Over the next month or so, Chen Zui’s life was far more comfortable than he had expected.
Life at Furnace-Listening Pavilion was orderly, like a pot of old soup simmering over a gentle flame.
Day after day, unhurried and steady, it grew richer and richer as it simmered.
He found a quiet bamboo house in the back mountain to settle down in.
Every morning, facing the mountain mist, he breathed in and out, repeatedly refining his mid-stage Wind-Riding Realm true qi through his meridians, solidifying his foundation circle by circle.
The instability in his true qi caused by breaking through two realms in rapid succession back in Jinyang City gradually settled during his daily quiet cultivation.
Like muddy water clearing up, the sand and silt settled to the bottom.
What remained was pure clarity.
In the afternoons, he would wander over to the Casting Terrace to watch the disciples of Furnace-Listening Pavilion swing their hammers and forge iron, occasionally stepping in to lend a hand.
He had spent a year working as a handyman at a blacksmith shop in town when he was young, so his skill at swinging a hammer hadn't grown rusty.
This earned him newfound respect from several young disciples.
Most of the time, he would pull up a bamboo chair and sit at the edge of the back mountain cliff.
With the nameless sword hanging at his waist, he watched the clouds roll by.
Every few days, Qi Tianchen would visit to ask about his ideas regarding forging a new spear.
Such days were quiet and orderly—exactly what he wanted right now.
And he had Furnace-Listening Pavilion to thank for all of it.
During this time, quite a few martial sects had sent visiting cards, hoping to get a glimpse of this spear master in the flesh.
Qi Tianchen instructed the mountain-guarding disciples to turn them all away under the pretext that “Young Hero Chen is in secluded cultivation,” refusing to let them even step through the gate.
Chen Zui paid no mind to any of it.
He disliked formal social obligations anyway, so he was more than happy to enjoy the peace while Furnace-Listening Pavilion kept those troubles outside.
However, that didn't mean no news reached his ears.
A-Tong came every few days to deliver meals, and his mouth never stayed quiet whenever he did.
“Brother Chen, have you heard? Big news in the capital!”
A-Tong held a food box, running up the back mountain while panting for breath.
Chen Zui was meditating by the cliff. Hearing this, he opened one eye, looked at him, and closed it again.
“What big news?”
A-Tong set the food box on the ground, squatted beside Chen Zui, and lowered his voice as if afraid of being overheard.
“The Emperor has passed away!”
Chen Zui fell silent for two breaths before speaking calmly, “And?”
A-Tong was clearly dissatisfied with his reaction.
He had thought Chen Zui would be greatly shocked, yet Chen Zui’s expression showed not the slightest ripple.
Unwilling to give up, A-Tong added another detail.
“I heard the Fourth Princess ascended the throne! A woman! A Female Emperor!”
Chen Zui finally opened both eyes and looked at A-Tong.
Reading a clear sense of “and what of it?” in that gaze, A-Tong instantly deflated again.
“Brother Chen, how can you not get excited about anything at all?”
Chen Zui asked back, “Does her becoming Emperor have anything to do with you?”
A-Tong thought about it. “No.”
“It has nothing to do with me either.”
A-Tong scratched his head, feeling that Chen Zui’s words made sense.
Then he continued sharing the gossip he had heard from outside.
“And about the First Prince and Second Prince, the teahouses at the foot of the mountain are going crazy over it. They say after the Fourth Princess ascended the throne, the First Prince was found to be having an affair with a noble consort in the palace, and the Second Prince was found hiding armor in his fiefdom. Both were charged with treason, and they've already been... clack.”
He made a gesture across his neck, a look of lingering fear on his face.
Chen Zui listened quietly.
He picked up the teacup A-Tong had brought and took a slow sip.
These two charges weren't particularly clever, but they were airtight.
Struggles for succession had always been a bloodbath where the winner took all, leaving the losers without even bones behind.
He wasn't surprised in the least by the fate of those two princes.
What truly caught him off guard, however, was what A-Tong said next.
“Though, the strangest one is the Third Prince.”
Chen Zui’s teacup paused in midair.
“Third Prince Zhao Li?” he asked.
A-Tong nodded.
“Word is that this Third Prince has vanished into thin air.”
Chen Zui put down his teacup, his brows furrowing slightly.
“The newly crowned Female Emperor sent several waves of people everywhere to search for him, but they couldn't find a single strand of hair.”
Reaching this point, A-Tong slapped his thigh.
“Oh right, some say there were a few strange people from the Western Regions among the Third Prince’s advisors, so maybe they took him away. But that's all wild guessing, nobody really knows what happened.”
He looked up, noticed that Chen Zui’s expression was somewhat subtle, and asked curiously.
“Brother Chen, do you know the Third Prince?”
Chen Zui remained silent for a breath before shaking his head.
“I don't.”
He and Zhao Li had indeed never met, nor had they ever come face to face.
Yet the feud between him and Zhao Li ran deeper than with many people he had met.
At the Eastern Sea near Jinyang City, Qingyangzi hadn't hesitated to detonate his ruler in self-sacrifice just to take his life.
Behind all of that was the hand of the Third Prince.
“Let's not talk about that.”
Chen Zui raised his teacup, steering the topic away with a faint smile.
“Have you been to the Casting Terrace these past few days? Is the work your master assigned you finished?”
At those words, A-Tong’s face instantly fell, and he began rambling in complaint.
He recounted his miserable experience of being forced by his master to forge iron, breaking three hammers in the process, from start to finish.
With that, he no longer had the heart to inquire further about the Third Prince.
Chen Zui listened, nodding from time to time, while his mind drifted to another matter.
The Third Prince had vanished.
Faced with an unaccounted-for prince, any newly crowned Female Emperor would lose sleep and appetite.
And someone like Zhao Li would certainly never be content to fade into obscurity forever.
Sooner or later, he would appear again.
But Chen Zui stopped his train of thought there.
Whether that so-called Third Prince would make a comeback was something for the court and the major powers of the martial world to worry about.
It had nothing to do with him.
What mattered most right now was consolidating his cultivation in the Wind-Riding Realm. Once this storm blew over, he could enter the martial world again to meddle in affairs.
However, things often didn't go as planned.
Such peaceful days did not last very long.
About half a month passed.
A group of over twenty mounted riders suddenly gathered outside the mountain gate of Furnace-Listening Pavilion.
Leading them was Han Shuanghe, Young Master of the Ten Directions Sect.
Clad in white robes, a longsword hung at his waist.
Behind him was Xu Fu, the chief true disciple of the Fuyang Sect, with a pair of purple-gold twin hammers slung over his horse.
Further back was Wu Yang, Young Pavilion Master of Canglang Pavilion.
He waved a folding fan, sizing up Furnace-Listening Pavilion’s mountain gate with a smile.
Lined up in a row before the gate, the twenty-odd people cut quite an imposing figure.
The mountain-guarding disciples of Furnace-Listening Pavilion recognized a few of them.
These were all young talents in the Jiangnan region who had long made a name for themselves; pick any one of them, and their name carried weight in the martial world.
Arriving together today, they clearly came with ill intent.
Han Shuanghe dismounted, walked up to the mountain gate, and cupped his hands to the mountain-guarding disciples, his manners polite enough.
Yet the very first words out of his mouth were far from courteous.
“Han Shuanghe of the Ten Directions Sect, accompanied by a few good friends, has come specifically to pay respects to Young Hero Chen Zui. Kindly pass word to him.”
The mountain-guarding disciples did not dare be negligent, hurriedly going inside to report.
Having received the news, Qin Tiegu rushed over. Standing inside the mountain gate, he swept his gaze over the twenty-some people outside, his brows instantly knitting into a tight knot.
He recognized this group.
They were all direct disciples of various sects, habitually arrogant and prideful on ordinary days.
Gathering together like this today promised nothing good.
He stepped outside the mountain gate and said in a clear voice:
“You have come from afar, and Furnace-Listening Pavilion ought to fulfill our duty as hosts.
However, Young Hero Chen is currently in secluded cultivation and it is inconvenient for him to receive guests. Please return, everyone.”
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