faint metallic tang of Wang Teng's blood still lingering in the air.
Eunuch Gao's speech died in his throat. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the dirt, instantly kowtowing so hard his forehead bled. The lazy estate guards threw their weapons down and dropped to the ground, shivering uncontrollably under the Vanguard's suffocating killing intent.
Mu Qingxue didn't even look at them. She spurred her Frost-Lion past the gates, stepping over Eunuch Gao's trembling body.
"Vice-General Lin," she commanded, her voice ringing out like a frozen bell.
A tall, heavily scarred man with an eyepatch and a massive broadsword stepped forward from the vanguard. "General!"
"This estate's security is a joke. A blind beggar could assassinate someone here," Mu Qingxue stated coldly, her eyes sweeping over the dilapidated walls and the trembling royal guards. "Relieve these useless sycophants of their duty. The Blood Vanguard will take over all perimeter patrols, internal checkpoints, and food screening. No one enters or leaves without my seal. Anyone who disobeys, kill them first and report it later."
"Yes, General!" Lin Jian roared. He turned to his men. "You heard the Asura! Secure the perimeter! Kick these palace dogs out into the streets!"
Inside the cart, still pretending to be unconscious, Li Xuan nearly wept tears of joy.
*Yes! Yes! Take over!* he cheered internally. He had spent years knowing his staff was comprised of spies from his brothers, but he hadn't dared to fire them for fear of looking competent. Now, his terrifying wife was doing his dirty work for him. By the end of the hour, every spy, assassin, and informant planted in his estate would be violently ejected. He was getting elite, hardcore military security for absolutely free!
"Bring the prince inside," Mu Qingxue ordered, dismounting her beast. "Put him in the main hall. And throw a bucket of cold water on him. I know he is faking it."
Li Xuan's heart skipped a beat. *She knows?*
He quickly analyzed his physiological state. His heart rate was perfectly slow, his breathing shallow. It was a flawless fake faint.
*Ah,* he realized. *She doesn't 'know' magically. She just assumes that a prince who survives in the palace must have some base level of cunning, or she simply despises my cowardice so much she wants to throw water on me. I must not break character.*
Two burly Vanguard soldiers grabbed Li Xuan by the armpits, dragged him into the main hall, and unceremoniously dropped him onto the cold stone floor. A moment later, a bucket of freezing well water splashed directly onto his face.
Li Xuan sputtered, flailing his limbs wildly and letting out a garbled, high-pitched scream. "Aaaah! D-don't kill me! I yield! I give you all my allowance!"
He scrambled backward until his back hit a wooden pillar. He blinked the water from his eyes, looking up with a perfectly crafted expression of pure, unadulterated terror.
Mu Qingxue sat on the main host's chair, her halberd resting beside her. She had removed her helmet, revealing features so perfect they seemed carved from glacial ice. Her dark eyes bored into his, utterly devoid of warmth.
Vice-General Lin stood beside her, sneering openly at the prince. "Look at him, General. Like a drowned rat. It is a crime against the Heavens that you are to marry this... this thing."
"Enough, Lin," Mu Qingxue said softly, though the authority in her voice brooked no argument. Lin immediately shut his mouth and bowed.
She stood up and slowly walked toward Li Xuan. Her silver boots clicked against the stone floor. To Li Xuan, every step sounded like the ticking of a doomsday clock.
He huddled into a tighter ball, shivering—both from the cold water and the very real effort it took to suppress his Peak Soul Formation aura in the presence of an aggressive Golden Core cultivator.
Mu Qingxue stopped two feet away from him. She crouched down, bringing her face level with his. She smelled of lotus blossoms, cold iron, and fresh blood.
"Give me your wrist," she ordered.
Li Xuan flinched. "W-why? Are you going to cut my hand off? I didn't mean to faint! I just have a weak heart! The imperial physicians say I can't be startled!"
"Your wrist," she repeated, her eyes narrowing slightly.
Reluctantly, with trembling fingers, Li Xuan extended his pale, thin arm.
Mu Qingxue reached out and grabbed his wrist. Her grip was like a steel vice. Instantly, she injected a thread of her aggressive, freezing Golden Core Qi into his meridians.
*She's checking my foundation,* Li Xuan realized. *She wants to know if I am secretly cultivating, if this cowardice is just a mask for hidden ambition.*
If Mu Qingxue's Qi reached his true dantian, she would discover an ocean of golden power that could casually evaporate her entire army. She would discover a Nascent Soul meditating atop a supreme foundation.
Li Xuan had 0.01 seconds to act.
Using his absolute mastery over his own body, he hastily constructed a 'fake' meridian network in his outer limbs. He took the microscopic, pathetic remnants of his old Body Tempering Qi and shoved them into the pathway of her probing energy. He purposefully tangled his fake energy channels, making them look blocked, muddy, and utterly ruined. He essentially built a physiological trash can for her Qi to inspect.
Mu Qingxue's Qi swept through his arm and hit the roadblock of his fabricated, garbage meridians.
She frowned deeply. She pushed a little harder, and Li Xuan perfectly timed a pained gasp, letting a trickle of blood leak from the corner of his mouth as if her mere touch was injuring his fragile body.
Mu Qingxue immediately retracted her Qi and released his wrist. She pulled a silk handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped her fingers, as if touching him had dirtied them.
"Blocked meridians. A frail constitution. A dantian so small it cannot hold even a breath of ambient spiritual energy," she diagnosed coldly. She looked at him not with anger, but with profound, crushing pity. "You are truly a cripple. The rumors were entirely accurate."
Li Xuan wiped the fake blood from his mouth, looking at the floor in 'shame'. *Yes. I am trash. I am organic waste. Please, never inspect me again.*
"Listen to me carefully, Li Xuan," Mu Qingxue said, her tone shifting from commanding to purely businesslike. "I do not care about the Imperial Edict. I do not care about the Emperor's political games. I am a soldier. My loyalty is to the Northern borders and the survival of humanity against the demon tides."
She pointed a finger at him. "This marriage is a shackle placed upon me to keep my family in check. But since I cannot break the shackle without causing a civil war, I will wear it. You are my husband in name only. We will not share a bed. We will not share a life. You will stay in this estate, out of sight, and out of my way."
Li Xuan nodded furiously, his eyes wide. "Yes! Absolutely! Different rooms! Different courtyards! I-I prefer being alone anyway! I have... I have a rock collection I need to categorize!"
Vice-General Lin snorted in disgust.
Mu Qingxue ignored him. "In exchange for your total compliance and absolute silence, I offer you this: as long as you carry the title of my husband, no one will kill you. My Blood Vanguard will secure your estate. Anyone who wishes to assassinate the Ninth Prince will have to step over my corpse first. Do you accept these terms?"
*Do I accept?* Li Xuan wanted to stand up and kiss her boots. She was offering to be his permanent, heavily armed bodyguard while demanding absolutely nothing in return except that he stay in his room and mind his own business. It was literally his dream scenario. The System had truly blessed him.
"I accept! I swear on the Heavens, General Mu! I will be a ghost! You won't even know I'm here!" Li Xuan babbled, kowtowing enthusiastically.
Mu Qingxue turned away, her cape swishing behind her. "Lin, confine him to the Eastern Courtyard. Set up a Tier-3 defensive array around it. Make sure he doesn't wander out and accidentally get himself killed by a stray arrow. I have to prepare for the court assembly tomorrow."
As the guards hauled him away toward his newly fortified "prison," Li Xuan smiled a genuine, brilliant smile.
*A Tier-3 array to keep me safe? Oh, wife, you are too kind.*
### The Wrath of the Third Prince
While Li Xuan was settling into his perfectly guarded courtyard, a very different scene was unfolding in a hidden, subterranean chamber beneath the Marquis of Iron's estate.
The chamber was lit by ghastly green spirit-flames. At the center lay a bed of thousand-year-old healing ice. Upon it lay Wang Teng, the young master who had insulted Mu Qingxue.
He was alive, barely. His chest was wrapped in bandages soaked in Tier-5 healing elixirs, but his face was a mask of deathly pallor. His dantian was completely shattered; the Golden Core within him had been reduced to dust. He was a mortal now, destined to live a short, agonizing life.
Beside the bed knelt the Marquis of Iron himself, a Mid-Stage Nascent Soul expert, weeping tears of blood.
Standing above them both was a young man clad in luxurious purple robes embroidered with four-clawed dragons. He held a folding fan made of crane feathers. His face was handsome, but his eyes were like twin vipers.
This was Li Mingze, the Third Prince of the Great Qian Dynasty.
"Your Highness," the Marquis choked out, slamming his forehead against the stone floor. "You must avenge my son! That northern bitch ruined him! She destroyed the future of my House!"
Li Mingze snapped his fan shut, his expression dark. "Quiet, Marquis. Your son was a fool. I told him to test her temper, to provoke her into drawing her weapon so the Censors could cite her for military aggression in the capital. I did not tell him to walk into striking distance of a Peak Golden Core Asura and offer his stomach!"
"But... but the humiliation!"
"The humiliation is mine," Li Mingze hissed, his aura flaring, causing the green flames to flicker wildly. "Mu Qingxue struck my man in broad daylight. She is declaring that she will not be cowed by the capital's politics. If I do not respond, the other factions will think I fear her."
The Third Prince began to pace the chamber. "I cannot attack her directly. My Imperial Father is watching closely. If I send an assassin against the Crimson General, it is treason. Furthermore, she is too strong. Normal assassins would merely feed her halberd."
He stopped, a cold, vicious smile spreading across his lips.
"But her new pet... the Trash Prince." Li Mingze chuckled softly. "Mu Qingxue just publicly declared him her property. She set up her Vanguard to guard his estate. What do you think will happen to her reputation, her terrifying aura of invincibility, if her husband's throat is slit on her very first night in his home?"
The Marquis of Iron looked up, his eyes gleaming with malicious realization. "It would humiliate her beyond measure. The court would mock her for failing to protect even a crippled boy. It would prove the North is vulnerable."
"Exactly," Li Mingze said smoothly. "If Li Xuan dies, the marriage edict is voided. The Emperor's plan falls apart. Mu Qingxue will be forced to return to the North in disgrace, and I will have removed a potential variable from the board."
"But Your Highness," the Marquis cautioned. "The Blood Vanguard is elite. They have locked down the Ninth Prince's estate. And Mu Qingxue herself is residing there. Ordinary assassins will not breach their perimeter."
Li Mingze reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a black, jade token carved with a screaming skull. The ambient temperature in the room plummeted.
"I will not send an ordinary assassin," Li Mingze whispered. "I will hire the Shadow Pavilion. I will request *Ghost-Blade Ye*."
The Marquis gasped in genuine horror. "Ghost-Blade Ye? But he is a Peak Golden Core supreme assassin! He is known for assassinating Early Nascent Soul sect elders! Sending him to kill the Ninth Prince is like using a dragon-slaying ballista to shoot a mosquito!"
"I am not paying for the kill. I am paying for the message," Li Mingze sneered. "Ghost-Blade Ye possesses the 'Void-Walker Cloak'. He can bypass any Tier-4 array or below, and his presence is undetectable to anyone below the Nascent Soul realm. Mu Qingxue is only Golden Core. She will not sense him until Li Xuan's head rolls across the floor."
The Third Prince handed the black token to his shadow-guard.
"Tell Ye the contract is active tonight. Bring me the Ninth Prince's head before dawn."
### The Shadow in the Night
It was 2:00 AM.
The Imperial Capital was quiet, slumbering under a blanket of dark clouds that obscured the twin moons.
The Ninth Prince's estate, however, was a fortress of vigilance. Torches burned bright along the perimeter. Pairs of heavily armored Blood Vanguard soldiers patrolled the walls every five minutes. The air hummed slightly with the activation of a Tier-3 defensive array that covered the compound in an invisible dome of repelling Qi.
On the roof of a nearby tavern, a shadow detached itself from a chimney.
Ghost-Blade Ye was a professional. He wore pitch-black, skin-tight leather woven from the scales of a Dark-Sea Serpent. Around his shoulders was the Void-Walker Cloak, an artifact that continuously bent light and spiritual energy around him, rendering him effectively invisible to the naked eye and lower-tier divine senses.
He stared at the fortified estate through the eye-slits of his mask.
*Pathetic,* Ye thought with immense arrogance. *The Blood Vanguard is good for war, but against a master of the shadows, they are blind deaf-mutes. And a Tier-3 array? Child's play.*
He checked his twin daggers, coated in a colorless, odorless venom that could melt a Golden Core cultivator's heart in three seconds. To use this venom on a mortal like the Ninth Prince was insulting, but the Third Prince paid handsomely for guaranteed results.
Ye activated his cloak. His body shimmered and faded from reality. He stepped off the roof, floating silently over the street, and phased right through the barrier of the Tier-3 array as if it were made of thin mist.
He landed softly on the roof of the Eastern Courtyard.
Below him, he could hear the rhythmic breathing of the Vanguard guards outside the bedroom door. He could also sense Mu Qingxue's terrifying, fiery aura meditating in the Western Courtyard, completely oblivious to his presence.
*The great God of War,* Ye mocked internally. *You cannot save your husband tonight.*
Ye slipped through a slightly ajar window, completely bypassing the door guards. He landed silently on the wooden floor of the Ninth Prince's bedchamber.
The room was dark, save for the faint moonlight filtering through the lattices. He saw the large canopy bed in the center of the room. A lumpy shape was visible beneath the heavy silk blankets.
Ye drew his dagger. He did not rush. He enjoyed the kill. He approached the bed with the silent, fluid grace of a predatory cat.
He stood over the sleeping form. *Sleep well, Trash Prince. Your death is my payday.*
He raised the venomous dagger high and plunged it straight down, aiming perfectly for where the heart should be.
*Thwump.*
The blade pierced the blankets, sinking deep.
But there was no blood. There was no scream. The resistance felt... wrong. It didn't feel like flesh; it felt like he had just stabbed a pile of tightly packed goose feathers.
Ye's eyes widened in shock beneath his mask. He instantly ripped the blanket back.
Lying in the bed, arranged to look vaguely human-shaped, were three plump pillows and a rolled-up blanket.
*A decoy?* Ye's mind reeled. *Impossible! How could this useless coward know I was coming?* Before Ye could process this failure, a voice spoke.
It did not come from the door. It did not come from behind him. It seemed to echo directly inside his skull, calm, analytical, and utterly devoid of fear.
"Your entry was sloppy. You stepped perfectly between the first and second spider-silk tripwires, but your cloak's ambient Qi disrupted the dust layer on the window sill. Furthermore, your Void-Walker cloak only bends light and standard Qi. It does not mask the thermal signature of your body heat, nor does it hide the karmic thread of your killing intent."
Ye spun around wildly, his daggers raised, his Peak Golden Core aura flaring violently as he prepared to fight for his life. "Who's there?! Show yourself!"
He swept his divine sense across the room. Nothing. The room was entirely empty.
"Show myself?" the voice chuckled softly. "I am standing right in front of you."
Ye froze. He stared at the empty space between him and the window. There was nothing there. Just air.
High above, utilizing the absolute mastery of the **Phantom Void Concealment** technique he had stolen from the Imperial Library, Li Xuan stood completely suspended in mid-air, a mere three feet away from the assassin's face.
To Li Xuan's Peak Soul Formation senses, Ghost-Blade Ye's 'stealth' was like a man wearing a neon sign in a pitch-black cave. The gap between Peak Golden Core and Peak Soul Formation was not a gulf; it was a universe. Li Xuan could see the blood pumping in Ye's veins, map the chaotic flow of his Qi, and read the sheer panic radiating from his soul.
"You are an assassin," Li Xuan's disembodied voice continued, cold and mechanical. "Which means someone sent you. The Third Prince, I presume? He is the only one arrogant enough to strike so soon after today's incident."
"I am Ghost-Blade Ye!" the assassin roared, panic finally breaking his discipline. He slashed his daggers wildly in the air, sending blades of toxic Qi flying in every direction. They crashed into the walls, melting the wood. "I fear no ghosts! Die!"
The noise was deafening. Li Xuan frowned.
*Ah. He is making a mess. If he breaks the walls, the Vanguard will hear. If they come in, they will see an empty room and a dead assassin. That raises too many questions. I must clean this up instantly.*
"Rule number three," Li Xuan whispered, entirely dropping his cowardly persona. "If forced to fight, fight enemies at least two major realms below you. You are Golden Core. I am Soul Formation. You meet the criteria."
Ye suddenly felt it.
It wasn't a physical strike. It was a complete, localized collapse of the world's laws.
The space around the assassin suddenly solidified, turning harder than divine iron. Ye found himself entirely paralyzed mid-swing. He couldn't move his arms. He couldn't blink his eyes. The ambient spiritual energy in the room, which he relied on to breathe, was forcefully expelled.
A pressure so vast, so ancient, and so utterly terrifying descended upon Ye's soul that his Peak Golden Core instantly cracked in half out of sheer terror.
*S-Soul Formation?!* Ye's mind screamed, his sanity shattering. *A Soul Formation ancestor?! Here?! Protecting the Trash Prince?! The intelligence was wrong! The entire empire is wrong!*
"Rule number four," Li Xuan's voice was the last thing Ye ever heard. "Obliterate the soul. Leave no trace."
Li Xuan didn't wave his hand. He simply closed his eyes and exerted a microscopic fraction of his will.
*Spatial Compression: Erase.*
Ghost-Blade Ye, the terrifying Peak Golden Core assassin who had murdered sect elders, did not explode. He imploded.
The space around him folded inward upon itself with infinite density. Ye's physical body, his poisonous daggers, his Void-Walker Cloak, and his shattering Golden Core were compressed into a singularity the size of a grain of sand, and then... vanished.
To ensure absolute perfection, Li Xuan manifested a tiny spark of Soul Fire and dragged it across the exact coordinates where Ye had died, burning away the assassin's karmic thread and any lingering spiritual residue.
In the span of two seconds, the room was perfectly quiet again.
Li Xuan dropped his Phantom Void Concealment and landed softly on the floor. He was wearing his absurd, bulky Black Tortoise armor over his pajamas.
He looked at the small puddles of venom Ye had accidentally slashed onto the walls. He sighed.
He spent the next twenty minutes carefully using a damp cloth and mild cleaning Qi to wipe down the walls, ensuring the room looked completely undisturbed. He then remade his bed, carefully arranging the pillows back into a decoy lump.
With a satisfied nod, Li Xuan slid open the hidden floorboard compartment.
"Another crisis averted," he mumbled to himself as he crawled into the dark, soundproof hole and pulled the Qi-concealing blanket over his head. "Assassins these days have no work ethic. Stepping on my tripwires? Embarrassing. I'll have to complain to the Third Prince if I ever see him."
### The Morning After
The sun rose again over the capital.
In the Western Courtyard, Mu Qingxue opened her eyes. She had cultivated throughout the entire night. Her Golden Core was pulsing powerfully, inches away from the Nascent Soul breakthrough.
She stood up, her armor clinking softly. She felt a brief moment of satisfaction. The night had been entirely peaceful. Her Vanguard had maintained perfect discipline. No one had dared to approach the estate. Her reputation alone had kept the capital's rats at bay.
She walked out into the central courtyard. Vice-General Lin approached, bowing deeply.
"General. The night was secure. No movements detected. The perimeter is absolute."
Mu Qingxue nodded. "Good. And the prince?"
Lin sneered. "Still locked in his room, General. The guards reported he didn't make a single sound all night. He probably wet his bed and is too ashamed to come out."
"Let him rot there," Mu Qingxue said indifferently. "As long as he is breathing, my duty is fulfilled. Prepare my horse. I must attend the Imperial Court and face the Emperor."
As the fearsome Crimson General rode out of the estate, ready to do political battle with the most powerful men in the empire, deep within the Eastern Courtyard, Li Xuan was happily eating a bowl of lotus-seed porridge (tested four times for poison) and reading a book on advanced agricultural techniques.
"A beautiful day," Li Xuan smiled, flipping a page. "I wonder what kind of cabbages grow best in the north?"
Outside his window, the invisible ashes of Ghost-Blade Ye blew harmlessly away in the morning breeze.