anwhile, in the Matriarch's chambers, Chun Hua had just finished dressing. She smoothed out the creases in her robes and reached for the door, but the mont she pulled it open, she froze.
Her breath hitched, eyes wide with disbelief.
"Chun Hua? What is it?" Yu An asked, still adjusting the layers of her own robes while looking at herself in the mirror.
When there was no response, Yu An walked around the corner.
"Who's there?"
Chun Hua, with her eyes wide in disbelief and a rapidly beating heart, eventually spoke. Her voice barely above a whisper.
"It's… Fang."
Yu An's eyes grew impossibly wide. Her hands faltered, and the delicate hairpin she had been holding slipped from her grasp, as she ran to the doorway.
And there he was.
Xiao Fang stood tall, his presence commanding yet familiar, the very air seeming to ripple around him.
There she was, just as beautiful as he rembered—but different. Dressed in elegant robes, her hair ticulously grood, polished jewelry adorning her wrists and neck. Xiao Fang had never seen her like this before. A complicated feeling stirred within him. In the Divine Sword Sect, she had only ever worn plain, worn-out robes, never a single piece of jewelry. He had always dread of seeing her like this—dignified and radiant, sitting proudly next to his father. But he had never imagined it would be here, in the depths of the Chaos Sect.
Yet none of that mattered. All he saw was his mother, and the overwhelming relief of finally being in her presence again.
"Mother," he said softly, his eyes eting hers with a thousand unspoken words. "I've co."
Tears welled up in her eyes before she could stop them, and in the next mont, she threw herself into Xiao Fang's arms. She wanted to scold him, tell him how much she missed him, demand to know how he had made it here—but all of that was lost in the flood of emotion. All she could do was hold him tightly, her tears soaking into his robes as she clung to him.
Chun Hua, standing nearby, wiped her eyes with her sleeve, sniffling quietly. But before she could compose herself, Xiao Fang reached out and pulled her into the embrace as well. Chun Hua didn't resist; she fell into his arms, tears streaming freely as she buried her face into his shoulder.
For a long mont, none of them spoke—just the sound of muffled sobs and the steady heartbeat of family reunited.
Finally, Xiao Fang kissed Chun Hua as Yu An wiped her tears with her sleeve, then watched as he knelt down to kiss Chun Hua's stomach.
Even after a few months, there was hardly a baby bump there, but just knowing that his child was in her was enough to make him feel sentintal about it.
"He's quite the fighter," Chun Hua joked, nearly making Xiao Fang laugh.
"If he gives you a hard ti, just let know and I'll give him a good whooping."
Chun Hua slapped his arm and tried not to smile, "Don't you dare, he's just a baby."
"If he's anything like , who knows what kind of troublemaker he'll beco in the future," Xiao Fang replied half-jokingly before kissing her again on the lips.
Yu An, with her eyes red and glistening with tears, cupped his face in her hands, her thumbs brushing over his cheeks as if to make sure he was real.
"Fang, how did you get here?"
Xiao Fang gently placed his hands over hers, "I had help."
Yu An's expression softened as she studied him intently. He looked stronger, more determined than she rembered.
"Was it the Soul Devouring Clan that helped you?" she asked. "You must have promised them sothing in return, right?"
Xiao Fang nodded. "I told them I discovered a way to cultivate their thod faster."
Her brow arched with curiosity. "And do you really have such a thod?"
Without hesitation, Xiao Fang began recounting the events of the past week—his imprisonnt, the unexpected encounter with Luo Biya, and the unique thod of cultivation he uncovered. Finally, he showed her the inscription formation Lady Xu had used on him in the Divine Sword Sect's prison.
"It was ant to drain my Qi completely, but instead... it helped understand the Soul Devouring thod in a new way," he continued to explain.
Yu An's eyes glead with interest as she absorbed the information. Her gaze drifted to the inscriptions, studying the individual inscriptions with a complicated expression.
"Fascinating…this isn't a simple formation at all. Even for , this would take weeks if not months to learn." she murmured, pacing slowly as her mind spun with possibilities. "But if I do it… this could change everything."
Xiao Fang left out the part about him getting cursed, because he didn't want to worry her.
"Fang, can you leave this inscription formation blueprint for to study?"
"Of course. I was hoping you could learn it so we could use it as part of our escape."
"Our escape?" Yu An gave him a puzzled look.
"Well, yeah. I figured you wouldn't want to stay here forever."
Although he could see that she seed happier and safer here, Xiao Fang couldn't help but think of the sect as a gilded cage—a prison with nicer things.
Yu An's expression softened, but her eyes held a hint of sadness. "Fang, I can't leave. I'm with my people now. I don't belong anywhere else."
Xiao Fang opened his mouth to respond, but no words ca.
She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "It's amazing that you made it here, but I really can't go anywhere else. This is the only place in the country where practicing a taboo thod is safe."
"Do you really think you will be safe here?"
"I do."
"And what about Chun Hua… and my child, is this really the place you want them to be?"
"Nobody can do anything to us here. At the very least, we're much safer here than anywhere else. And I can't leave my people—they're relying on . So whatever you're planning, you can forget it. This is where I'll stay," Yu An said firmly.
Xiao Fang could tell there was no changing her mind.
'Is this really the safest place for them?' he wondered, his thoughts growing heavier. 'Did I co all this way for nothing?'
He was a Dual Cultivator himself and had managed to travel relatively safely wherever he went, though he knew that was largely due to his blindfold concealing his cultivation thod. Even still, so had managed to discover his secret—one of them being the daughter of a bounty hunter. And that was just in a single year. The more he thought about it, the clearer it beca that his path was only going to get more treacherous if he didn't tread carefully.
A question simred on the tip of his tongue, one he'd wanted to ask for a long ti:
'Why did you let learn the Dual Cultivation thod? Now I have to live on the run, always afraid of being hunted.'
But deep down, he already knew the answer. It was his choice to learn it. He had embraced it, not just for power, but to rebel against everything his grandfather stood for. He wanted to be everything his grandfather hated, because his grandfather was everything he hated.
'The last place she should be is anywhere near him,' Xiao Fang thought.
[ The enemy of an enemy is a friend. ]
Ironically, the safest place for her to be was also the most dangerous.
Reluctantly, he accepted her decision. Seeing her again and knowing she was safe was more than he'd hoped for, but he couldn't help the lingering sting of disappointnt.
As Yu An continued to ponder, an idea lit up her eyes.
"Fang, this is what I'll do. I'll try to persuade the Soul Devouring Clan to ally with us. If it works, you'll be able to travel in and out of the sect freely with their help. But I'll need you to do sothing for as well."
"What do you need?" Xiao Fang asked.
"As I told you before, the Dual Cultivation thod I taught you was just an incomplete version. It had no techniques and could only be practiced up to the Profound Realm. Whether it's here in the Chaos Sect or the Divine Sword Sect, every completed copy of the thod was destroyed—except one."
"There's a complete version still intact?" Xiao Fang asked skeptically.
"That's right. There's no way to know for sure, but I gave a copy to soone when I was attending the Black Paradise Sect years ago."
Xiao Fang's eyes narrowed. "Who did you give it to?"
"Her na is Shi Lan." Yu An said as if recalling a distant mory. "If she's still in the sect, she would likely hold a high position. I need you to find her and recover that book. If we're to grow our influence here in the Chaos Sect, having the complete thod will be essential. Can you do that for ?"
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