Chapter 84: Chapter 84
The hall fell back into dead silence.
Wisps of sandalwood smoke coiled like thin mist between the two men, gathering and dispersing.
A long time passed before Wang Zhidao spoke again.
“Now do you understand why your father sent you to Changyun County, of all places?”
“I understand!”
Wang Xuanyang’s head snapped up, his eyes blazing with fierce light.
“Father wants me close to the source — to befriend that Child of Destiny. Ideally, to become his follower, the way Father once followed Dou Jiao. If I can do that, my future will be every bit as boundless as my eldest and second brothers’!”
By the time the words left his mouth, Wang Xuanyang was brimming with fire. Not a trace of his earlier bitterness remained.
Watching him, something complicated flickered through Wang Zhidao’s gaze — but it was replaced in an instant by fervent intensity.
“Exactly! When the time comes, you’ll represent our Wang family in approaching him. Once you’ve brushed against his destiny, fortune will find you at every turn — one wondrous encounter after another, your cultivation soaring to the heavens.”
Wang Zhidao dropped his voice.
“And when the Blessed Land opens… perhaps our Wang family can use your hand to obtain a second divine power!”
Divine power!
Those two words landed like a hammer blow, striking Wang Xuanyang square in the heart.
His fists clenched. His nails dug into his palms, but he didn’t notice.
In this world, only by cultivating to the very pinnacle of Astral Strength could one touch the great power of heaven and earth — and condense the elusive, intangible thing called a “divine power.”
A single divine power was enough to sustain a preeminent house for a thousand years.
Wang Xuanyang had grown up in the general’s household. He knew his family’s rise from nothing by heart.
In those days, the Zhendong General Wang Zhifan had been nothing but a small-clan fighter with no backing whatsoever.
He had stumbled into an acquaintance with Dou Jiao. When he emerged from the Nanxiang Blessed Land at Dou Jiao’s side, he brought with him a stroke of heaven-shaking fortune.
It was a divine-power scripture called the Dragon-Elephant Penetrating-Light Prison-Suppressing Body Method.
Legend held that the art was created by a supreme being of the former dynasty’s great Buddhist holy ground, Cibei Dao — a figure known as the Suffering-Guilt Tribulation-Crossing World-Revealing Manifestation.
But a priceless treasure in the hands of a nobody was a death sentence — as true then as ever.
A top-tier Buddhist divine power in the possession of a nobody fighter was nothing but a slab of meat ringed by wolves.
The great powers with any sense of dignity might hold themselves above open robbery.
But the mid-tier factions and lone wolves who lived by the blade? They had no such scruples.
Wang Zhifan was hunted and hounded — no road to heaven, no door into the earth — and came within a hair’s breadth of dying more than once.
In the depths of that desperation, destiny showed its hand.
He blundered into the path of the Eighth Prince of Great Qi, who at the time was traveling the realm incognito.
The present-day Prince of Changle!
Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, Wang Zhifan threw himself at the prince’s feet, held the Dragon-Elephant Penetrating-Light Prison-Suppressing Body Method high above his head, and offered it up.
That act of fealty bought him an imperial edict for protection. Not only did it save his life, it launched him on a meteoric rise — ennobled, given command of armies. The Wang family vaulted overnight into the ranks of the powerful.
But Wang Zhifan’s surrender of the art had not been willing.
“Back then…”
Wang Zhidao let out a cold snort. A shadow of old resentment darkened his eyes.
“Your father was cornered. Handing over the divine power was a desperate gamble to stay alive.”
“Now, that Body Method has long since been locked away in the imperial inner palace’s secret vault. Any prince or princess can browse and study it at their leisure. It stopped being a Wang family possession the day he gave it up.”
Here Wang Zhidao rose to his feet, his gaze burning as it fixed on Wang Xuanyang.
“But this time will be different!”
“A Child of Destiny is sheltered by heaven. He is untouched by karmic debt. Even the diviners of the Imperial Observatory cannot calculate his specific movements or the fortunes he obtains.”
“And Daoist Master Yu has since retreated to the mountains to focus on comprehending his third divine power. The Southern Dipper Hall will not involve itself in affairs here in Cangzhou.”
“As long as we can befriend this Child of Destiny before any other faction catches wind — ride his fortune, and pull a second divine power from the Blessed Land right here in Changyun County…”
“It will be a divine power the court cannot take away. A Wang family heirloom, ours and ours alone!”
Wang Zhidao grew more animated with every word, as though the divine power were already in the family’s pocket.
The grand vision set Wang Xuanyang’s blood on fire. Every trace of his earlier gloom was swept clean away, replaced by blazing excitement.
“The Patriarch’s foresight is without equal. I am in awe!”
Wang Xuanyang strode forward, his voice urgent.
“Then there’s no time to waste! I’ll mobilize every informant I have immediately. Even if we have to dig three feet into the ground and turn Changyun and Changshui counties inside out, I will find—”
“Fool!”
Before he could finish pledging his loyalty, Wang Zhidao’s face turned to stone and he cut him off with a bark.
Wang Xuanyang looked up, startled.
“Patriarch, what…?”
“Child of Destiny! Child of Destiny! You’ve been listening this whole time and you still don’t understand what a Child of Destiny is!”
Wang Zhidao’s gaze was sharp as a blade.
“This kind of being, shielded by heaven itself, is born with the instinct to seek fortune and avoid peril!”
“You think he’s some dead object you can flush out by loosing a few hunting dogs?”
Wang Zhidao’s voice turned grave with warning.
“Get this through your head: not every Child of Destiny is a soft touch like the one Bai Qingcang ambushed twenty years ago — a good-hearted soul who handed out fortune to every stranger he met!”
“The vast majority of Children of Destiny recorded in the histories were decisive killers — cold and ruthless to the bone! If you send a mob of men charging after him, his destiny will generate an immediate warning.”
“Then no matter how careful your people are, blunders will pile up one after another — one bizarre accident after the next! And the moment he notices and marks us as enemies, the entire Wang family could be wiped out in the blink of an eye!”
The brutal dressing-down was like a bucket of ice water upended over his head. Wang Xuanyang sobered instantly.
“I was rash.”
But his brows stayed knotted, and he pressed on with urgency.
“But Patriarch — if we can’t send people to search for him, then in this vast sea of humanity — Changyun County isn’t exactly small — how are we supposed to identify him before the Blessed Land opens?”
Seeing Wang Xuanyang’s impatience, Wang Zhidao sighed. The last flicker of complex emotion in his eyes vanished for good.
He raised his now-cool teacup for a shallow sip. His gaze drifted away from Wang Xuanyang, and his tone turned light.
“Why bother going to find him?”
“A Child of Destiny is still a man, and every man has weaknesses. Since he can instinctively seek fortune and avoid peril — I’ll simply lay out the fortune and wait for him to come to me.”
…
A silver moon hung high.
In the distance, the faint beat of the night watch sounded — one slow, two quick. Already the third watch.
In a dark alley.
Shen Xiuhan crouched in the shadows like a stone, eyes fixed on Tongbei Martial Hall.
He waited until Yan Xiao personally drove a carriage away, hooves shattering the deep-night silence, heading out of the city.
Then he watched as Song Yanrong, clad in red, vaulted over the courtyard wall and slipped away toward the Bai estate.
Shen Xiuhan rose in a single fluid motion.
Qi-blood surged. He glided along the dark side of the lanes without a sound, and in moments he was pressed against the dark-brick wall of Tongbei Martial Hall.
A light tap of his toe, and his body lifted like a great bird unfurling its wings — silent, weightless — and dropped into the courtyard beyond.