[Young Master Xian]—❈—61:: FUCK. NO.

A/N:: This chapter is dedicated to Malcolm Tent. Thanks for all your help. You're a wonderful person.

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“Her Divine Majesty will see you now.”

The person who says the words is a perfectly androgynous individual the likes of which one rarely encounters.

Nothing about them, from their form to their clothes to their voice, suggests which way their sex leans.

They are beautiful though.

But more than that, they are powerful, with a divine rank cultivation in Domain Realm, though I can’t tell which phase. Their power is too far beyond mine to pick out such detail.

I rise, and Mother does with me, but the aide, or manager, or whatever their position is, says, “Just the boy.”

Mother freezes, and she stares long and hard at the aide for several moments.

Finally, she sits back down gracefully.

She says nothing, but she doesn’t need to, because, for a brief moment, her own aura rises. Not in a confrontational or challenging way, but it does rise, and as it does a simple truth rises with it.

For all that The Empress keeps trying to shove her ‘divine aura’ down our throats, for all its impressive weight and potency, even in its resting state, with Mother’s aura standing out next to it now, the difference is clear; Xian Qi is congruent, and Feng Lingxian is not.

The world shudders with The Empress’ displeasure.

Meng Yi stumbles, and Xiuying quickly reaches out to steady her, not looking too stable herself.

I feel the weight press down on me, not malevolent, but displeased... irked.

The reminder of Mother’s achievement, and The Empress’ own shortcoming next to it, has left Feng Lingxian an unhappy empress.

Well, boohoo, jerk, go cry about it to someone who gives a shit and stop oppressing my friends.

A warmth runs down through me from the top of my head, and as it does, I feel the weight of The Empress’ aura reduce.

Someone gasps.

Well, it’s hardly a gasp, merely a somewhat louder than normal inhale, but in the silence of the room, it stands out.

I turn. It’s the aide. Now staring at my face like my existence upsets them personally.

No, wait, not at my face. Not really. Their gaze is focused more on the crown of my head.

Or, more accurately, the crown on my head.

A part of me wants to cower under their eyes, but then I decide, fuck it, and I choose instead to stand tall.

“Well, Qigang,” Mother says, “you heard the Chief of the Imperial Staff, ‘Her Divine Majesty will see you now.’”

She looks so pleased with the current situation.

I look to Meng Yi and Xiuying, they don’t look too good, but Xiuying nods to me confidently, and Meng Yi does her best to assure me with a smile.

I really don’t want to leave them, but, unfortunately, I have to.

Best I can do is get this over with as quickly as I can manage so we can all leave this place.

“Follow me, Seventh Young Master Xian,” the Chief of the Imperial Staff says and turns to exit the room.

Oh, I’ve gone from ‘boy’ to ‘Seventh Young Master Xian’ now? Fancy. I wonder what they’ll call me next if they see me knock another person into forced advancement.

I almost roll my eyes.

Good heaven, I really hate fucking politics.

The walk to meet The Empress takes many minutes. At one point, we literally step outside into a huge courtyard with more precious metals than a gold mine, before walking into a different building entirely.

This new building is clearly special, and even before we reach the twenty-foot-tall doors radiating divine rank qi, I already know that we’re headed to The Empress’ throne room.

Two heavily armoured guards stand before the door, their noble rank cultivations at the absolute peak of Qi Realm.

I almost chuckle at the sight.

The kind of force that it would take to invade The Capital, breach the Divine Quarter, fight your way through that to enter the Royal Estate, then work your way up to these doors and still have a hope of taking on the absolute monster within… and then the idea that it’s these two who are supposed to stop you…

This is like if a polar bear that lived on an island surrounded by loyal crocodiles, had two housecats as its personal guard. So, essentially, useless.

I get it though. They can’t exactly waste divine rank, or Domain Realm cultivators on door duty. Which is basically what this is. No one is that wealthy.

The worst part is, I wouldn’t even be thinking about this, were it not for the obscene display of wealth that’s been thrown in my face since I stepped on royal grounds.

Somewhere between the fields of beast rank grass and Qi Realm streetsweepers, my expectations climbed really high, and as is always the case in these situations, reality just can’t match up.

The doors swing open wide, and the Chief of the Imperial Staff walks in first to announce me.

They bow at a perfect ninety-degree angle and say, “Presenting Seventh Young Master Xian Qigang, Your Divine Grace.”

They rise, then step aside, bidding me with the simple gesture to present myself.

I step into the throne room.

It is huge. High ceilings, a long path framed by massive pillars leading to a throne that sits on a raised dais, and copious use of dramatic lighting in the form of curtained windows and large burning torches of blue and green flames.

On her throne sits The Empress, more cloth and fineries than actual woman. On her head sits her crown of big, glowing, resplendent feathers. And on her brow sits a very obvious frown.

She does not look happy to see me.

The massive divine rank doors behind me close with a decisive swing and a surprisingly soft clack!

I swallow.

Already coached on proper etiquette, I descend to my knees and press my head to the cool floor.

“This servant Xian Qigang hails Her Divine Majesty,” I say, then wait for her to speak and bid me to rise.

I wait five seconds, then fifteen, then a whole minute.

Silence.

Seriously?

Why is she even doing this? Does she have some sort of beef with my mother that I don’t know about? I would say that it’s because of the outshining of her aura my mother did back in the waiting room, but it’s obvious that The Empress had an issue with us even before that.

 Or maybe all that rudeness where she kept us waiting was over something else, while this is just some juvenile attempt to get back at the mother who exposed her ‘divine’ shortcomings through some pettiness to the son.

Who the hell knows? With these people, there are always a thousand different games being played for a hundred different reasons.

It’s why allegiances are formed and broken at the drop of a hat.

Another minute passes with The Empress keeping me on my knees, but I don’t mind too much. Physically, it’s hardly a strain.

I’m a cultivator, and tough as whatever sage rank material was used to make this ground is, my knees could probably crack it without too much trouble.

As for the mental part, well right now I’m singing baby shark in my head, so I’m probably good for the next five minutes.

Honestly, the biggest problem I have right now is reminding myself to not shake my hips along to the tune.

Sensing that the power play she’s going for now isn’t leaving me a fuming cultivator offended to the point of apoplexy, The Empress speaks, “Approach us, Xian Qigang.”

Us? Seriously? I almost laugh at the term.

I didn’t think any monarchs ever actually address themselves in that way.

Like, seriously? Us?

Does she not hear herself? She sounds like a chunni.

Then again, who knows, maybe she is an us.

For all I know she could have split personality disorder. Or she could be a conjoined twin.

The other half could be a head sticking out of her abdomen.

Not like I could tell with how much material she’s wrapped in.

Holding back any sign of my thoughts from my face for dear life, I approach the throne.

The Empress doesn’t say to stop, so I continue to approach her throne until a force arrests my momentum, like a sleeve perfectly fitted to my body that suddenly grips me.

Reflexively, I test my strength against it, and for one moment I realise what it must be like for an ant to try to push a mountain.

I relent, and the grip frees me.

The message is clear, that’s as far as I go.

I'm about ten feet away from the dais her throne sits on now, and the dais itself is at least fifteen feet off the ground.

Fortunately, I am but a mere worm who dares not look upon Her Imperial Divineness, so my neck is spared the strain of having to look upwards.

Another long stretch of silence passes, and I begin to wonder if we’re going to do this the whole time, because baby shark is powerful, but it’s not powerful enough to see me through much more of this.

I doubt anything is.

I feel The Empress’ gaze burning holes into the crown of my head, and it takes all of my willpower to keep my gaze trained down.

“Tell us, Xian Qigang,” she speaks finally, “how did you stop the Wild Qi storm?”

“Oh, um… I don’t truly know, Your Divine Grace,” I say.

This is the truth. I have no clue.

I know the Wild Qi responded to my will, but why and how that happened, I have zero clue.

Well… I do have some clue, but telling The Empress that my soul is an amalgamation of entities fused with Wild Qi is about as good an idea as hugging a porcupine, I would say.

“You don’t know,” Empress Feng Lingxian says softly, like she finds the words almost incredible. “Is this so?”

“Yes, Your Divine Grace,” I say, wondering what the hell is happening right now.

“We see. And how then did you recover from its corruption?” she asks next.

This one I thankfully can answer. “The Sun Emperor, he is the spirit of my cultivation, he and I worked together to repair the damage from within,” I say.

A strange kind of stillness settles after my answer.

Then Feng Lingxian speaks. “And how is it, Xian Qigang, that your trash noble rank cultivation could repair damage that even I will be hard pressed to survive?”

The question takes me by surprise, and I’m trying to put a good answer together, namely ‘Celestial Plum,’ when The Empress bellows. So loud that her voice alone shakes the ground.

“Look at us, Xian Qigang!”

Stunned and confused, I obey.

She looks livid.

“Do you think us fools?” she asks. “Do you, and that gutter rat mother of yours with ambitions too big for her ability, think us imbeciles!?”

I stagger back.

What the hell is this?

What is happening?

The Empress rises to her feet, descending the dais one slow step at a time, and with each step closer she gets, the temperature rises.

“Do you and your mother truly think that we will not recognize a heavenly item by its works? That we will not sense its power flowing through your meridians?”

Wait, heavenly item? The Plum. She means the Plum. But that’s not possible. She can’t know. She shouldn’t know, and she definitely shouldn’t be able to sense it through my meridians, or whatever.

Ah, this is what Mother warned me about. That even upon the threat of death, I should never admit that the Plum is divine rank, because while everyone already suspects that it is, that’s all it is, a suspicion.

I am the son of Xian Qi, the Thunder Dragon Goddess, no one can kill me over a suspicion…

Probably.

Me admitting it though, that’s a whole other thing.

Like my mother said last night, the words I say here, now, will determine if I’m rewarded, or if I even get to leave this place alive.

“Empress, I fear there’s been a misunderstanding,” I say.

“A misunderstanding?” she asks in that fake calm tone that women often use when they’re already planning how to dispose of your corpse.

“Yes,” I say, backing away from the woman, only to find my body suddenly seize as the same force that had stopped me from approaching her earlier now works to keep me from avoiding her.

With one final step, The Empress exits the dais finally and steps on level ground with me.

“You have stolen something that is not yours, Xian Qigang,” she says approaching me. “Something that you have no right or prerogative to. You, Xian Qigang, have stolen something that is rightfully ours.”

“I didn’t,” I say. “I swear.”

She stands right before me now, maybe an inch or two taller than I am. Her skin is alabaster pale, her expression furious, and close as she is now, I notice the evidence her thick makeup tries to hide; she’s old.

Not Magistrate Qin Zedong old, but old all the same.

“You lie, even now you lie.” I spot something in her eyes, a decision. Monumental. Significant.

“You will tell us the truth, Xian Qigang,” she says. “You will TELL ME THE TRUTH.”

Divine Mandate of The Celestial Phoenix

Some time ago, I had learnt that The Path of The Sun Emperor has an innate technique called ‘Emperor’s Decree.’

I learnt that this technique gave me the power to command people of lower cultivation than myself to do almost anything I wanted them to, and that techniques with these power are called subjugation techniques.

I also learnt then that, with the exception of The Path of The Sun Emperor, and two other noble rank methods that Meng Yi knows of, only divine rank cultivation methods have them.

One thing I didn’t learn then though, was how it feels to have this technique used on you.

TELL ME THE TRUTH. TELL ME THE TRUTH. TELL ME THE TRUTH. TELL ME THE TRUTH.

TELL. ME. THE. TRUTH.

The command resounds in my head. Over and over. Louder and louder. It is everything. All things. It is up and down and left and right. It is me.

I must obey. I MUST OBEY! I MUST OBEY!!!!!

FUCK. NO.

Something breaks. Everything breaks. Up, down, left, right… I break.

I look through bleary eyes to see Empress Feng Lingxian.

She doesn’t look angry anymore.

She looks… terrified.

She seems unfamiliar with the expression.

I open my mouth to speak, or perhaps to breathe, but a wet cough comes out instead, something red spraying out to splatter on The Empress’ pristine clothes.

My eyes feel wet. So does my nose. And my ears.

I think I may be bleeding from them.

That’s not good.

Right?

Thinking is hard right now.

A resounding crash echoes behind me, like the sound of two massive divine rank doors being blown off their hinges.

My attempt to turn to see what’s happening sends me falling to the ground, but two steady arms arrest my fall and cradle me to a feminine chest.

I look up at the face, and through my darkening vision, I see it’s my mother.

Should she be here? Isn’t that against some sort of rule?

Her face is a carefully blank mask, but it can’t hide the coiled readiness of her qi.

“Just… go,” Empress Feng Lingxian says. The words sound almost like a plea to my bleeding ears.

Mother doesn’t move for several moments, then finally, she pulls me into a bridal carry, turns around, and walks off.

I don’t know when the darkness claims me.

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A/N:: Thanks for reading. Next chapter should give some exposition on what happened this chapter.