The marketplace was alive with noise—vendors hawking their goods, children laughing, and the metallic clink of coins exchanging hands. But the vibrant air was quickly growing heavy with tension.
Xiao Chen walked with his hands behind his back, his embroidered robe dragging faint dust in his wake. His brows were arched in disdain, and his lips curled ever so slightly into a smirk that promised trouble. His eyes, narrow and hawkish, swept over the stalls with a predator's scrutiny.
Passing one vendor, he came to an abrupt stop. His gaze locked on a row of neatly stacked, browned morsels being sold as "mystic beast jerky."
He turned, his tone sharp and scornful. "Do you think I'm blind? Do you think I can't see that you're selling dog food?" Xiao Chen's voice rang out, cutting through the hum of the market like a blade.
The vendor—a hunched, middle-aged man with trembling hands—stammered, "Y-Young Master, I swear it's quality meat, fresh from—"
Before the man could finish, Xiao Chen swiped his arm across the stall, sending food and trays crashing to the ground. People gasped. The vendor fell to his knees, frantically trying to gather what he could, but Xiao Chen didn't spare him a second glance.
He moved on, his stride slow but filled with entitled aggression. Wherever he walked, tension followed. His pettiness knew no bounds. At the next stall, he pointed at an elderly woman selling medicinal herbs.
"Rotten. These are dried weeds, not spirit ginseng," he declared arrogantly.
When she tried to plead her case, Xiao Chen flipped her table too. Glass jars shattered. Dried roots scattered into the dirt.
His guards stood behind him, stone-faced and silent. No one dared challenge him. Civilians watched from the corners of their eyes, fearful that drawing his attention could mean the ruin of their livelihoods.
Another vendor approached with a desperate smile, offering a fine jade comb.
"I don't brush my hair with trash," Xiao Chen scoffed, knocking it to the ground and stepping on it with deliberate force.
More gasps.
Children who had once played nearby were now ushered away by anxious parents. Whispers spread like wildfire. "That's Xiao Chen, isn't it?" "The Young Master of the Xiao Family?" "He's worse than a beast..."
But Xiao Chen reveled in their fear. To him, this wasn't cruelty. It was control.
Elsewhere, in the Xiao Family Manor
The candle in Xiao Lin's chamber flickered erratically. He sat on a woven mat, his hands resting on his knees, his breathing steady—until a sharp pain tore through his skull like a needle driven into his mind.
"Ah!"
He clutched his head, groaning through clenched teeth. Veins popped across his forehead, and cold sweat ran down his neck. He gritted his teeth, trying to stay upright, but his vision swam.
Then—stillness.
And then… something else.
A flood of images surged through his mind. Visions of smoke. Screaming. The Xiao Family manor in ruins. Corpses—bloodied and broken—strewn across its once-glorious halls. The golden banners of their legacy torn down and burned.
His own face, reflected in a shattered mirror, wide-eyed and filled with disbelief. His own body lying on the floor, lifeless and cold.
He gasped. The pain vanished as suddenly as it came.
Xiao Lin opened his eyes, his breath shallow. "Was that... a Heaven and Earth Interference?" he whispered to himself, the words catching in his throat.
He wiped sweat from his brow with a trembling hand, trying to steady his racing heart.
A Heaven and Earth Interference—an event so rare, so profound, that even the most ancient of cultivators feared its implications. It was when the will of the Heavens themselves bent to interfere in the mortal world. It could manifest in various ways: sudden mass breakthroughs, revelations of divine techniques, or mysterious natural phenomena that twisted the laws of cultivation.
But this wasn't any of those.
What Xiao Lin had seen… was the future. A fragmented, incomplete vision—but undeniably real.
He sat still for a long moment, replaying the chaos in his mind.
"Is that the future?" he whispered again, this time more bitterly. There had been no clear details—only the devastation. The faces of the attackers remained blurry, shrouded in mist. Yet there was something he couldn't ignore.
Names.
Amidst the screams, the smoke, and the death—he'd heard names. Faint and overlapping like echoes in a canyon.
He tried to recall them. "I may not be able to know their faces or identities currently," Xiao Lin said, slowly clenching his fists, "but this is a reason why I need to improve more."
His tone had changed now—no longer confused or shaken, but resolute. He could not afford to be weak. Not when destruction loomed just beyond the veil of time.
His eyes narrowed as he rose to his feet, determination burning in them like twin flames.