Back up. More. More. A bit more.”
Deep within the royal garden's secluded walkway, Erik kept gesturing for me to move farther back. Even though I was already standing leagues away!
I shot a glance at Dame Lily, who stood still as a shadow in the underbrush, concealing her presence like a seasoned shadow cultivator, camera poised. Then I turned back to Erik, my expression contorted.
“I mean... seriously? We're trying to take a picture of a romantic night stroll, and you want us standing
this
far apart? What are a man and woman supposed to do, communicate by spiritual sense?”
Just earlier, he'd held my hand—freely, might I add—and now he was acting like proximity was some kind of qi deviation! What was this sudden change in energy?
It’s not that I was
eager
to hold his hand again or anything! But really, we’re supposed to be an eloping couple, going against the arranged marriage of our noble clans. What kind of lovers stay a whole courtyard apart?
Frustration surged through my meridians. I couldn't hold it in.
“At this distance, the picture won’t look like a night stroll between cultivators in love! It’ll look like a lone young master wandering the moonlit path... with a
wandering soul
following behind! Am I a ghost now?!”
Erik paused, seeming to consider my words. After a moment, he nodded as though conceding that I made a valid point.
“…Fine. Come here.”
I snorted, glaring at his smug little beckon.
Hmph. As if I’d actually—
“Yes, young master!” I was already halfway to him.
I cheerfully grabbed onto his arm and beamed up at him. Erik flinched like he’d just suffered a backlash and tried to peel me off.
“Too close.”
Are you
kidding
me?
“Forget it! Don’t even take the photo! Just use the one from the inn!”
My indignation surged like unstable inner energy. Was he trying to tame me like some spirit beast?
I turned toward Lily and shouted into the brush.
“Use the inn photo! I’m done with this nonsense!”
Lily raised her head, looking a bit troubled. A few leaves clung to her hair as she addressed Erik respectfully.
“Just a bit closer, please… You’re not both in the frame.”
Erik let out a resigned sigh and reluctantly stepped toward me, bending his upper body to avoid direct contact like it was poison qi.
“Oh come on,” I muttered. “At this point, just use the inn picture. At least
that
one was well-lit and emotionally charged!”
And then Erik said something unexpected.
“Have you considered that… you might regret this later?”
…Huh?
My expression blanked. What was he even talking about?
“Your reputation might fall so far, you won’t be able to form a second marriage alliance.”
I hadn’t thought about that.
Marriage was never something I dreamed about. My mother always fantasized about marrying me into some rich, noble clan with honor, influence, and a pretty face. But really, what kind of jade-like noble cultivator would fall for someone like me?
My only true family were Philip and Mother. That’s how it always was, and how it would always be.
But then I thought: to someone like Erik d'Orléans, a second marriage could mean a powerful political alliance. A way to strengthen the prestige of his clan. Maybe even a path to marrying the princess and becoming the most exalted man in the empire.
That thought made me falter. My grip on his arm slackened slightly.
And then—
Erik pulled me close.
“...?”
“So. Let’s just do… a hug. That’s it.”
Before my mind could catch up with his words, before I could sort through the thoughts swirling in my sea of consciousness, I blurted—
“Yes, young master.”
Erik embraced me.
My face landed squarely against his chest—he was a whole head taller, after all—and I had no choice but to feel the warmth of his body through his robes.
Honestly, I almost instinctively tried to wriggle away out of habit. But then—
“Now! Yes, right now!” Lily’s voice called from behind.
Click.
Too late to move. The image was sealed in jade.
With Lily’s voice calling out, my clarity returned. I looked up at Eric and spoke quietly,
“My face needs to be seen, doesn’t it?”
Lifting my head, I wrapped my arm around Eric’s neck, catching his slightly bewildered expression. Our faces now hovered dangerously close—too close for a calm heart.
Eric’s face stiffened. I smiled sweetly, pretending intimacy, and brought my finger to the corner of his lips.
“You should smile. Smiles always look better in spirit-etched portraits.”
At that, I broke into a gentle grin.
Eric, a beat late, met my gaze, his lips curving slowly into a smile as he drew me closer by the waist. His expression softened, his eyes bending into crescents, lips parting slightly—any trace of vigilance or stiffness gone.
I was caught off guard.
Only then did I realize:
this is the first time I’ve ever seen him smile
.
“You do know how to smile?”
Eric tilted his head slightly.
“I didn’t smile.”
What nonsense. He absolutely smiled. He’s still smiling.
Click!
I’ll show him the portrait later and prove it. I made up my mind.
✵
✵
✵
Inside the carriage, Eric Orléans pulled out the developed film and muttered to himself.
“What a curious relic of modern invention. Capturing an entire moment with nothing but light…”
From behind the palace walls, the glow of a thousand lights still bled into the night—nobles still mingled, drinking away the hours in endless revelry.
A new era, where radiant light no longer required spirit stones of astronomical value.
The royal grounds were lit brilliantly with bulbs alone.
Just a century ago, such illumination would have been impossible without enchanted light orbs powered by purified spirit stones. Back then, it was still believed that mythical beasts roamed the continent, and royal bloodlines were spoken of as something more than human.
There were no newspapers back then, no universities springing up in every province. Commoners had no real access to knowledge of cultivation science or arcane mechanics.
Many engineers disguised themselves as mages, and minor spellcasters exaggerated their meager powers, knowing the average person couldn’t measure a cultivator’s true core strength.
Take, for example, the great fraud of Oz—who called himself an Archmagus but was merely a lightning artificer. When exposed, even the royal court issued a bounty for his capture. And that was only a hundred years ago.
But now, much had changed.
Printing presses spread across the empire, and with just a few copper coins, even the lowborn could buy the daily penny papers filled with scandalous tales of nobles and royals.
Electricity surged ahead. Cheap spiritual devices flooded the markets, and in turn, the value of arcane tools dropped drastically.
For the noble clans and old cultivator families, it was an unwelcome shift.
Ancient power—deep, inherited bloodlines, complex inner arts and techniques—these mirrored their traditional doctrine of cultivation lineage. But electricity? Electricity was different.
It was
absolute
. It gave as much as you input. No exceptions. Whether you were emperor or beggar, the energy followed only the formula.
Fascinating… but dangerous.
Eric stared at the woman in the film strip.
Emelline Wedgwood.
Even within the dim tones of the negative, her features stood out vividly to him—eyes, lips, the curve of her face.
It all began with her.
It was because of her that he first sensed the darkness in his father. It was because of her that he dared launch this strange and dangerous scheme.
Now, Eric found himself standing on a precipice where everything once believed to be sacred—
unchallengeable truths
—were crumbling. And the things he once thought abhorrent, he now accepted without resistance.
Even
marriage
, once seen as a solemn vow guided by heavenly fate and clan will, had become nothing more than a calculated move within this greater game.
Eric touched the ring on his finger, a chill racing down his spine.
“The more your thoughts branch like a thousand roots, the slower your sword will strike.”
That was the first teaching his swordmaster gave him when he began the path of the blade.
To shake off his thoughts, Erik handed the film in his hand to Lily, who was sitting across from him. She accepted it silently.
“…Are you truly going to marry Lady Emelline?”
“You ask if it’s true, but I already carry the Princess’s imperial decree in my robe.”
He tapped the inner pocket of his coat.
“But… according to the intelligence I delivered before we arrived at the palace…”
Lily hesitated.
“…There’s a possibility that Lady Emelline was an accomplice in the slaying of the Biolrod Merchant Lord, alongside Helena Wedgwood.”
Erik fell into brief contemplation.
Lily had just returned from the South using a teleportation scroll while en route to the palace, bringing two crucial pieces of intelligence:
First, investigators under Valdek’s command had secretly drilled into the coastal lands of the Wedgwoods.
Second, testimony from a sheriff that, years ago, pointed to Emelline’s possible involvement in her father’s death.
“After the Merchant Lord died, a significant portion of his wealth vanished. Helena disappeared along with Emelline Biolrod, who wasn't even her real daughter. And before the fire broke out at the Biolrod trading hall, one of the sect mercenaries claimed they heard screams coming from the Merchant Lord’s chamber. The only people with access to that room were his immediate kin—his wife and daughter.”
Lily, who had personally heard this testimony, had suggested that the real culprit was likely Helena, and that young Emelline—only twelve at the time—could at most have been a passive collaborator. This Helena Wedgwood, formerly Helena Biolrod.
But to use a child barely at the Foundation Establishment stage as a pawn? Absurd.
If Helena had truly used her stepdaughter the way she used all those men she married, perhaps it was a manipulation—but it still wasn’t the same.
Emelline Wedgwood wasn’t Helena’s flesh and blood. She had been taken in as a foster daughter when Helena was sold to the Biolrod Sect due to debt. There couldn’t have been much true familial bond there.
Still—
If I end up dead… the one behind it will be Valdek d’Orléans. That monster.
Blood does not guarantee loyalty. And yet, Erik couldn’t shake the feeling that the death of the Merchant Lord—once called Bluebeard—held deeper secrets than anyone realized.
Whether Helena had deceived Emelline from the beginning, or whether there
was
a true arsonist beyond what the sheriff claimed, or even if the fire had been accidental…
The key fact remained: when her father died, Emelline had been only twelve.
And Erik’s heart leaned toward believing she hadn’t even been a helper, let alone a true accomplice.
“Let me out… Let me out of here…”
Erik recalled the way she had cried in the Duke’s study. Her fear of dark, enclosed spaces.
His mind wandered to a scene he hadn’t witnessed but couldn’t stop imagining—perhaps a foster mother abusing a young child, confined in shadow…
His hands clenched into fists.
“I’ve already chosen to take Emelline’s hand,” he said. “When enemies are in front of you, doubt toward your allies is best sealed in the depths of the dantian.”
“…The enemy?”
“Valdek d’Orléans.”
Erik turned his gaze toward the fading silhouette of the palace, his eyes like dark jade.
“My father.”
“…Do you truly believe the Duke is committing treason? If you can place your trust in Lady Emelline and Her Highness, shouldn’t you also give some to your father? I just—”
Erik gave no reply.
He wasn’t here because of evidence suggesting his father might be plotting a rebellion.
He was here because, for the first time, he had chosen to act not for the father he had always believed in, but for the mother he never had faith in.
He turned to Lily and said:
“When I arrive at the Central Temple, deliver this promissory note to Emelline.”
Lily received the note and blinked in astonishment.
“100,000 gold?”
“It’s the promised amount. Tell her to use it for the wedding preparations.”
“But Young Master, you’re the one preparing both the robes and the temple, are you not…?”
Lily hesitated, unable to slip the spiritual banknote into her robes.
“Do you not fear that Lady Emelline Wedgwood might flee with this much money?”
Eric furrowed his brow. He paused in contemplation, then slowly shook his head.
“If that happens, then our alliance ends.”
“…Excuse me?”
“In fact, it might be the perfect opportunity.”
A chance to determine whether Emelline was truly ally or adversary. Trust, after all, was a useful blade to expose hidden traitors within one’s ranks.
And—
Why did my father stay silent, even knowing her weaknesses?
Helena, Philip, and Emelline… if they tried to escape, he could just yank their chains and drag them back with the leash of their shady clan ties.
If Emelline chose to flee, then Philip and Helena would also fall into jeopardy. If she understood this and still ran, it would mean the bond between the three was not as solid as it appeared.
And if that happened—
Eric would not hesitate to charge Helena with the assassination of the merchant lord from the Violord Trading Guild.
Even his father would be powerless to wed a murderer.
How dare he lay hands on Helena’s daughter…
Eric recalled the image of Helena, Philip, and Emelline at the Duke’s manor.
Now, he found himself wondering—
What path will Emelline choose?
Chapter 27