"Good... good boy..." Liu Wenyuan's voice was hoarse like sandpaper, each syllable drawn out as if he were expending all his remaining strength, "Coming back alive... is enough..."

He studied Su Ming carefully. Five years had changed him; the youthly awkwardness and frailty were gone. The young man before him resembled a piece of Mystic Iron tempered in ice and snow—reserved, steady, yet containing a resilience ordinary people could not hope to match.

Liu Wenyuan smiled with relief. He slowly raised a hand and pointed to a small wooden table beside him.

On the table sat a go board.

Su Ming stood and took the seat opposite. He extended his long fingers and plucked a smooth black stone from the basket.

The Warm Pavilion fell into a long silence.

Old and young, separated by five years, played another game.

Neither spoke; only the crisp clicks of stones hitting the board broke the quiet.

Su Ming's style of play had changed.

In the past his moves had tried to hide their edge, but a streak of intent to break the opponent's structure still showed through. Now, each placement seemed to carry a strange rhythm. Unhurried, unforced, like still depths and immovable mountains. He had abandoned all risky trick moves, seeking only one word: steadiness. Snow leaves no trace, moisture nourishes in silence. No matter how Liu Wenyuan probed with his white stones, the black stones held the baseline of the game firmly, flawlessly, without a leak.

A full hour passed.

When Su Ming gently placed the final black stone on the board's center point, the deadlocked game suddenly opened. The black stones formed an invisible vast net, erasing every variable perfectly.

Liu Wenyuan's hand holding a white stone froze mid-air. After a long while he tossed the stone back into the basket and let out a low, resonant laugh.

"Your play is steadier than it used to be." Liu Wenyuan stared at the board, a flash of wisdom in his cloudy eyes, "No blades or swords in sight, but you already stand in an undefeated place. This temperament, I cannot match you on."

Su Ming bowed his head slightly. "Life is like a game of go. I have simply learned that only by surviving first do you earn the right to place stones."

Liu Wenyuan nodded. After a moment of silence his cloudy gaze drifted to the withering leaves falling beyond the window, his voice growing distant, "Brother Zhou... have you gone to see him?"

The 'Brother Zhou' he referred to was naturally the mentor who once recommended Su Ming—Teacher Zhou Wenhai of Qingshi Town.

Su Ming shook his head. "Not yet."

"Go and see him." Liu Wenyuan sighed. "He has waited for you five years. In these five years he wrote me a letter every month to ask about you. I knew you were alive but dared not tell him, fearing leaks that might endanger you. His body has suffered."

Liu Wenyuan paused, then his eyes returned to Su Ming with a calm that showed he had seen through worldly matters.

"As for this old skeleton of mine, I still have a stipend from the court. I can hold on a few more years. Now that treacherous ministers have been punished and the court is clear, I can die with peace. You... go your own way without worry."

He understood that the Su Ming before him was no longer the ordinary scholar in need of his shelter. That unfathomable bearing had long since transcended the bonds of mundane courts and affairs.

Su Ming rose, adjusted his robes with solemnity, and made a deep, respectful bow.

"Your junior will remember."

From his chest Su Ming produced a few smooth mutton-fat jade pendants and placed them gently by the board. Then he left an unsealed note—an herb-and-diet prescription he had scribbled overnight, blending common medical principles with subtle spiritual-energy guidance, enough to grant Liu Wenyuan an extra ten years of life.

With no extra formalities, Su Ming turned and quietly left the Warm Pavilion.

Liu Wenyuan sat in his wheelchair, watching those jade pendants emit a faint glow, then watched Su Ming's figure vanish beyond the courtyard gate.

The autumn wind passed, ruffling his graying hair.

This great scholar who once stood calm before the fall of mountains now sat alone in the empty pavilion, tears glinting silently in his cloudy eyes.

...

Five days after the Yongchang Marquis’s death.

In an inconspicuous inn in the capital.

Su Ming sat cross-legged on the bed. In the four corners of the room a faint sheen of spiritual energy circulated.

It was a composite miniature formation made from the four basic runes: Concealment, Balance, Solidify, and Gathering. In this capital where ambient spiritual energy was vanishingly thin and strangled by Dragon Qi from the imperial way, the array acted like an insulating dome, locking every fluctuation of Su Ming's aura within a one-zhang radius, not leaking an iota.

It sought no great power, only absolute precision and stealth.

In his hands he held a half-rolled, yellowed fragment—the Star Guidance Manual.

It was the cultivation method he used alongside the Xuantian ring and the Border Defense True Seal. His divine sense immersed in the fragment's obscure, profound text; liquid Foundation Establishment spiritual energy flowed through his meridians like a slow, deep river, silently moving.

Outside the window dusk deepened. The inn's wooden shutters were stained orange by the setting sun.

Suddenly Su Ming's tightly closed eyes snapped open.

His keen perception picked up a faint fluctuation not belonging to the mortal world.

"Swoosh—"

A thread-thin azure streak of light, like a blade cutting the void, ignored the inn's wooden shutters and pierced straight into the concealment array Su Ming had set.

Steady, Su Ming pinched the blue light between two fingers.

The radiance faded, leaving behind a wafer-thin blue jade talisman.

His divine sense probed the talisman. A familiar, slightly tired voice sounded directly in his mind, brief and to the point.

"Thirty li east of the city, the old place. Meet me."

It was Elder Qingquan's communication talisman.

A flash of sharp light shone in Su Ming's eyes. He knew Elder Qingquan's mission to the Northern Barbarians had borne fruit.

Without delay Su Ming rose. He swiftly formed hand seals with both hands and dismantled the miniature arrays in the corners, wiping every trace of lingering spiritual energy from the air.

He donned a bamboo hat and pushed open the door. Like an ordinary wandering martial artist he melted into the bustling evening market of the capital and silently slipped toward the eastern gate.

Thirty li beyond the eastern suburbs lay a range of desolate hills.

Few people traveled there; plants grew wild and tangled, and night winds howled through the ravines like ghosts and wolves. Because of the dangerous terrain and lack of resources, even woodcutters avoided the place.

A cold waning moon hung on the treetops, casting mottled shadows across the rocky path.

Su Ming moved like an agile night cat, darting between trees. His feet did not even crush the dead leaves beneath him; water-attributed spiritual energy formed a thin buffering layer under his soles, each step like treading on soft ripples, utterly soundless.

In less than the time it takes to burn an incense stick, Su Ming had climbed to the summit of the barren hill.

On a massive greenstone sat a familiar figure in lotus posture.

Elder Qingquan.