The words drifted over the kneeling crowd like a divine decree, binding the fate of the survivors to his own shadow. The woman clinging to Xu Yi looked up at him, her eyes wide and glassy, seeing not a man, but a beacon of celestial light amidst a world of blood and ash. Her terror, once sharp and jagged, had been transmuted into a fanatical, dazed devotion.

"You would... you would truly take us in?" she whispered, her voice a fragile thread. "After the poison? After the daggers our kin sent for your heart?"

Shen Yu reached out, his fingers brushing her forehead with the gentlest of touches, though his internal Qi remained as sharp as a hidden needle.

"The sins of the father are not the sins of the child," he murmured, his voice carrying with a spectral clarity that ensured every rioter caught the weight of his words.

"The rivalry over the Pill was a matter of trade between the Peng and Tang clans, a burden of the heavens," he continued, a tragic shadow falling over his face.

"But Peng Kai chose the path of the demon; he accelerated a merchant’s dispute into this night of slaughter with his daggers in the dark. You were merely the unfortunate souls caught in the wake of his madness."

A collective wail of reverence rose from the mob, a sound of such pure, unadulterated adoration that it would have sickened any truly righteous man.

To Shen Yu, it was the sweetest music, the sound of an entire city voluntarily handing him their leashes. By offering sanctuary to the remnants of the Peng Clan, he hadn’t just displayed mercy, he had ensured that his "saintly" reputation was now an impenetrable fortress, built upon the very bodies of those who had sought to destroy him.

’And more importantly,’ he thought, his golden eyes scanning the burning corridors, ’I have just acquired a flock of witnesses who will sing of my grace to the entire city and beyond.’

He turned slightly to Xu Yi, his body swaying with a practiced, elegant frailty. "Xu Yi... see to it. Bring them to the outer courtyards of our estate. Feed them. Heal them. Treat them as guests, not captives."

"As you command, My Lord," Xu Yi replied, her voice steady though she could feel the terrifying, icy heat of his true killing intent radiating through his sleeve. She alone knew that this ’mercy’ was the final cage; these survivors would now be the Tang Clan’s most loyal hounds, or their most public trophies.

"Ahhhhhhh... my son! My beautiful boy!"

The scream tore through the heavy, post-slaughter silence like a jagged blade. It was a sound of such raw, guttural agony that it seemed to vibrate the very stones of the estate. Every person in the courtyard froze, their breath catching as the wail echoed from a secluded, shadowed corner of the inner manor.

Shen Yu turned his head toward the source, his expression shifting into one of concerned gravity. He began to walk, his steps measured and heavy, with Xu Yi trailing a pace behind and the mob following in a hushed, reverent wake. As they approached the room, the screaming dissolved into a frantic, rhythmic sobbing.

"Peng Bo... my son... how could he? How could that bastard do this?"

The mention of the name sent a jolt through Shen Yu that nearly shattered his composure. His jaw tightened until the bone felt like it might snap, and his eyes turned into twin pools of freezing, dark gold. Behind him, Xu Yi felt the temperature drop; she sensed a sudden, suffocating pressure emanating from him that had nothing to do with the "Golden Paragon" he was currently portraying.

Peng Bo.

The name was a festering wound in Shen Yu’s memory. It was that arrogant bastard who had dared to walk into the Tang Estate to demand Lixue’s hand, his first wife’s hand, as if she were a piece of commodity. Shen Yu had been forced to swallow his pride then, holding back his killing intent only because the Tangs hadn’t yet secured the backing of the Jin Clan.

’Fuck,’ Shen Yu cursed internally, a demonic storm raging behind his calm eyes.

’I was going to be the one. I was going to peel the skin from his bones and keep him alive through a hundred cycles of torture.’

’Who dared to steal my prey?’

He crossed the threshold of the room, and the scene inside was a masterpiece of gore. Standing in the center was a mature, slender beauty with cascading black hair and tear-blurred brown eyes, Li Qiu, the wife of Peng Kai.

She was slumped on the floor, her silken robes soaked in crimson as she clutched a severed head to her chest.

It was Peng Bo. His face was frozen in a mask of terminal terror.

Shen Yu felt a twisted, warring duality within his soul. He wanted to laugh at the sight of that headless, arrogant prick, yet he wanted to roar in fury that he hadn’t been the one to strike the blow.

His gaze then shifted to the rest of the room, which looked like a slaughterhouse. Two bodies had been dismantled with a barbaric, frantic precision, limbs and torsos hacked into unrecognizable pieces, as if by someone who had lost their mind to a berserker rage.

Tossed into a corner like a piece of refuse was another head: Peng Tai, the uncle who had accompanied the boy to the Tang Estate. Shen Yu had barely considered him a side character, a mere annoyance to be dealt with later.

’Who did-’ Shen Yu thought.

Just then the woman Shen Yu had comforted earlier stumbled into the room, her voice a shrill piercé of grief. "Madam! Who... who could have done this to the Young Master?"

Li Qiu looked up, her face a mask of shattered porcelain. "It was Kai," she rasped, her voice trembling with a terrifying certainty.

"Peng Kai. He butchered his own son and his own brother, Tai, before fleeing through the secret passage the moment the gates buckled. He... he took everything from the treasury and left us to the fire."

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A/N: Hey everyone! Just a heads-up: I’m only posting one Chapter today as I’m finally heading home after finishing my uni exams! To make up for it, I’m planning a 4-Chapter mass-release this Sunday.

The Sunday lineup includes:

2 Regular Chapters

1 Bonus Chapter (for hitting last week’s Power Stone goal!)

1 Makeup Chapter (from today)

Thanks for your patience and for the support during my exams!