The silence was unbroken between Ye Wushang and Yue Rushuang as they walked back from the grove of bamboo. The weight of the ancestral legacy, the ancient pacts spoken around campfires, and the looming threat they had not yet known hung in the air-a burden they yet came to understand.
Back in the training courtyard, he found a few disciples talking quietly to one another. He could catch bits and pieces of it all as he approached: anxious sentiments and speculative supposition.
"Have you heard? The Mu Family caravan came in earlier…"
"They say Lady Mu is here personally, the one with the Azure Fox…"
"What could she possibly want? Nobody's seen them around in years…
There was a family named Mu. Their names echoed in his head, something that struck him as reminding him of what his sister told him long ago about the ancient bloodlines and their potential powers seeded within them. The presence of Ye Wushang found it hard not to read anything other than coincidence into their coming.
Summoning all the bravado he could muster, Ye Wushang stepped forward towards the group of disciples, his features a mask of nonchalance.
Good afternoon, he said with a careless smile, yet radiating an air that seemed to forebode chaos. "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. The Mu Family, you say?"
The disciples, taken aback by their young master's sudden rise from the positions of meditation, stuttered and fumbled for words. One of the young men named Wei Chang, a naturally nervous young man, stammered out a response.:.
"Yes, Young Master," he replied, bowing slightly. "A delegation from the Mu Family arrived just before noon. They brought a message to the elders, asking for a meeting."
"Hmmm," Ye Wushang murmured to himself, his mind already running a mile a minute with possibilities. The timing, the secrecy all seemed to fit with what little he'd garnered so far about the ancient pacts. Was this the chance the system had been hinting at?
He smiled in response to the disciples and walked in into the main hall as his pounding heart quietly anticipated what he was going to see. It was one thing that weighed heavily on his mind for so long: what did the Mu Family want? Was it connected to the secrets left behind in his family's history and destiny?.
He had heard voices that were elevated and had a tone of fierce discussion as he approached the grand halls. Stopping there, he straightened his robe, gathered his nerve, and pushed open the massive doors and entered.
The scene that waited for him was tense, charged with some undercurrent that he could not quite define. Seated in the middle of the hall were the elders, their faces grim as they conferred amongst themselves. Standing before them, flanked by a handful of stern-faced guards, was a woman who could only be Lady Mu herself.
Even sitting, she exuded an aura of quiet authority, as if you wanted to give attention to whatever she said. Features were sharp, set in long silver hair that cascaded down her back like a waterfall of moonlight. But the eyes gripped Ye Wushang's most definitely: deep pools of emerald green that seemed to hold within them some of the oldest wisdom and a hint of something wilder, untamed.
Beside her chair rested a creature of almost ethereal beauty, its head nestled against her leg-a fox with fur the color of newly sprouted leaves and eyes that seemed to glow with an otherworldly light. It was no ordinary animal; it radiated power, its presence almost as palpable as any cultivator in the room. This was the legendary Azure Fox, a source of special connection to the natural world for the Mu Family.
The air crackled with unspoken tension as Ye Wushang made his presence known. All eyes turned toward him: the elders' gazes a mix of surprise and displeasure, Lady Mu's a study in cool appraisal.
No one said anything for a long moment after that. Then Lady Mu stood up from her chair, her gaze holding onto Ye Wushang's with unwavering intensity.
'So,' she said her voice low, a melodic purr that seemed to reverberate off the hall, 'You are Ye Batian's son. The last of the Ye lineage.'.