The courtyard was shrouded in silence, yet beneath that silence lay the residue of violence. Broken ice vines lted into pale mist, scorched wood exhaled faint threads of smoke, and the scent of blood lingered like a stubborn ghost unwilling to disperse.
On the wooden floor of the residence, ng Ruyan lay collapsed.
Her lower body had been severed cleanly at the waist. Blood seeped outward in slow streams, staining the planks beneath her as though the ground itself sought to drink her life away. Yet the pain in her body was nothing compared to the fracture within her heart.
Her eyes were wide, fixed upon the youth before her, not with hatred, not yet, but with a soul crushing disbelief that seed to hollow her from within.
"Why... Kai... why?" Her lips quivered, her voice hoarse and fragile as a candle in the wind.
ng Kai lay nearby.
The young man did not answer, nor did his gaze et hers. It lingered lower, as if avoiding her eyes might lessen the weight crushing his chest. He was suffocatingly aware that what he had done could never be undone, no matter how desperately he wished otherwise.
Before anyone could speak another word, in the space behind them a distortion unfolded like curtains being parted by unseen hands. From within it stepped a second clone, silent as a grave robber in the dead of night.
It lunged toward her, its hand striking like a hawk’s talon, seizing ng Ruyan’s arm, the one adorned with the bluish space swapping bead bracelet. With a violent twist, bone snapped, flesh tore, and the arm was ripped free with a spray of blood.
"Aahh—!!" ng Ruyan’s scream shattered the stillness.
The severed limb was tossed into the concealnt array. The mont it vanished, the faint connection between her and the treasure was snapped cleanly.
Pain surged through her body as she began losing more blood.
Just because only one clone had intercepted her previously was not an indicator that it was the only one present. Jiang Chen had actually placed three clones inside the array as backup.
As ng Ruyan’s cries began to falter into ragged gasps, the heavy thud of boots sounded against the porch.
Jiang Chen stepped through the doorway, his expression as serene as a scholar entering a garden of plum blossoms. His hands ca together in slow applause, each clap echoing faintly in the ruined hall.
"Truly a magnificent performance," Jiang Chen remarked lightly. "To betray one’s own blood at such a mont requires a certain clarity of heart. Not everyone possesses such resolve. Well done, my loyal slave. I shall see to it that your limbs are restored as a reward."
Jiang Chen’s gaze then mockingly shifted toward ng Ruyan. "As for you... what do you believe binds people together? Blood? Affection? Or rely the illusion of both? In the face of death, all bonds are weighed. Heh, your beloved nephew here—"
"What have you done to him? What poison have you poured into his soul?!" ng Ruyan shrieked, her eyes bloodshot and bulging, fixed on Jiang Chen with a hatred so concentrated it seed capable of igniting the very air.
Jiang Chen regarded ng Ruyan with indifference. "Poison?" he said flatly. "You overestimate your importance. Now back to what I was saying previously, your nephew here has not changed. He has simply stopped pretending."
"You risked your life for him because you could not accept being the kind of person who selfishly walks away to save thier own life. That choice satisfied you. Now he abandons you because living matters more to him than you do. And that choice satisfies him. So where exactly is the difference here?"
Jiang Chen’s expression turned mocking, "You flatter yourself by calling your actions loyalty and condemning his actions as treachery, but both are nothing more than self interest wearing different faces. Neither is noble nor base. In the end, neither of you acted for the other. You only acted for yourselves, for what you value most. If you truly loved him, if your loyalty were as pure as you claim, why does his choice anger you? He chose to save himself. Is that not what your actions were ant to protect in the first place?"
"You... you..." ng Ruyan’s lips trembled, her voice faltering before rising into a furious shriek. "You despicable beast! Twisting right and wrong with that filthy tongue of yours! May you die screaming, your body left to rot in the wild, torn apart piece by piece with no one to mourn you!"
Jiang Chen frowned faintly and raised a hand to cover one ear. He said with mild irritation, "You resign yourself to noise in the face of little difficulty. What is the difference between you and a mortal woman wailing in the dirt? How disappointing."
He flicked his sleeve, and a crimson envelope appeared in his hand, the paper as dark as dried blood and embossed with the silver, twisting character for "Slave."
This was the Blood Soul Contract, an item he had brought from the black market. The rchant who had sold it to him had boasted that a cultivator at the peak of Qi Condensation could bind up to seven souls to their will. He had already enslaved ng Kai within the array when he had first caught him.
The clone standing beside ng Ruyan seized her by the hair and dragged her toward Jiang Chen, then wrenched her head back so that she was forced to stare upward at him.
Jiang Chen leaned casually against the doorfra with an indifferent smirk. The flas from the earlier blast still flickered around them, casting long, dancing shadows that made him appear like a demon manifested from the ink of the night.
"This is a slave contract," Jiang Chen said, lifting it slightly.
"Accept it, and your life shall be preserved as my property. I am not one to tornt my tools without reason. You would rely have to run a few errands for . In ti, if you serve well enough, you may even reach a realm you once thought impossible."
He chuckled softly. "After all... you have seen the high grade technique I sold to the sect. That was but a trifle, a re scrap from the table of the inheritance I have recently secured. If you serve with sincerity, the rewards may surprise you even more. What do you say? Shall we set this unfortunate little incident aside and begin a more... mutually beneficial arrangent?"
’To have secured a position in the Martial Scroll Hall is not a simple matter. Her family must have so level of political power. If I could sohow...’ Jiang Chen reflected, his eyes tracing the minute tremors of her pupils.
He could have chosen to simply enslave her by force, but doing so would not benefit him. While the Blood Soul Contract allowed one to bestow death upon their slaves, it did not allow for full control over their actions. If she chose to die, there was little he could do to stop her. Not only would that be a loss of a slave, it would also be a loss of a Blood Soul Contract that could be used on soone else.
The next best option was to have control over her emotions, but achieving that was more difficult.
’From that earlier dialogue with her, I can see it is not impossible to sway her emotions, but considering the overall benefits, I do not wish to invest so much ti in her. If she shows a willingness to live, I will enslave her, then test her, and only afterward assign her tasks. If she refuses, then I will kill her right here and now.’
’As for this ng Kai, heh, this Blood Soul Contract will do just fine...’ Jiang Chen thought confidently.
He glanced at ng Kai, who was now trembling in the corner, his eyes averted from his aunt’s mangled form. The youth was a coward of the highest order, a man whose previous "goodness," which he had shown Jiang Chen when everyone thought he was asleep, was rely a lack of spine for evil. When faced with the absolute finality of death, which he knew Jiang Chen would deliver if he were to escape this place with his aunt, the boy had found that the blood of his kin was a cheap price to pay for another day of breath.
For people like that, Jiang Chen felt a instinctive control over them. Those who feared death were the easiest to lead, for their leashes were made of their own cowardice.
To put things in perspective, Jiang Chen had never ordered him to betray his aunt. It was all his own doing.
And even now...
"Aunt... please," ng Kai whimpered, his voice cracking with sha that was swiftly being drowned out by the roar of his survival instinct. "Master Jiang is rciful. He reattached my hand... he can save us. Please, just agree to it. There is no use in dying here in the dark. If we die, who will avenge the murder of uncle?"
ng Ruyan’s eyes which were burning with the fire of a cornered lioness, suddenly turned dull and vacant, like a lake of stagnant water. She looked at the boy she had raised like her own son, and a hollow, bitter laugh escaped her lips. "Kai... you would sell the very aunt who taught you to save your own skin..? You hurt my heart... I taught you to stand upright in this world, to walk upright, to face the world without lowering your head. And now... you tell to kneel? In the end, you were not my child after all..."
ng Kai’s body stiffened. His mouth opened, yet no words ca out. The weight of her words struck deeper than any blade.
But Jiang Chen impatiently clicked his tongue. "Blah blah, I have no interest in your family lodrama. The moon is high and my patience is thin. Decide now, or I shall slit your throat and hang your corpse outside the whorehouse."
Silence lingered, heavy as a mountain.
Then ng Ruyan looked up, her expression settling into hopeless despair. "...It seems my ungrateful nephew is not the only one who fears death. I... will accept your collar, Jiang Chen. But this must remain a secret between us, and the reputation of the ng family must not be dragged into disgrace for my servitude."
Jiang Chen blinked once in a bit of surprise, then let out a soft laugh. "A slave negotiating terms..? What a humorous sight. But! I am in a generous mood this evening. As long as you are useful, I care not for your public face. Now let us start the binding ritual."
He initiated the ritual, the Blood Soul Contract erupting into a dark, pulsing light as it hovered between them. The spiritual essence of the room began to swirl in a colorful vortex, drawn toward the contract.
It was a delicate mont, a point where the divine will of the master and the soul of the servant were temporarily bridged.
Jiang Chen watched closely. ’Her resistance is lowest now. The binding will take root quickly.’
The contract glowed like a lamp of blood.
Then ng Ruyan’s aura, which had been flickering and weak, underwent a terrifyingly violent transformation.
Her eyes snapped open with extre clarity.
Then madness followed.
Her Qi erupted.
It did not flow nor circulate. It collapsed inward, compressing furiously as if the very core of her being were being crushed into a single point.
Jiang Chen’s pupils shrank.
’Not good—’
"Die, you monster!" she shrieked.
The next instant—
A blinding flash of white hot chaotic energy erupted. Flesh, bone, Qi, and life itself shattered into a storm of destruction. A shockwave tore the roof from the residence and reduced the wooden furniture to splinters.
The explosion was so powerful that ng Kai who was many feet away, was half burned and sent flying like a ragdoll against the wall, his body showered in the sickening, gory remnants of his aunt’s physical form.
Blood and fragnts scattered like rain.
For a mont, the courtyard was nothing but swirling ash, and it seed as though Jiang Chen had finally been consud by the fire of his own ambition.
Then the dust began to settle.
The space ten feet away from the center of the blast began to distort and flicker unstably.
The air seed to crack, and a formation disc with seven flags appeared.
Jiang Chen strode out from the Divine Concealnt Array, his robes pristine but his expression etched with cold, solemn fury as he surveyed the aftermath.
"The third one... proved useful," he murmured after a long ti.
At the final microsecond before the detonation, the third clone hidden within the array had utilized the bead treasure to swap places with the true Jiang Chen, leaving the clone to face the brunt of the suicide attack.
Had the clone been a fraction of a second slower, his own flesh would have been scattered across the doorstep alongside hers.
"Mad woman... soone of such temperant is truly ill suited to be a slave," he muttered, shaking his head as he surveyed the wreckage.
’This here is a fine treasure.’ Jiang Chen gazed at the bluish space swapping beads now resting in his hand. Before the clone had fully swapped places, it had left the beads behind.
He glanced at the scorched walls where his paintings had once hung and let out a small sigh of pity. Walking toward the unconscious ng Kai, he began to treat the youth’s injuries, though his thoughts were already elsewhere.
’In the end... even careful plans have their limits. I sold the technique to avoid one form of danger. In doing so, I invited another. I calculated, prepared, and still... variables erged beyond my control. No matter how sharp the mind, how cautious the step... the path ahead is never entirely visible.’
The night wind drifted through the broken doorway, carrying away the last traces of smoke.
Jiang Chen stood in silence.
Human calculations... must they always fall short of Heaven’s design?
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