## Chapter 2: The Migraine of a God and the Pride of the North
Dawn in the Great Yan Dynasty's capital did not arrive with a gentle, romantic painting of light across the sky. It arrived like a heavy brass gong, demanding the city to wake, sweat, and bleed for the Emperor's glory.
For Li Ye, however, dawn arrived with a migraine that felt like a continent had been dropped squarely onto his frontal lobe.
He lay flat on his back in his messy, silk-draped bed, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, his hands gripping the mahogany headboard so tightly his knuckles were white. He was breathing in slow, measured, agonizingly careful gasps.
*Too loud,* his mind screamed. *Everything is too loud.*
Before last night, his senses had been sharp—honed by decades of espionage, survival, and a decent Foundation Establishment cultivation. He could hear a footstep outside his door; he could smell the faint trace of poison in a cup of tea.
Now? He was at the Void Amalgamation realm. The System had seamlessly upgraded his body, his soul, and his spiritual roots, ensuring his survival by matching him against his terrifying new fiancée, Lin Xuan. But the System had apparently neglected to provide a user manual for how to handle the sheer, unfiltered data of the universe crashing into a mortal brain.
He could hear the heartbeat of a stray cat prowling three streets away. He could hear the sap moving sluggishly through the ancient willow tree in his courtyard. Far worse, he could feel the microscopic friction of dust motes rubbing against his silk blankets. The very fabric of space felt like a tangible, heavy blanket pressing down on his skin. He could sense the erratic, chaotic flow of spiritual energy in the air—a swirling soup of five-element Qi that looked, to his closed eyes, like a blinding neon lightshow.
*Focus,* he commanded himself, utilizing an extreme psychological grounding technique he had learned in an interrogation resistance camp back on Earth. *Box breathing. Inhale for four. Hold for four. Exhale for four. Build the wall.*
He imagined a thick, lead-lined bunker descending over his senses. He consciously gathered the terrifying, ocean-like reserves of Void Qi within his dantian and forced it to act as a dampener, suppressing his own divine sense.
Slowly, agonizingly, the roar of the universe faded back into the mundane sounds of the city morning. The blinding neon storm behind his eyelids vanished. The migraine receded to a dull, persistent throb at the base of his skull.
Li Ye opened his eyes and exhaled a long, ragged breath.
"I am a god," he muttered to the empty ceiling, his voice raspy. "And I feel like I just got hit by a freight train."
He slowly sat up, testing his limbs. He felt... weirdly light. There was no stiffness in his joints, no lingering fatigue from his late-night activities. His body felt entirely frictionless, humming with a terrifying vitality that made him want to casually punch a hole through the sky just to see what would happen.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and reached for a porcelain washbasin resting on a small wooden stand nearby.
His fingers brushed the rim.
*Crack.*
The entire basin, along with the solid oak stand beneath it, instantly dissolved into a pile of fine white powder and wood dust. The water within the basin didn't splash; it simply hung in the air for a fraction of a second, suspended by the latent gravity-bending aura he was unconsciously projecting, before collapsing into a puddle on the floor.
Li Ye stared at the powdery mess.
"Right," he sighed, dragging a hand down his face. "Finesse. I need to re-learn how to hold a cup without turning it into subatomic particles. The System gave me the hardware, but my software is still operating on mortal physics."
He spent the next hour in absolute, terrifying concentration, just practicing how to touch things. He picked up pillows, books, and jade ornaments, consciously dialing back the passive force of his newly forged body to zero. It was exhausting. It felt like trying to perform open-heart surgery while piloting a bulldozer.
By the time a timid knock sounded at his chamber door, his back was soaked in cold sweat, but he could successfully hold a teacup without disintegrating it.
"Enter," Li Ye called out, instantly slumping his shoulders, allowing a dull, hungover glaze to settle over his sharp eyes. The mask was back on.
The heavy wooden doors creaked open, and a young maid scurried in, carrying a tray of hot water, a steaming bowl of millet congee, and pickled vegetables. Her name was Xiao Nuan—Little Warmth. She was no older than fourteen, small for her age, with a pale face and eyes that perpetually darted around like a frightened rabbit.
"Y-Your Highness," Xiao Nuan stammered, dropping to her knees so fast they hit the floorboards with a painful thud. She kept her head bowed, raising the tray above her head with trembling arms. "This servant has brought your morning meal and washing water."
Li Ye looked at her. With his new Void Amalgamation senses, even suppressed, he saw far more than a frightened girl. He saw the erratic, sluggish flow of Qi through her weak, malnourished meridians. He saw the dark, icy blockages near her knees and lower back—the undeniable symptoms of Yin-Cold Poison, likely contracted from spending grueling hours scrubbing the prince's laundry in the freezing imperial rivers during mid-winter.
If left untreated, within five years, she would be paralyzed from the waist down. In the imperial palace, a paralyzed servant was a dead servant. Tossed into the mass graves outside the city walls.
A cold, familiar pragmatism rose in Li Ye's mind. *She is a tool. Replaceable. Do not break character.* In his past life, attachments were liabilities. A spy who cared for the collateral damage didn't live long enough to retire.
Yet, as he watched her arms tremble under the weight of the tray, a strange, utterly human weariness washed over him. He was tired of the absolute ruthlessness. He was tired of playing the monster in a palace full of monsters. What was the point of possessing the power to split mountains if he couldn't even fix a teenage girl's knees without having an existential crisis about his cover identity?
"Get up, Nuan," Li Ye said, his voice laced with the heavy, irritated rasp of a man suffering a terrible hangover. He rubbed his temples exaggeratedly. "Stop hitting the floor like that, the noise is splitting my head open. Put the tray on the table."
"Yes, Your Highness! Forgive this servant!" she squeaked, scrambling to her feet. But as she did, her icy knees buckled.
She pitched forward, a cry escaping her lips as the tray tipped. The scalding hot congee launched into the air, heading straight for Li Ye's silk robes.
In a fraction of a millisecond, Li Ye's mind processed the trajectory of every single grain of rice and drop of boiling water. To him, the world seemed to freeze. He could have casually stepped aside. He could have used a pulse of Qi to vaporize the liquid.
Instead, he let time resume and threw himself backward with a theatrical, clumsy yelp, allowing the bowl to shatter against his chest, splashing hot—but entirely harmless to his new body—congee all over his robes.
"Ah! Burning! Heavens, you clumsy idiot!" Li Ye yelled, flailing his arms as he scrambled off the bed.
Xiao Nuan collapsed onto the floor, her face ashen, tears instantly spilling from her eyes. She pressed her forehead against the wood, her whole body shaking violently. "Mercy! Your Highness, spare my life! This servant deserves a thousand deaths! Please, I beg you!"
She was hyperventilating, entirely expecting Li Ye to call the guards and have her beaten to death. It was the standard punishment for ruining a royal's morning.
Li Ye stood over her, his chest covered in sticky porridge. He scowled, playing the part of the furious, erratic prince. "Stop crying! You're giving me a worse headache than the wine did!"
He grabbed a towel from the stand and roughly wiped at his chest. Then, he stepped forward and practically kicked her shoulder—not hard, just enough to jostle her. But as the tip of his silken slipper made contact with her shoulder, he channeled a microscopic, infinitesimally small fraction of pure, Yang-attribute Void Qi into her body.
It was a surgical strike of spiritual energy. The Qi shot down her meridians like liquid fire, seeking out the Yin-Cold Poison in her knees and lower back, and instantly incinerating it without damaging a single blood vessel.
"Get out of my sight and fetch me a clean robe," Li Ye snapped, throwing the soiled towel onto the floor. "And if you spill the tea, I'll have you scrubbing the stables for a month! Go!"
Xiao Nuan scrambled backward, bowing furiously. "Thank you, Your Highness! Thank you for your mercy!"
She practically sprinted out of the room. As she ran down the hallway, she realized something strange. Her legs... didn't hurt. The persistent, gnawing ache in her bones that had plagued her every morning for three years was completely gone. In fact, her whole body felt incredibly warm and light.
Back in his chamber, Li Ye sighed, looking at the mess on the floor.
*Sloppy,* his inner spy criticized. *You risked exposing an unnatural Qi signature to cure a servant.*
*Shut up,* his human side replied. *It felt good.* He went to the basin—the new one Xiao Nuan had brought—and washed his face. As he stared at his reflection in the copper mirror, the heavy wooden doors of his courtyard crashed open.
"Ninth Brother! Are you awake?" a loud, melodic voice called out, accompanied by the sound of numerous footsteps.
Li Ye's eyes narrowed instantly. The chill of the void returned to his gaze for a split second before being replaced by bleary-eyed annoyance.
It was the Third Prince, Li Tian. The Smiling Tiger of the Great Yan Dynasty.
Li Tian strolled into Li Ye's bedchamber uninvited, waving away the panicked servants trying to announce him. He was dressed in immaculate robes of pale blue silk embroidered with silver clouds, looking every bit the immortal descended to the mortal realm. His face was impossibly handsome, his smile warm and brotherly, but his eyes were calculating, missing nothing.
Behind him stood two silent guards, their auras restrained but undeniably sharp—both late Core Formation experts.
"Third Brother," Li Ye groaned, leaning heavily against the washstand and holding his head. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this intrusion? Have you brought me a cure for a thousand-year wine hangover?"
"Ninth Brother, you look terrible," Li Tian laughed gently, walking over and inspecting the shattered bowl and spilled congee on the floor. "Taking out your frustrations on the servants? Tsk, tsk. It seems the Imperial Father's decree last night has truly unsettled you."
Li Ye let out a pathetic whimper, stumbling over to a chair and collapsing into it. "Unsettled? Brother, I am a dead man! Have you seen the reports from the North? They say Lin Xuan drinks the blood of barbarian warlords for breakfast! They say she's eight feet tall and has arms thicker than my waist! If I marry her, she will accidentally crush me to death in my sleep!"
Li Tian chuckled, a sound like silver bells, and took a seat opposite Li Ye. He poured himself a cup of tea from a pristine pot on the table, moving with elegant grace.
"Now, now, Little Ninth. You exaggerate. General Lin's daughter is said to be quite beautiful, if a bit... wild," Li Tian said soothingly. "But I understand your fear. The Northern army is brutal, and Lin Xuan is a martial fanatic. For someone of your... delicate constitution, surviving her temper will be difficult."
Li Ye buried his face in his hands, perfectly faking a tremor of genuine terror. "What do I do, Third Brother? I can't fight her! I can't even fight a stray dog! Imperial Father has sentenced me to death just to appease the Lin family!"
Li Tian's smile didn't waver, but a glint of predatory satisfaction flashed in his eyes. This was exactly what he wanted to see. A broken, terrified pawn.
"It is a difficult situation," Li Tian murmured, leaning forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "The Imperial Father's mind is unfathomable. But... we are brothers, are we not? I cannot stand by and watch my own flesh and blood be bullied by a provincial general's daughter."
Li Tian reached into his sleeve and produced a small, exquisitely carved wooden box. He placed it gently on the table and slid it across to Li Ye.
"What is this?" Li Ye asked, looking at the box as if it were a venomous snake.
"A lifeline," Li Tian smiled. "Inside is a pill formulated by the royal alchemists. It is completely odorless and tasteless. It is called the 'Soft Bone Scatter'. If you manage to slip a microscopic amount into Lin Xuan's tea or wine once a week, it will not harm her life or her cultivation realm. But it will severely cripple her physical strength and disrupt her Qi flow during combat."
Li Ye stared at the box. His mind raced, analyzing the political angle. *Li Tian wants to weaken Lin Xuan. If she is poisoned and weak, the Lin family's military prowess is compromised. If it's discovered, I take the fall as the jealous, terrified husband. Li Tian keeps his hands completely clean while removing a massive piece from the board.*
It was a brilliant, vicious strategy.
Li Ye looked up, his eyes wide with a mixture of hope and terror. "Brother... you... you would give this to me? But if she finds out..."
"She won't, if you are careful," Li Tian reassured him, patting Li Ye's shoulder. "And if anything goes wrong, you have my protection. You only need to report to me on her movements and the letters she receives from her father. In exchange, I ensure she never has the strength to lift a finger against you. A fair trade for your life, wouldn't you agree?"
Li Ye grabbed the box with trembling hands, clutching it to his chest like a drowning man holding a piece of driftwood. "Thank you, Third Brother! You are my savior! I swear, I will do whatever you ask! I will watch her every move!"
Li Tian stood up, immensely satisfied. He had successfully planted a spy in the heart of the Lin family's new alliance, and it had cost him nothing but a minor pill and a few kind words to an idiot.
"Rest well, Ninth Brother. The wedding preparations will be taxing. I shall see you at court."
With a swirl of pale blue silk, the Third Prince departed, his guards following like shadows.
The moment the heavy courtyard doors clicked shut, the pathetic, terrified expression on Li Ye's face vanished entirely. He sat in his chair, his posture perfectly straight, his eyes cold and distant.
He looked at the wooden box in his hand. Without a change in expression, he applied a fraction of an ounce of pressure with his thumb. The box, and the high-grade poison pill inside, silently turned to a puff of gray ash that drifted onto the floor, joining the remnants of the washbasin.
*A spy in my own home,* Li Ye thought, a humorless smirk touching his lips. *Li Tian, you are playing checkers while I am not even on the board anymore.*
He stood up, the weariness returning. The acting was exhausting. In his previous life, as 'Zero', he at least had a handler who gave him straightforward missions: *Infiltrate this compound, kill this target, extract the data.* Here, every conversation was a battlefield of lies, every smile a hidden dagger.
"Sometimes," Li Ye muttered to himself, walking toward his hidden study, "I really wish I could just punch them in the face."
But he couldn't. Not yet. He was Void Amalgamation now, yes, but revealing that meant fighting the Emperor, surviving the retaliation of the hidden royal ancestors, and becoming a target for the rest of the world.
He descended the hidden stairs into his underground base. The cool, runic-lit air was a welcome comfort.
He bypassed his subordinates, who bowed deeply as he passed, and entered his private sanctum. He sat in the lotus position on a jade mat.
"System," he called out mentally. "Status."
**[Host: Li Ye]**
**[Cultivation: Early Void Amalgamation]**
**[Dao Companion (Engaged): Lin Xuan (Early Nascent Soul)]**
**[System Status: AFK Mode Active. Continuously monitoring Dao Companion's progress.]**
Li Ye closed his eyes. The System tied his fate to Lin Xuan. If he wanted to reach Dao Integration and truly become unkillable in this world, she needed to work hard.
"Let's see what my fierce little wife is up to," he murmured.
Thousands of miles to the north, the world was a canvas of brutal, unforgiving white and gray. The wind howled like wounded demons across the tundra, carrying biting snow that felt like crushed glass against exposed skin.
Here stood the Black Iron Fortress, the impregnable shield of the Great Yan Dynasty, holding back the endless hordes of the Northern Barbarian tribes.
Within the high tower of the fortress, the air was thick with the smell of burning charcoal and stale blood.
Lin Xuan stood by a narrow, slit-like window, looking out over the desolate landscape. She was not the eight-foot-tall monster Li Ye had described. She was tall, yes, with a lithe, powerful build coiled with explosive muscle, hidden beneath heavy silver armor scarred by countless battles. Her hair was tied back in a strict, utilitarian braid. Her face was strikingly beautiful, but it was a cold, sharp beauty—like a perfectly forged blade. There was no softness in her dark eyes, only the weary, unyielding resolve of a veteran commander.
In her hand, she held the Imperial Decree, its golden silk mocking the stark reality of the room.
Behind her, sitting at a map-covered war table, was General Lin Kuang. He was a mountain of a man, his beard graying, his face heavily lined with the burden of command. He looked at his daughter, his eyes filled with a helpless, burning rage.
"He insults us," Lin Kuang rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. "The Emperor fears the loyalty of my army, so he chains my only daughter to the royal family's greatest joke. A drunken, useless lecher who cannot even sense Qi. He wishes to make you a laughingstock, Xuan'er. He wishes to break your spirit."
Lin Xuan's grip on the golden scroll tightened, the fabric groaning under her immense Nascent Soul physical strength. She wanted to tear it to pieces. She wanted to march her vanguard south and demand answers from the Emperor's throne.
But she couldn't.
"He wants us to rebel, Father," Lin Xuan said, her voice eerily calm, a stark contrast to the storm in her eyes. "If we reject the decree, it is treason. He will use it as an excuse to purge our commanders and replace them with his own lackeys. The Northern border would fall to the barbarians within a month. Millions of innocents would be slaughtered."
She turned from the window, tossing the decree onto the table.
"I am a soldier of Yan," she stated, her posture ramrod straight. "My life belongs to the North. If the Emperor wishes to sheathe me in the mud of the capital, so be it. I will marry the Ninth Prince."
Lin Kuang stood up, his massive hands trembling. "Xuan'er... you are a genius of cultivation. You are a Nascent Soul at eighteen. You are destined for the heavens! Being tied to that trash... it will ruin your Dao heart!"
"My Dao heart is forged in blood and ice, Father. It will not be broken by a silk-pants prince," Lin Xuan replied, her tone leaving no room for argument. "I will marry him to secure our family's safety. But I will not be his wife. He will live in his quarters, and I will live in mine. If he tries to touch me, or interferes with my cultivation..."
Her eyes flashed with a chilling killing intent. "...I will cripple him so thoroughly not even the royal alchemists will be able to put him back together."
A heavy silence fell over the command room. Lin Kuang sighed, a sound of profound defeat, and sank back into his chair.
Before he could speak, the heavy oak doors of the room burst open.
A lieutenant, covered in snow and panting heavily, dropped to one knee. "General! Commander! A massive caravan has just arrived at the southern gates. They bypassed all our outer patrols!"
Lin Xuan frowned, her hand instantly going to the hilt of the greatsword strapped to her back. "Who are they? Spies from the capital?"
"No, Commander! They fly the flag of the Golden Scales Chamber of Commerce!" The lieutenant swallowed hard, looking bewildered. "They... they brought supplies. Mountains of it. Millions of catties of spirit-infused grain, thousands of sets of winter armor, and..."
The lieutenant hesitated, looking as if he couldn't believe his own report.
"...and three heavily guarded wagons containing fifty thousand high-grade spirit stones, and a thousand bottles of Heaven-tier Bodily Refinement Pills."
Lin Kuang bolted out of his chair, knocking his map table over. "Fifty thousand high-grade spirit stones?! Heaven-tier pills?! Are you mad? The imperial treasury doesn't even send us a tenth of that in a decade!"
Lin Xuan was already moving, striding out of the command room and down the winding stone stairs of the fortress. Her mind raced. The Golden Scales Chamber of Commerce was a legendary, shadowy organization that controlled the southern economy. They were entirely neutral. They never involved themselves in military or political affairs.
Why would they send a fortune to the freezing North?
She reached the courtyard just as the massive, heavy-duty wagons were being pulled in by armored spirit-beasts. The sheer concentration of spiritual energy radiating from the sealed crates was making the snowflakes around them melt into glowing steam.
A plump man bundled in thick furs stepped forward from the lead wagon. He bowed deeply toward Lin Xuan.
"Commander Lin," the merchant said respectfully. "I represent the Master of the Golden Scales. We bring gifts to the brave defenders of the North."
"Gifts?" Lin Xuan's eyes narrowed, her Nascent Soul aura pressing down on the merchant, searching for deceit. "In this world, nothing is free. What does your Master want? Smuggling routes? Tax exemptions?"
The merchant sweated under the pressure but maintained his bow. "Nothing of the sort, Commander. My Master asked for nothing in return. He only asked that I deliver this letter to you personally."
He pulled a sealed envelope from his robes and offered it with both hands.
Lin Xuan took it cautiously. She checked for hidden arrays, poison, or curses. Finding none, she broke the wax seal—a simple insignia of a golden scale—and unfolded the heavy parchment.
The handwriting was elegant, forceful, and carried an undeniable, profound confidence.
It read:
*To the Female God of War,*
*The capital plays its games of silk and poison, forgetting that it is the steel of the North that allows them to sleep soundly. I care nothing for the Emperor's decrees or the petty squabbles of princes.*
*I admire those who seek the peak of martial prowess. The path of cultivation is lonely, and the burdens you carry are heavy. Consider these resources an investment in a fellow seeker of the Dao. The stronger your blade, the safer the realm.*
*Cultivate hard, Lin Xuan. Do not let the mud of the capital dull your edge.*
*— A Silent Observer of the Peak.*
Lin Xuan stared at the letter. She read it once, twice, three times.
For the first time in months, the heavy, suffocating knot of anger and despair in her chest loosened slightly. Since the decree, she had felt entirely isolated, surrounded by political enemies and an indifferent Emperor who viewed her as a rabid dog to be leashed.
But this letter... this anonymous benefactor... they saw her. They didn't see a political pawn or a terrifying monster. They saw a cultivator. A warrior. They respected her path.
"Who is your Master?" Lin Xuan asked, her voice softer than before, though still commanding.
"I do not know, Commander," the merchant answered honestly. "He operates in the shadows. But he was very clear. These resources are for your personal army and your own cultivation."
Lin Xuan looked at the wagons. Fifty thousand high-grade stones. Heaven-tier pills. With these, she could completely re-equip her vanguard. More importantly, she could push her own cultivation toward the mid-Nascent Soul realm much faster than she ever hoped.
She carefully folded the letter and placed it inside her armor, right over her heart.
*A Silent Observer,* she thought, a fierce, determined fire igniting in her dark eyes. *Whoever you are... I will not disappoint you. I will use this wealth to forge myself into a weapon no one can control. Not the Emperor, and certainly not that useless Ninth Prince.*
She turned to her lieutenant. "Unload the wagons. Distribute the armor to the vanguard immediately. And prepare my isolation chamber. I am entering closed-door cultivation for the next two weeks before I depart for the capital. If I am to marry a pig, I will at least make sure I am strong enough to slaughter the entire pen if I have to."
Back in the capital, the evening lanterns had begun to glow, casting warm, orange light over the bustling streets.
Far from the opulent inner city, in a narrow, smoky alleyway known for its cheap food and rough crowds, a man sat on a rickety wooden stool, slurping a bowl of impossibly spicy beef noodles.
He wore a simple, unadorned gray robe. A bamboo hat rested on the table next to him.
Li Ye sneezed loudly as the chili oil hit the back of his throat. He wiped his nose with a rough paper napkin and took another massive bite of noodles.
This was his sanctuary. For an hour a week, he wasn't the terrified Ninth Prince, and he wasn't the ruthless Master of the Golden Scales, and he certainly wasn't a Void Amalgamation god. He was just a guy eating a copper-coin bowl of noodles, listening to the mundane chatter of laborers and street sweepers complaining about the price of cabbage.
It was the most human he felt all week.
A plump man, sweating profusely despite the cool evening air, squeezed into the alleyway and sat heavily on the stool across from Li Ye. He wore a cheap disguise, but Li Ye recognized his top merchant, Gold, instantly.
"Master," Gold whispered, looking around nervously as if expecting royal assassins to drop from the rooftops. "The delivery was made. The Northern Vanguard has received the goods."
"Any complications?" Li Ye asked casually, motioning for the vendor to bring another bowl for Gold.
"None. Commander Lin Xuan accepted them. But... Master..." Gold leaned in, his face pale. "It cost us nearly forty percent of our liquid reserves! The Chamber's elders are panicking. They think we are preparing for a war!"
Li Ye chuckled softly, a genuine sound that he rarely allowed himself. He pushed a small dish of pickled radishes toward Gold. "Eat, Gold. You look stressed. You'll give yourself a heart attack."
"Master, how can I eat? We gave a fortune to the North! For nothing! What is the return on investment?" Gold pleaded.
Li Ye slurped the last of his broth, setting the bowl down with a satisfied sigh. He looked up at the narrow strip of starry sky visible between the eaves of the buildings.
*The return on investment?* Li Ye thought, feeling the terrifying, silent ocean of Void Qi swirling flawlessly within his dantian, directly linked to a furious young woman thousands of miles away who was currently plunging herself into intense cultivation.
*The return is that I get to eat these noodles in peace, knowing that my terrifying wife is currently working herself to the bone to make me a literal immortal without me lifting a finger.*
"Money is like water, Gold," Li Ye said aloud, his voice calm and deeply reassuring. It was the voice of a leader who saw the whole chessboard. "If you hoard it in a pond, it grows stagnant and rots. If you let it flow, it carves canyons and moves mountains. Trust me. The investment in the North will yield dividends beyond your wildest imagination."
Gold sighed, rubbing his face. He didn't understand his master. He never did. But he trusted him. "As you say, Master. I will calm the elders."
"Do that. And buy out the remaining stock of Heaven-tier spirit herbs in the eastern provinces," Li Ye added casually, putting on his bamboo hat. "The lady in the North is going to need a constant supply line. Let's make sure she never lacks for anything."
Li Ye stood up, tossing a few copper coins onto the table. He stepped out of the alleyway, merging seamlessly into the evening crowd, just another nameless shadow in the vast machinery of the capital.
He was tired, yes. The politics were exhausting, and the headache of godhood was still a dull ache behind his eyes. But as he walked back toward his dilapidated estate to prepare for his wedding, Li Ye felt a strange, unfamiliar sensation welling up in his chest.
He was actually looking forward to meeting his wife.