ETERNAL FIRE CAULDRON
Zhenwu stood beneath the weeping willow, one hand resting lightly against its gnarled, uneven trunk. His fingers traced the black bark as he remained there in silence, his head lowered.
In the distance, at the lowest tier of the Azure Heart Pagoda, Shen Yulan and Shen Bing stood guard at the entrance to the Qiang ancestral shrine.
Shen Bing's eyes remained fixed upon the figure beneath the willow.
When Shen Yulan could endure it no further, she spoke through clenched teeth without turning towards her brother.
“Stop. Looking.”
The words carried a clear warning.
Shen Bing turned to look at her, his brows raised slightly, his expression caught somewhere between disbelief and protest.
How could he not look?
Zhenwu was standing beneath the weeping willow. Touching it.
The sight made Shen Bing uneasy. He stole one last look before finally relenting and turning his gaze away.
Neither guard spoke again.
When Zhenwu eventually approached, the twins straightened instinctively, tension passing through them as he drew near. They bowed deeply when he reached them, and Zhenwu returned the gesture with only a slight inclination of his head before passing between them and entering the shrine.
Qiang Lian sat on the floor within the dim interior, facing the ancestral tablets. Tears streaked her face, and the regal composure she ordinarily carried was nowhere to be seen. Her robes had fallen out of place, her hair was disheveled, and the finery she had worn earlier had lost all significance beneath the weight of her pain.
Zhenwu approached with slow, measured steps and stopped beside her. He said nothing. He neither greeted the ancestors nor lit an incense stick. He simply stood there, looking down at his wife.
Qiang Lian did not raise her head or give any indication that she had noticed him.
The silence stretched between them for a long moment before he finally spoke with deliberate softness.
“Li Li… whatever you may choose to do from here, please take care to keep Qiang Suwan’s well-being in mind.”
Qiang Lian’s fingers tightened around the fabric gathered in her lap, but she did not speak.
Zhenwu waited a moment longer before turning away. He walked toward the far side of the shrine, where a staircase led upward toward the upper tiers of the pagoda. At the foot of the stairs, he stopped and looked back.
“You are the only woman I love.”
He spoke the words so quietly that they might have been meant only for himself, but he knew she had heard them.
He turned and continued up the stairs.
Within the seventh and highest tier of the Azure Heart Pagoda stood the Eternal Fire Cauldron, one of the oldest divine instruments inherited by the Qiang Clan.
Rising twenty-one feet above the stone floor and measuring nearly seven feet across at its widest point, it was cast entirely from gold. Its enormous body was covered in intricate symbols and inscriptions that extended from its base to its rim, each script and marking so distinct that they remained visible even beneath the dim light illuminating the crown chamber of the pagoda.
The chamber itself was cold, yet the cauldron was colder still to the touch.
It was not an instrument of execution. It was a prison, designed to seal away demons for whom death could not be considered an option, since death itself would offer them another path to existence.
The ancient inscriptions bound the souls in place while the eternal blue fire within sustained them through eternity. Inside, the demons existed and did not exist, suspended beyond the ordinary boundaries of life and death. It was not a state of pain or punishment, but one of absolute stillness that would endure until the passage of time gradually reduced the prisoners’ consciousness to nothing.
Not dead, but perfectly inert.
After nearly four thousand years, the cauldron was believed to hold a total of seventeen demons, all judged beyond redemption.
And now there was one more prisoner.
Ling Feng.
Songhe had insisted that he was not a demon.
Zhenwu had yet to discover the truth for himself.
With a wave of his hands followed by precise mudras, Zhenwu rose from the stone floor until he was suspended in the air. He extended one palm, and the Writ Tally materialized above it. He guided it toward the marked position atop the cauldron, where it settled into place and became one with the golden body. A faint ripple of recognition passed through the cold metal, traveling outward across its inscriptions before disappearing into its depths.
Zhenwu descended and landed lightly on his feet.
The next step was the most crucial.
For the being sealed within the cauldron to emerge, it had to be summoned by its true name—and its true name alone.
Zhenwu was about to attempt something unprecedented.
Throughout the history of the Eternal Fire Cauldron, no prisoner had ever been considered worthy of release. The procedure existed in the records, preserved through generations of custodians, but there was no account of a successful release.
He stepped back and drew a slow breath before speaking.
Ling Feng.
The name carried through the chamber and faded into silence.
One summons should have been enough, according to the records.
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Yet nothing happened.
No ripples stirred from the cauldron, no spiritual presence emerged, and the air remained unchanged.
Zhenwu’s brow tightened.
He tried again.
Nothing happened.
Unease began to rise within him as the implication slowly took shape. He swallowed hard before deciding to call a different name.
Kang Tianyao.
Silence.
Zhenwu began circling the cauldron, extending his spiritual senses as he searched for even the smallest change. He pressed his awareness against the golden walls, attempting to penetrate them.
Nothing.
He could not pass through.
“Kang Tianyao,” he called again, then once more as he continued to circle the cauldron.
A cold dread began settling into his bones as another possibility took root in his mind.
Had the fox spirit died?
Had it been unable to survive after being sealed within a prison designed for beings far greater—demons?
“Ling Feng…”
The name escaped him almost involuntarily as his thoughts turned to Songhe.
His brother.
His child.
The air in the chamber began to grow colder by degrees.
Zhenwu sensed the change at once.
Then, at last, a ripple passed through the cauldron.
The golden inscriptions trembled faintly as something stirred within its depths. A second ripple followed, stronger than the first, and the cold deepened sharply throughout the crown chamber.
Ling Feng was expelled.
His body materialized from the cauldron and dropped heavily onto the stone floor.
“Ling Feng?”
Zhenwu called his name again, his voice edged with mild disbelief as he moved closer.
Without warning, Ling Feng’s head snapped upward. His glowing blue eyes fixed on Zhenwu, his lips pulling back to bare his teeth as a low hiss escaped his throat.
Zhenwu barely had time to react before Ling Feng’s body morphed into a turbulent haze of blue-black smoke and shot forward. It struck him directly in the forehead before vanishing completely into his skull.
Zhenwu’s body convulsed.
A booming pressure exploded inside his head. Before he could collapse, he summoned Mai Yin—the Vein Conduit—into his hand and drove the jade staff's end against the stone floor, using it to steady himself as he dropped onto his knees.
His throat began to close, and Zhenwu’s eyes widened.
The passage of air through his windpipe narrowed sharply, as though something had lodged itself there. He gasped and shook his head once, then again, fighting instinctively against the sensation.
It was useless. Everything was happening too fast.
The pressure inside his skull intensified, followed by a deep, freezing cold that emerged from somewhere behind his eyes, descended through his neck to his chest, then spread throughout his body as though it meant to freeze his blood. All color drained from his face.
Zhenwu stopped resisting and closed his eyes.
If he could not breathe freely, then breathing was no longer important.
Focus was.
He allowed the assault to pass through him, attempting to separate sensation from thought, thought from instinct, instinct from will.
One heartbeat.
Then another.
His trembling gradually ceased.
Zhenwu opened his eyes and placed Mai Yin on the floor beside him. He straightened his spine and lowered himself fully into the lotus position, drawing one strained breath into his lungs to begin the chant.
“Primordial Light—
Sever the shadow from the vessel.
Tear the false from the truth.
What belongs to Heaven, ascend.
What belongs to Hell, descend.
Yin and Yang bear witness.”
His fingers moved through the mudras as the spiritual energy surrounding him shifted. Within it, dark tendrils of smoke emerged and writhed through his energy field, the blue-black smoke twisting through the golden radiance like ink poured into a cloud.
The pressure inside Zhenwu's skull became almost unbearable.
His fingers locked into the final mudra, and he gave the final command.
“SEVER!”
The chamber exploded.
Smoke erupted violently from Zhenwu's body, and the force of the release hurled him backward until he struck the Eternal Fire Cauldron.
The twenty-one-foot golden body groaned beneath the impact before toppling onto its side with a deafening roar that shook the entire pagoda.
Zhenwu struck the stone floor several paces away, his body skidding across the ground before coming to a halt.
He was motionless for only a moment before his fingers moved, and he pushed himself upright. The pain was already receding. His spiritual senses swept through his body.
The presence that had invaded him was gone.
He had barely regained his footing when something moved through the settling dust.
Ling Feng stood several paces away, red hair hanging wildly around his face, his smoldering blue eyes burning with murderous intent.
Zhenwu summoned Mai Yin into his hand.
The fox spirit did not attack.
Instead, he shifted his weight, then stopped. His gaze flickered from Zhenwu’s face to his hands, then to the jade staff. His movements were erratic, uncertain, as though he could not decide whether to advance or retreat.
Zhenwu watched him more carefully.
Was he acting on instinct alone? Like an animal that had just escaped a cage, driven by a single, primal motive.
Survival.
Understanding hardened Zhenwu’s expression. Ling Feng had poured everything into his first attack, expecting to overwhelm him completely.
And it had failed.
Zhenwu prepared to counter, but before he could shift into position, he heard something.
A frantic heartbeat, approaching fast.
Someone was coming up the staircase.
Lian?
He did not have time to think.
His hands moved, and a spell formed between his fingers, distorting the space around them.
Ling Feng finally committed and lunged.
Zhenwu vanished, taking him with him.
By the time Qiang Lian reached the crown chamber, the spell was already complete. Her eyes swept across the room from the doorway.
The Eternal Fire Cauldron lay overturned on its side, the Writ Tally torn free. It lay several paces away on the stone floor.
There was no sign of Zhenwu.