Uncle Wu, who was standing behind Rong Tian, felt something change. The hair on his body rose. The air inside the room felt different, like the moment before lightning struck, when the sky was still quiet but the body already knew what was coming.Rong Tian released the whip.Han Zhi pulled his hand back quickly and gripped the handle tightly. His instinct screamed at him to step away, but his feet did not move.“Two years,” Rong Tian repeated, his voice lower than before. “You tortured a man who could not see and could not stand for two years, and you think this is something that needs to be justified.”Fen Hua opened her mouth to answer, but her eyes met Rong Tian’s gaze.She stopped.It was not the gaze of an angry young man. It was not the look of someone who merely felt offended. Something deeper lay behind it, something dark, controlled, and already tempered, like a well with no bottom that did not care what fell into it.“You...” Fen Hua unconsciously stepped back. “Who are you

“Do we have a chance to ask that Daoist priest to pray over the remote room in the rear courtyard?” Fen Hua asked while walking through the silent corridor. Her voice was a whisper, as though she feared being heard by something unseen. “Of course,” Han Zhi answered beside her in the same low voice. “I am sure the Rong Tian who appeared this afternoon is a ghost. He must be a resentful ghost.” “He was clearly dead. I heard the cultivators say it myself when they spoke in the vice minister’s room two years ago.” Fen Hua nodded quickly and held Han Zhi’s sleeve more tightly. “No one thrown into the Abyss of Suffering can return with a body that intact.” “Unless he is a ghost,” Han Zhi agreed, his voice nearly sinking into a whisper. “Ghosts do not leave wounds on their bodies.” They were

In another part of the residence, Rong Tian stood atop the roof ridge of the vice minister’s main building, straight as an arrow. His body was wrapped in a long black robe that fluttered in the night wind. The black silk moved like wings waiting for a signal. His sharp eyes scanned the surroundings, catching something unusual in the air that should have been quiet. It was not sound. It was not movement. It was something subtler than both, like a thin thread being pulled from the wrong direction inside the weave of still air. “Demonic aura?” he murmured, his voice low and cautious. “There is a demonic cultivator here?” Rong Tian’s expression changed, and his brows drew together. He felt that this matter was urgent. The aura was not weak. It also did not resemble the leftover energy o

“Daoist priest,” Rong Tian muttered coldly, glancing toward the approaching sound. The timing was poor, and the person arriving was useless for this situation. Dai Duyi reached the end of the corridor with his robe slightly disordered and a talisman still clutched in his left hand. His expression was a mixture of a man trying to look brave and a man deeply regretting that he had accepted two taels of silver earlier. He looked at the corridor, at the cracks in the floor, at the damaged wall, and then slowly took one step back. For some reason, Fen Hua suddenly found courage. It was a courage with no proper reason to exist, but it appeared anyway. Slowly, she opened her eyes. Her gaze immediately met Rong Tian’s cold eyes behind his mask. Without thinking, Fen Hua screamed at the top of her lungs. Her voice shattered the remaining silence and

“Dangerous. Truly dangerous,” Dai Duyi muttered, still supporting himself at the edge of the roof. “Tonight, Pindao must visit the Pure Sky Sect. The arrival of the Bat Demon from the Hadarac Desert must become a concern for the entire city.” He looked toward the direction where Rong Tian had vanished. The night had already swallowed the black figure, but the fear left behind had not disappeared. Below the roof, the servants and guards had gathered in the courtyards. Some carried lanterns, some held sticks, and a few guards had drawn their blades though they clearly did not know where to point them. Fen Hua was still crying from below, repeating that the bat demon had come. No one dared stand too close to her because Han Zhi’s corpse had already been found in the corridor. Dai Duyi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and straightened his robe. The motion made hi