He sped upwards at breakneck speeds, the winds being deflected away from him due to Maqi's control over the wind.
—
"...Is he dead?" Vienna checked the Demon Gate with a glance at the earth, "It's been about two months now, so he should be almost done, or dead."
Just as he finished talking, he sensed a change in the portal below and grinned.
"I am simply the smartest Chaos being in all of the Great Path." He calmly walked down from the sky and directly melded into the earth.
Those people in the training yard slowly began to peek their heads out and around corners, the entire clan was filled with holes and looked shoddy like it would be better off as firewood.
Once Vienna arrived at the bottom of the city even further beneath Shoukin where the Demon Gate stood, he felt the change and slightly moved.
A figure flew out, and if not for the wind protecting it, would have been squished into paste against the wall!
Standing now, albeit barely, Shou Xin calmly turned his gaze onto Vienna.
"Trash." Vienna sounded incredulous, "How in the entirety of the fucking chaos that surrounds us, have you managed to get this beaten up and only gain one more chain in strength?! You fucking…!"
Smack!
In a single movement, Vienna collapsed a side wall.
"Why are you so useless!" He shouted!
"Why are you?" Shou Xin calmly patted the dust off his shoulder, the pain in his body had subsided slightly due to something the child had done to him, allowing him to at least move.
Vienna had a vein pop on his forehead.
"You little trash can of a shit! Useless fucking…"
As Vienna raged, Shou Xin calmly left, heading upwards as destruction echoed behind him.
The three energies in his body having created a true connection to his soul, instead of a solely force based one, where-in one side obeyed the other, easily circulated through his body together, increasing his healing by many times.
Instead of it being force based, it was now as though it were simply a part of him, in other words like an arm or a leg.
"...You lived." A familiar old man with a sword slung on his hip appeared just as he reached the top of the stairs leading into the lords manor, he approached.
"I-"
Before Shou Xin could say anything, Tai Yu wrapped his arms around him tightly.
"I am glad," Tai Yu broke the hug and put his hands on Shou Xin's shoulders, "In the ancient scrolls and long dead wisdom, it is known that even the Ancient Master's who tried raising Cursed Chain Disciples, could never get them past Third Chain, for the Fourth Chain always killed. Ah, lad, I am truly happy!"
Shou Xin understood in that moment.
Elder Yu was first Tai Yu.
And Tai Yu had seen much over his many years of living, countless friends, perhaps lovers and many unspeakable adventures and journeys which ended in disaster, how many young people had he seen die in vain on the Great Path?
He could feel his emotions were sincere.
He smiled emptily.
"No one is more glad than I am." Shou Xin tapped his eye, "It seems though, the Great Path has a grudge against my eyes!"
Jokingly, he rolled his eyes up to hide the pupil and then rolled it back.
Elder Yu chuckled.
"I am truly glad."
"...Thank you."
"Mm."
The two walked forward into the living room area where tea had already been prepared by the shadow workers.
Shou Xin saw it, and slowly turned back to the door.
Elder Yu didn't say anything and slightly waved his hand, the tea suddenly vanishing.
Walking through the town with ragged clothing, and his mind reorganized, his energies not just synergized, but harmonious, he felt different.
The world looked different.
Everything felt clearer.
The air was fresh with that saltiness one can only get in a sea side town, the wind blew kindly against his skin which had resisted the time in the Demon Gate.
His body felt lighter despite it's pain, such that he could feel the finely chipped stone bricks beneath his feet which others would call road.
The homes felt as though they were full of stories and instilled with character.
The people looked clearer as though he could count their hairs one by one if he truly wished.
The world looked… breathtaking.
As he arrived at the Shou Clan, the guards who saw him coming didn't dare to move, the training they had undergone now drilled into their very bones as they simply opened the gate before going back to attention.
"...Stay strong." Elder Yu nodded at the guards, Shou Xin was too lost in the sudden beauty of the world to notice a thing.
Once he entered however, that lost feeling evaporated like water touching lava, it didn't even take a second, for just as breathtakingly detailed the world was in his eye now, it was so for both the kind breeze and the frigid blizzard.
The Shou Clan which he left behind was full of holes in buildings, the ground and all over the rest of the place save for the shrine to Vienna which was perfectly intact and the Heart Mind Pagoda which he quickly entered after promptly ignoring the devastation.
He felt nothing as he ignored it, as well, that wasn't quite true.
He held his head, feeling a slight headache coming on.
Noticing the tea left on the Heart Mind Pagoda's first floor, he didn't stop this time and directly took it, downing it all in one go, before heading up the stairs in an unsightly manner.
Elder Yu saw this and simply smiled whilst shaking his head lightly.
"Youth is truly a wilderness."
—
The door closed tightly behind him.
Sitting on the cultivation cushion, he closed the curtains with his Qi.
He needed to know.
His body was basically fully healed by whatever magic Maqi had used when sending him out, however, there was something wrong.
He noticed it before when Elder Yu had welcomed him back, there was something missing.
Emotion.
Joy was missing.
He was not truly glad, he didn't actually feel much of anything despite knowing he should feel it. It was as though that part of him… had been dulled terribly.
He'd forced up the sensation.
When he saw Vienna as well, he felt the anger but it was dulled to a point he didn't even feel the need to stop him, or argue or fight.
As he walked through the town, he was now lost in the breathtaking nature of it all, but the fact that he was unable to feel it despite knowing what it was.
The word was clearer now, more vibrant in color but his while his perception of the emotions and atmosphere had increased leaps and bounds, his internal sensitivity had dulled greatly.
That familiar heaviness returned to the depths of his gaze as thought about various things, and couldn't bring up any real emotion, only dulled dredges.
"Hidden Heart Bloodline," He grit his teeth as the first true emotion he had felt since returning surfaced from the darkness, rage, "Great Path, I know not what my ancestors did, but this unfairness against myself… I will make good on my promise in the underworld."
Slowly, he began to stand up.
His freezing gaze, similar to an iceberg with it's weight, searched the room, soon finding the bed where he promptly went towards.
"What are you doing here, Lady Feng?" His demeanor and tone lightened as he forced down his rage which was terribly difficult as the Hidden Heart bloodline did not just steal away emotions but it amplified any emotion which managed to escape.
"Xin." Wuqing who was under his sheets looked up innocently, "I'm sorry for what I said before we parted before, I understand everything now-!"
Shou Xin turned his head slightly, a movement which Feng Wuqing understood intimately.
"You-, you lost sight in your left eye!" She noticed it instantly and shot off the bed holding his face in her hand and bringing her own face close, "What else have you lost? Are you injured anywhere else?"
Her hands began to roam but Shou Xin caught her hands and held them.
"You heard what I said, right?"
She looked up at him, he could tell now that her blindness was special, it was similar to his blinded eye.
She nodded sheepishly as though a child caught listening to adult secrets.
"The Great Path has cursed my entire bloodline. As we grow stronger… we lose our emotions and begin to grow mad," Shou Xin's grip around her hands tightened, "There is no-"
"I will stay." Feng Wuqing squeezed his hands, "Even if my entire clan should turn against us, even if the Yan come and then world burns around us, together, we will be the kindling and together we will burn."
His heart skipped as something else began to rise from the depths alongside his hatred.
A beating heart, a fluffy warmth imbedded in the dark, love.
His emotions now all dulled or gone save for these two, made everything clearer as he let her hands go.
She was nervous, until he wrapped his arms around her sides.
"A future with me is a rotten one, you know?"
"A future with me will bring only great burden… you know?"
The two smiled lightly at the terrifying things they were saying.
One was cursed by the Great Path.
One had a superpower on her back.
Between these two, one would wonder who truly had it worse.
"Then," Shou Xin sat by his study within the room, "I think the first thing we need is to be honest with one another. I am Fourth Chain and Fourth Stage physical as well as Sword Aura."
Feng Wuqing naturally understood what he meant and nodded.
"I am a Fifth Stage physique cultivator, and battle unarmed, my Martial Aura is Fifth Stage." She smilingly sat down, "As for the Yan clan's heir who is to be my fiancé, he is also a Fifth Stage Sword Cultivator, his Sword Aura is likely the same."
"Then, what kind of stage are the soldiers of the Feng and Yan Clan's at?"
"My Feng Clan-, the Feng clan soldiers are at minimum, First Chain and at maximum Third Chain, past that they get to become guards until Sixth Chain and then above that they get sent away to the main family deeper within the Fang State."
She took a moment before continuing.
"The Yan Clan soldiers are… perhaps first chain? Their main force is not in their soldiers, nor warriors but in their ability to raise a single disciple to great heights, their head is said to be at Unchained and preparing to enter the Dao Realms. However, each of their nurtured warriors is a strategic weapon."
Shou Xin nodded lightly.
"The Feng won't attack us until the Yan have made it past. It wouldn't benefit them to. If we were to launch raids against the Yan's main source of income, then the Feng would likely simply watch since they would believe that the Yan will win in the end and these raids would only give them a bonus on the negotiating table by using their incompetence against them."
"...It won't work, not the part about the Feng, but the Yan. Their mines are guarded by those very strategic weapons of theirs, the Main Families Scions. At the lowest, they are Fifth Chain."
"Then, if we can't attack, we will need to look within," Shou Xin quietly took out a map of the entirety of Shouai including Shoukin which laid beneath, "We need to expand into a strong enough town that the Exiled Court would not allow anyone to mess with us."
"Ah!" Wuqing's pupils suddenly grew, "You are the lord of the town now, right? That means you've been given protection by the Exiled Court since they were the ones who appointed you! Unless they strip you of your position, you are the highest executive in Shouai now."
His pupils shrank as a variety of thoughts flashed through his mind at lightning speed.
"We need to centralize our power." Shou Xin said calmly, "If the hundreds of small villages in the outskirts were to be invited into Shouai Town, then it could turn from town to City giving it greater weight. The fields creating crops would also be closer and better protected, but we don't have the housing to accommodate so many."
"We just have to create it, then." Wuqing pointed out to the Baikan which took a vast amount of land in the south and then to the two nameless forests east and west, "We can move our Shou clan out to the Baikan and have them rebuild there, then we can repurpose the land in the city for the newcomers, at the same time we can establish a strong presence in the Baikan allowing for better combat training as well."
Shou Xin and Feng Wuqing looked up at each other after the tirade of words which had shot from their mouths. As two people who had grown up in ruling clans, albeit of different sizes, their educations were somewhat similar and their minds worked on an axis of profit and loss.
…sometimes.
"Liu Gang! Yui Luo!" Shou Xin opened the balcony window and looked down at the two who had been standing in the training yard since the report came that he returned, "Gather your people, we are centralizing Shouai Ward."
They naturally understood what this meant.
"Prepare to move to the Baikan, as well." Feng Wuqing appeared beside him, glaring down coldly at the two who felt immediately pressured.
However, their training with Vienna was by far much harder and they did not crack nor question, instead moving quickly to task.
Descending to the first floor, Shou Xin saw that Elder Yu and Guo Long were sat quietly drinking tea.
Noticing Elder Yu glance at Feng Wuqing without a hint of shock, he understood how she got in.
He'd been set up.
Smiling wryly, he sat down.
"How much has already been spoken over?"
"With the centralization of the population, there will be an increased need for jobs, which means we will need more profit to accommodate their expenses, which means we will need to expand our industrial sector. Which means!" Guo Long laughed with his stomach, "The port! We will expand the port and then, we will be able to export farther distances and receive larger merchant armadas instead of only the small ones we can accommodate right now!"
His eyes shone with a tinge of greed.
"In this way, my Shouai Merchant Armada can also grow quickly now with more places to hold ships. At the same time, with new workers and greater amounts of much faster and more reliable routes of production from nearby instead of the countryside, it eliminates much of the hassle and middle charges!"
He looked almost feverish.
Clearly, this was not a plan he had just come up with while he was gone, likely he had had this in mind the entire time and finally had the perfect opportunity to bring it up.
It was also not a request that Shou Xin could deny, as the benefits were honestly quite great.
"Your little arena idea is also quite profitable. As it happens, with Shouai being a stop along the way to Fengzhou, many warriors have begun to see the arena here as a low-level one to test their mettle before heading to the in between and then Fengzhou itself." Elder Yu chimed in.
"What you need now is fame, to attract warriors to your cause." Guo Long who had calmed down, spoke rationally, "With fame, warriors will flock to challenge you. Charge them for the challenge, either they bet their lives or a significant sum of money. Also, with this fame growing, the Feng clan of Fengzhou will not be able to completely ignore you anymore, nor will the Yan. They will have to treat you with some respect."
"The best way to obtain fame is to take on our requests." Suddenly, a third, matured voice entered the room on the breeze, "We have plenty of things which need doing, after all, these are the Wild States."
Shou Xin did not even need to turn his head.
"Wo Yiyu."
"What? It is the truth. Unlike your master who seeks strength at any cost, my idea is more reasonable, increasing strength and fame both." Wo Yiyu curled her fingers with a smile, "As a matter of fact, I have the perfect assignments for you."
"Whilst I hate to admit it, it is true. Gaining fame within the External Affairs Ministry will greatly strengthen your position." Guo Long said neatly, "As it stands, you have only proven yourself a capable warrior, not lord."
Elder Yu looked between Wo Yiyu and Guo Long, sensing some off.
"...They are correct. But it is not as simple as it looks." Elder Yu corralled his words there, the uneasy feeling in his heart settling.
He was certain.
Something had happened in the dark.
"Then, send those assignments to the Shou Clan to be looked over." Feng Wuqing stepped into the conversation after quietly listening, "We will accept those that are deemed possible."
"Hoh?" Wo Yiyu looked at Feng Wuqing up and down, their gazes clashing, "Tragic."
"Indeed. Tragic." Feng Wuqing said back.
The nonsensical talk finished quickly as Wo Yiyu agreed and left, her purpose completed. Guo Long also excused himself as well as Elder Yu who seemed he had something to do.
Shou Xin and Feng Wuqing were left alone in the pagoda.
"...They cannot be trusted." Feng Wuqing said, her senses coldly following them as they left.
"Indeed." Shou Xin finished his cup of tea, "That girl is Princess Wo of the Wo Assembly of the Southern Hall, her father is either the Hall Master, or very close to."
"She is disowned?"
"Greedy."
"Hmph."
The two sat opposite each other, talking of many, mostly nonsensical things as time passed until she had to leave.
—
Several days passed in peace until the requests came in from the External Affairs Office.
Feng Wuqing who had been sneaking into the Heart Mind Pagoda the last few days, sat beside Shou Xin who looked at the requests nailed to the top of the bar.