Wen RuoHan's Heir

1. And So It Begins

Xie An bowed. "Of course, Jiang ZongZhu."

The sect leader's fist was so tight his knuckles were white and Zidian sparked. "I will deal with this... problem... and then finalize burial arrangements."

Xie An kept her head down as the sect leader gathered the rest of his troops in preparation for the upcoming fight. No one knew for certain where the Yiling Patriarch had fled to; the best guess was that he had returned to the Burial Mounds and was licking his wounds and plotting the death of the final member of the Jiang family that had raised him.

There was a scuffle towards Jin XiaoFuRen's body; two foot soldiers, one in Jin gold and one in Jiang periwinkle, were arguing about who was responsible for her remains. Xie An raised herself to her full height and strode over to the cloak covered body. "Jiang YanLi will be buried with her family," she insisted. As third junior disciple in the YunmengJiang sect, she outranked the two arguing.

But another slid into the conversation. He bowed slightly, precisely as low as a potential Sect heir to someone else's subordinate should, with an oily smile on his face. "Jin XiaoFuRen should be buried with her family, yes," he agreed pleasantly. "I will ensure she is buried with all honors next to my brother."

Xie An bristled at the effrontery. He saw her as a subordinate? If only he knew who she was.... If only she could pull rank on this bastard son of Jin GuangShan. He might be considered her superior solely due to his more advanced age. By every other metric, he should have his head below his knees. "By order of Jiang ZongZhu, I am taking Jiang YanLi to lie with her ancestors. You may take up your arguments with him." Jin GuangYao stood up to his full height, in some attempt to make himself more regal, perhaps, but she was tall enough, too tall for a girl she was told, to look him, unflinchingly, straight in the eyes.

If she wore a crown, as befitted her birthright, she would appear even taller than this bastard.... She had pure cultivator bloodlines, not like him with the blood of a prostitute running through his veins. She had been looked down on by men better than he, been trained by the best in how to stand up for herself against her inferiors who attempted to be her superior. She refused to be intimidated by a bastard who wasn't even given a courtesy name for his generation.

His slimy smile was back; it made her back feel like it was being dripped on with rancid cooking oil.... "We will take our leave now," she spoke before he could make his next move. And she nodded at her subordinates, who carefully placed Jiang YanLi's body on a litter.

Jin GuangYao's eyes glittered with anger; the smile remained firmly in place. "I'm sure my father and your sect leader will find a satisfactory solution to this little problem."

Xie An looked out over what remained of the Nightless City. It had been a long five years since she last stood in this place. It didn't look significantly different now. The ground was just as blood soaked as it had been then. The primary difference between the bodies of the dead and the dying littering the place then versus now was merely the complete lack of the QishanWen flame embroidered clothing. The wounded crying in pain and the healers moving between them was nearly identical. The destruction left by the Yiling Patriarch and the sects who wanted him dead looked exactly the same as the destruction left by the Allies in the aftermath of the Sunshot Campaign. "Such a waste," she tsked, ignoring her opponent. "How many hundreds are dead, do you think? All over one drunkard."

A drunkard she still had mixed feelings about. He was the scariest man she had ever met, one of the most caring men she had ever met. She had wished him dead over and over in her youth. Dreamed, both waking and sleeping, of shoving her blades into his body. And yet, she missed him terribly when he abandoned Lotus Pier for the Burial Mounds. Even now, after the murder of hundreds of cultivators, she wasn't sure if he should die for his actions or not. Such a confusing man....