She turned to Jin Hao, her eyes shining with a fabricated vulnerability. "But I must take my leave now. If I am not back in my own bed before the servants wake, there will be questions I cannot answer. Suyu will stay in the outer room to ensure your needs are met."
"You have done more than enough," Jin Hao said, bowing deeply to her. "I... I will repay this debt, Su Lian. I swear it on the heavens."
"Just keep yourselves safe," she whispered, offering one last look before she and her maid slipped silently out of the room, the sliding doors clicking shut behind them.
The room fell quiet, save for Jin Ren's labored breathing.
Jin Hao sank back down beside the bed, the romantic awe replaced by a hard knot of guilt and simmering rage. He looked at the bandages wrapping his father's ruined body.
"Father," Jin Hao murmured, his head bowed. "I am sorry. I am so sorry. They did this to you because of me. Because I took what they owed us."
Jin Ren closed his eyes, a tear leaking from the corner. "You stole from them, Hao'er. I heard the guards talking before... before the torture began. They said the vaults were empty. You brought the wrath of a titan upon our heads for some spirit stones."
"It wasn't just stones!" Jin Hao snapped, his head snapping up. "It was the foundation they denied me! For years, you bowed your head to Bolin, begging for scraps so I could learn to count coins!"
"Because we are weak!" Jin Ren cried out, coughing violently from the exertion. "The world belongs to the strong, Hao'er! The Jin Family has Golden Core experts! What can you, a boy at the Third Layer of Qi Condensation, do against a mountain? You have doomed us both to be hunted forever!"
Jin Hao stared at his father. He saw the genuine fear in the older man's eyes.
An arrogant calmness washed over Jin Hao.
"I am not at the Third Layer, Father," Jin Hao said quietly.
He let go of the mental leash he had kept on his cultivation base.
The air in the room instantly grew heavy. The spiritual pressure of a Late Stage Foundation Establishment cultivator flooded the small chamber, causing the silk curtains to ripple and the wooden floorboards to groan. It was a dense, violent and chaotic aura, born of a hundred different stolen elements, but its raw power was undeniable.
Jin Ren stopped coughing. His eyes bulged, staring at his son as if looking at a stranger. The pressure pressed him down into the mattress, making it hard to breathe, but the shock overrode the discomfort.
"Late Stage..." Jin Ren gasped, his voice barely a squeak. "Foundation Establishment? Hao'er... how? That is... that is the power of a Main Family Elder! How is this possible?"
Jin Hao pulled the aura back in, leaving the room perfectly still once more. He looked down at his hands, watching the faint residue of Qi dance across his knuckles.
"I had a fated encounter," Jin Hao said, the lie tasting like a delicious truth. "The heavens recognized my suffering. They gave me the power to take back my dignity."
He looked back at his father, his eyes burning with an unyielding fire. "I am going to let them exhaust their guards and drain their resources looking for my shadow."
Jin Hao stood up, walking to the window and looking out in the direction of the Jin Estate.
"But when the time is right," he vowed, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "I am going to make Patriarch Bolin kneel in the dirt and apologize to you before I rip his Golden Core from his chest."
[Perspective: Meira Su]
I sat in the center of the room, guiding the deep azure Qi of my newly formed Golden Core through my expanded meridians.
The Azure Dragon's Genesis Scripture felt fundamentally different now. I felt as though I was the ocean.
Yet, despite the tranquility of my cultivation, my mind was focused entirely on the intricate game being played across the city.
Knock.
Knock.
I opened my eyes, exhaling a long breath of white mist. The ambient moisture in the room instantly condensed into frost on the windowspanes.
"Enter, Lan," I called out.
My loyal maid slipped into the room, quickly shutting the door behind her to ensure no listening ears could intrude. She looked tired, having been managing my shadow network all night, but her eyes were bright with urgent intelligence.
"Young Miss," Lan said, bowing low. "The report from the Shadow Watcher assigned to the Second Miss."
I remained perfectly still, though my heart gave a vindictive thud. "Tell me."
"Second Miss Su Lian traveled in a plain carriage to the secluded property she purchased under an alias in the artisan district," Lan reported, her voice hushed. "Shortly after, Jin Hao, arrived carrying his severely injured father."
I closed my eyes, a grim satisfaction washing over me.
In my past life, Jin Hao had been a celebrated alchemy genius, fleeing an assassination attempt rather than a robbery. Su Lian had taken him in, playing the saint.
And then, she had instructed her maid to inject Jin Hao's injured father with a slow acting poison. A poison designed to kill him precisely one month later, just as Jin Hao was reaching the peak of his emotional dependency on her.
But the true evil wasn't the murder, it was the framing. Su Lian had masterfully planted forged evidence, a specific type of fire attribute spiritual residue… to make it look like the assassination order had come from Arya Chen.
She had convinced a furious Jin Hao that Arya, jealous of Jin Hao's rising alchemy talent and his closeness to Su Lian, had ordered the hit to silence the father and break the son.
It was that perfectly executed frame up that had pushed Jin Hao over the edge. It was the catalyst that turned a rivalry into a blood feud, culminating in Arya's crippling and death.
She had murdered an innocent old man solely to forge a weapon capable of killing my beloved, ensuring Jin Hao would rely only on her for emotional support.
It was a level of psychotic manipulation that still made my blood run cold.
"Did Suyu administer the poultices?" I asked, my voice deadly quiet.
"She did, Young Miss," Lan nodded. "Our Watcher observed from the ceiling rafters. Suyu applied the healing salves. And... as you predicted, she utilized a concealed glass needle during the acupressure routine."
"The Viper's Kiss," I murmured. "A slow acting poison that eroded the heart valves."
I looked at Lan, a sharp light in my eyes. "And what about the instructions I gave you?"
Lan smiled, a rare expression of ruthless pride. "Executed flawlessly, Young Miss. Before Suyu even left our estate, our operative in the kitchens swapped the vial hidden in her medicinal kit. The fluid she injected was the Blood Boiling Lotus Extract. It accelerates the heart rate until the organ literally bursts."
An icy calm settled over my soul.
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