They reached the guest courtyard to find it hollow and still.
Most of the servants had scattered. Cai Zhao dragged one out from behind a door — the man was shaking so hard he could barely speak. She asked where the Wu brothers had gone.
He hadn't seen them leave. Only remembered hearing, at midday, that they'd called for water and charcoal to be brought to their room. Manager Wang had offered flowers, fruit, incense — the usual offerings. Wu Gang had waved it all off. No need for a sacrificial table either, Wu Xiong had said. Our elder brother was never one for ceremony. Just bow in the direction he passed. That's enough.
Cai Zhao and Chang Ning looked at each other.
A farewell ritual. The kind men perform before they do something they don't plan to walk back from.
She pressed further. Anything else?
The servant thought hard. Oh — Manager Wang had asked whether to continue the medicine broth today. Wu Xiong said no. They were well enough now. It was time to go. Manager Wang offered to arrange carriages at the outer gate, but Wu Gang had said there was no rush. They wanted to pay their respects to the Sect Leader before leaving.
The servant paused, remembering the odd smile on Wu Gang's face when he said it.
Cai Zhao was already moving.
"I said we should go to Muwei Palace first," she snapped as she ran, throwing the words back at Chang Ning. "I said it from the start. Nobody listens, and then we end up here anyway."
Chang Ning followed at a composed stroll. "Since Zhao Zhao is always so far ahead of the rest of us, I trust she'll be the one to apprehend the Wu brothers when we get there."
"Don't start."
"A word of friendly concern — delivering soup uninvited to men one barely knows isn't something Lady Cai would smile upon."
That landed. Cai Zhao shut her mouth and kept running.
Muwei Palace looked like the tail end of a battle.
Disciples moved in streams — some carrying bodies out, some limping and holding their ribs. The gray-masked men in the corpse-pile wore the wrong colors to belong here. Chang Ning stopped one of the walking wounded.
"The intruders?"
"Eliminated, Senior Brother. About ten broke for the outer gate. Brother Song took men after them. Master wants the rest of us to clear the hall and tend to the injured."
Chang Ning glanced sideways at Cai Zhao. "Twenty attackers. I believe I said they wouldn't be enough."
Then she saw the stretcher.
Zeng Lou, flat on his back, being carried past. Cai Zhao nearly lost her footing entirely. She ran to him, voice cracking. "Big Brother — are you dead? Tell me you're not dead — wake up, please —"
"I'm not dead," Zeng Lou said, extremely pained. He tried to sit up. Failed. Raised one hand weakly instead. "Injuries only. I'm fine. Don't —"
"You were just lying there." Her eyes were red. "Face up. On a stretcher. I thought —"
"My skills weren't enough." He smiled, tired and embarrassed. "Master will be disappointed."
She didn't have time to comfort him. "The Wu brothers — did you see them?"
Zeng Lou blinked. "They came to say goodbye to Master. Not long after they arrived, the attack started —"
"Where are they now?"
"In Master's study, I think. They were still talking when —"
He didn't finish the sentence. A flash of motion at the edge of his vision — Cai Zhao had already gone, sprinting into the palace like something thrown from a sling. Behind her, silent as a second shadow, Chang Ning's wide sleeves swept through the air and vanished after her.
Zeng Lou lay there. ...Her martial arts have come a long way.
Qi Yunke's study door was open.
Cai Zhao saw it in pieces as she ran: the Sect Leader bent over his desk, poring over documents. Wu Xiong standing four steps behind him. Right hand slightly raised.
Everything slowed.
"Master — get back — he's a traitor —"
Wu Xiong caught the flash of her in the doorway. His cover was done. His palm came forward before the last word had left her lips, driving a blade straight at Qi Yunke's spine.
Qi Yunke had already moved. He didn't turn — just pivoted and thrust out a palm in the same motion. Not perfect, not clean, but enough. The blade skated off course and opened a gash in his upper left arm instead of finding his heart. Wu Xiong took the return force full in the chest. His organs ruptured. He hit the floor and didn't get up, blood flooding out of his mouth.
Qi Yunke stepped back. His hand went to his arm.
Cai Zhao was already inside, holding him up, voice shaking. "Master, are you —"
Chang Ning came through the door and moved without a word, her right hand striking a precise sequence of points along his arm, sealing them one after another like closing locks.
Qi Yunke tore the sleeve back himself. Black blood seeped from the wound.
"Poisoned blade," Cai Zhao breathed.
"The cut isn't deep." His voice was steady, controlled. "Chang Ning's sealed the channels. I can expel it myself. Just —" He looked at her. "Zhao Zhao. The bottle on the bookshelf —"
She didn't move. She was staring at Wu Xiong's body.
"If Wu Xiong is here," she said quietly, "where is Wu Gang?"
The silence that followed lasted half a heartbeat.
Chang Ning went still. Qi Yunke's expression shifted — a crack in the composure — and then he pushed to his feet. "Shi Yuzhi went to chase down the stragglers. Wu Gang said he'd recovered. Said he wanted to help Yuzhi. He went with him —"
The word with was still in the air when Cai Zhao snatched the fallen blade from the floor and ran.
Chang Ning was gone from the doorway before Qi Yunke finished speaking.
The disciples who arrived moments later found their Sect Leader sitting alone in a reclining chair, sleeve torn, arm bleeding, Wu Xiong dead in the corner. No one else.
The east courtyard had gone quiet the way battlefields do when the last man drops.
Song Yuzhi shook out his sword arm, sending Bai Hong into a clean arc. Blood traced a dotted red line across the white marble tiles. He'd been fighting for the better part of an hour. Even with his face half-shadowed by exertion, he looked composed — though a faint smear of red had found its way onto his jaw.
He sheathed Bai Hong, retrieved Qing Hong from a body nearby, and was moving to clean the blade when he noticed Wu Gang leaning against a tree, hand pressed to his chest, breathing badly.
The other disciples were busy — cataloguing the dead, helping the wounded clear out. No one was watching.
Song Yuzhi hesitated, then stepped forward and steadied him by the shoulder. "Thank you for your help, Senior Wu. Let me take you to the infirmary."
Wu Gang waved him off with a faint smile, head down. "I can manage. Lead the way, please."
He didn't want support. Song Yuzhi let go and turned.
Cai Zhao came around the far corner at a dead run, face white.
She saw Song Yuzhi ahead, facing her. She saw Wu Gang directly behind him, right palm lifting.
Her throat closed. Her hand was already moving. She drew the poisoned blade and threw it on instinct — aimed past Song Yuzhi, aimed at the shape rising behind him.
Song Yuzhi turned at the motion. Saw Cai Zhao running, her face a knot of terror. Saw the blade coming at him.
His first thought, very fast: Why is Zhaozhao trying to kill me?
His second thought, one half-second later: She isn't.
He had no time to move, so he didn't. He braced, pushed his inner force outward to meet it, and absorbed the impact as the blade grazed his back rather than catching Wu Gang cleanly.
What happened next happened all at once: the knife bit into Wu Gang's shoulder. Wu Gang's two palms landed against Song Yuzhi's back, full force. Song Yuzhi's own power surged back through the contact and threw Wu Gang off his feet.
Wu Gang hit the ground hard. Song Yuzhi coughed blood and went to one knee.
Cai Zhao reached him. She caught him before he went down the rest of the way.
Chang Ning arrived a moment later, surveyed the scene — the blood, the kneel, the bodies — and said nothing. Her expression said enough.
I hate the Demon Cult.
Wu Gang lay where he'd landed, laughing through a mouthful of blood. "My Netherworld Cold Venom — even if it doesn't kill you, you'll be half-crippled for life."
The disciples around him had their swords out before the laughter stopped.
Song Yuzhi steadied himself. His hand on Cai Zhao's arm, his eyes on Wu Gang. "The Qingque Sect treated you as guests. You had no quarrel with me that I know of. Why?"
Wu Gang's smile curdled into something darker. "No quarrel with you, boy. But a blood debt with your grandfather. Yin Laogou. That sanctimonious old dog." His voice cracked with years of it. "My eldest brother spent more than a decade in the Demon Cult's hands — suffering things I won't say out loud. And why? Because Old Man Yin was sitting on a secret Elder Kaiyang had told him, and he wouldn't give it up. Wouldn't trade two captured Demon Cult leaders to get Kaiyang back. Said he 'couldn't.' What he meant was he wouldn't."
"My master went to reason with him. Yin Laogou didn't want to reason. They fought. Yin Laogou walked away with scratches. My master died of his wounds." His face had gone somewhere hollow. "If my master had lived, he would have found a way to bring my brother home. Instead, my brother spent over a decade becoming whatever the Demon Cult made him."
"So your grudge isn't only against Cangqiongzi and Qiu Yuanfeng," Chang Ning said. "It's against Old Sect Leader Yin as well."
"Qi Yunke is Yin's disciple. Song Yuzhi is Yin's grandson. That's enough." Wu Gang's grin was all teeth. "We settled on just the two of them for this trip."
Cai Zhao cut in: "Old Sect Leader Yin had more than one grandchild, you know." Master, you are truly getting the short end of this — you came to the sect halfway through your life and somehow ended up counted as his true-blooded heir.
Wu Gang didn't hear her, or didn't care. His voice rose into something fraying at the edges. "I don't care, I don't care — all of Yin Laogou's line deserves to —" He stopped. A rush of black blood came up. He convulsed once. Then he was still.
The setting sun came in low and pale, cold light spreading across the courtyard, touching the living and the dead without distinction.
No one spoke for a long moment.
The chill that moved through them wasn't from the wind.