Earlier that morning...
The first blow landed with the satisfying crack of knuckle meeting cheekbone.
Zhu Sheng's body sailed through the air in a graceful arc before crashing through a wooden stall selling candied hawthorn berries. The vendor's anguished cry of "My livelihood!" was quickly drowned out by the excited murmurs of gathering spectators.
Among the crowd, a young woman with long black hair and a constellation of brown freckles across her pale cheeks had been examining a particularly appetizing display of honey-glazed pastries when the commotion erupted.
Wang Xue'er turned toward the disturbance, her two masked bodyguards; one with a smiley clown face and the other with a frowning one - immediately flanking her with practiced efficiency.
"Young Miss," the taller guard said quietly, "perhaps we should—"
"Nonsense," Xue'er interrupted, her dark eyes already fixed on the unfolding scene. "When has anything this interesting ever happened in the merchant district?"
As the crowd thickened around the impromptu arena, Xue'er found herself pressing forward despite her bodyguards' increasingly urgent suggestions to maintain a safe distance. Her curiosity had always been her greatest weakness—or perhaps her greatest strength, depending on one's perspective.
The sight that greeted her when she finally squeezed through to the front made her breath catch in her throat.
A young man in Buddhist robes faced off against the now-recovered Confucian disciple. Seeing a Buddhist cultivator in the capital was unusual enough—most had retreated to remote monasteries decades ago.
But this wasn't some ancient monk with a white beard flowing to his knees. This was someone barely out of his teens, and there was something achingly familiar about this boy...
"Move closer to the front," she whispered to her guards, ignoring their protests entirely.
When the young Buddhist shed his outer robes, revealing six muscular arms adorned with intricate red tattoos, Xue'er's carefully held treats tumbled from nerveless fingers. The fried dumplings and candied nuts scattered across the ground cobblestones, forgotten.
Her voice caught somewhere between her lungs and her throat as recognition crashed over her like a tidal wave. Only one person she knew was born with four extra limbs.
'Is that... my junior brother?... Asura!'
But that was impossible. The Patriarch had announced his death by suicide years ago. There had been no funeral—the boy had brought too much shame to the family name—but his mother's perpetual mourning had been funeral enough for the entire estate.
Yet here he stood, transformed beyond recognition. Gone was the timid, gangly youth who had endured endless humiliation at the hands of his half-siblings and the servants. In his place stood a warrior whose very presence commanded attention, whose movements flowed with deadly strength as he engaged his opponent.
Xue'er found herself leaning forward, her analytical mind watching closely as he battled. The sheer mastery of his martial arts had made her eyes water trying to follow his rapid movements.
When had her little brother become so... magnificent?
'This is absolutely the coolest thing I have ever witnessed,' she thought, her heart racing with vicarious pride.
The battle intensified, both fighters pushing their cultivation to its limits. Then, just as victory seemed within reach, a voice laced with primal qi thundered across the marketplace.
"Zhu Sheng! Enough playing around—finish this in the next strike!"
The semi-sound attack washed over the crowd like an invisible tsunami. Lesser cultivators staggered, and several mortals collapsed entirely. Xue'er, however, remained steady on her feet, the flood-grade protection ring on her finger—a miraculous find from her first clandestine trip to the underground markets years ago—absorbing the assault effortlessly.
When Asura brought his six hands together and unleashed the 'Nine Tribulations Thunderblast,' the resulting shockwave forced her bodyguards to throw up protective barriers around her. Through the crackling energy, she watched Zhu Sheng's charred form collapse to the cobblestones.
Only one thought echoed through her mind: 'My brother is such a cool little ancestor!'
The transformation was staggering. The weak, bullied child who had cowered in corners of the Wang estate had become... this. A Buddhist cultivator—how impossibly rare!—capable of techniques that made her eyes shine with admiration.
But as her initial excitement faded, the implications began settling in like winter frost. The Patriarch had declared Asura dead, yet here he stood very much alive. It didn't take her considerable intellect long to piece together the truth.
'He must have faked his own death.'
The boy must have arranged his own 'suicide' with the Patriarch's knowledge, allowing him to escape the family's suffocating expectations while sparing them further embarrassment. It was actually quite clever—perhaps Asura had inherited more of the family's strategic thinking than anyone had given him credit for.
No, that wasn't right. He never did have a strategic mind, and the him from before would have never even thought of to fake his own death and leave the estate. Something is very different about him - but she could not place her finger on why.
She then made a mental note to think about it in the future when she had more time to look into when this particular change had exactly first taken place.
And she also had no intention of ruining his carefully crafted new life. He had suffered enough under the Wang family name.
The thought of Wang Mei made her chest tighten with unexpected emotion. The woman had barely smiled since her son's supposed death, spending most of her time sequestered in her quarters. If only she could know that Asura lived, that he had found strength and purpose...
But no. Some secrets were more precious than comfort. And as an intellectual who prided herself on secrecy, Xue'er knew this fact all too well.
When Elder Ling emerged from the crowd with his ten-leaf Nascent Soul avatar, Xue'er briefly considered ordering her bodyguards to intervene. Her lead guard was a seven-leaf expert himself—surely between the three of them, in a two-versus-one battle the two would definitely hold the advantage.
Then the five-hundred-foot Buddha erupted into existence.
Xue'er's mind went completely blank. Her jaw dropped so far she worried it might actually detach from her skull. Her bodyguards were already lifting her into the air, carrying her hundreds of meters away to a safe viewing distance, but she barely noticed.
'This is the coolest thing under the heavens!'
She watched in absolute fascination as the colossal golden Buddha pursued the tiny Confucian avatar across the cityscape. The spectacle was visible from multiple cities—a sight that would be discussed in taverns and tea houses for generations to come.
When her excitement finally cooled enough for rational thought to return, she found herself studying Asura more carefully. His physique had filled out impressively, transforming his naturally good bone structure into something genuinely striking.
His hair, once long and unkempt, now fell in a neat, practical cut that emphasized his strong jawline.
The red Buddhist tattoos covering his arms and torso were perhaps a bit garish for her taste, but religious expression was a personal choice. Who was she to judge?
As his master returned—presumably having dealt with Elder Ling permanently—Xue'er made to approach her brother. Then something completely unprecedented happened.
She froze behind a nearby ornamental bush with a cherry red face, her heart hammering against her ribs with what she could only identify as nervousness.
'Nervousness? Me? Why of all times now am I feeling this way'
Wang Xue'er had never been anxious about anything in her seventeen years of life. She had infiltrated information networks that served as this world's equivalent of a dark web.
She had orchestrated complex schemes to position herself as the Wang family's next patriarch despite not being able to show her full brain's prowess as to not alert any important figures in the household of a potential threat.
So why did the thought of speaking to her little brother make her palms sweat?
Perhaps it was because she was no longer the accomplished older sister and he the weak little boy who needed protection. He had become something extraordinary, a figure of genuine power and respect, while she was just... herself.
'So is this a feeling of inferiority. But that's nonsense, even now I think nobody to be smarter than me under the heavens in the entire Phoenix Empire.'
From her hiding spot, she watched him stand awkwardly by himself for nearly fifteen minutes, waiting for his master's return. Despite all his newfound strength and confidence, some things never changed. The sight made her smile despite her conflicted emotions.
When the old monk finally returned and immediately struck Asura across the face, something primal and fierce erupted in Xue'er's chest. Her hands clenched into fists as murderous intent filled her thoughts.
'How dare that bald donkey strike my precious little brother!'
Then master and disciple then embraced, and jealousy joined the turbulent mix of emotions churning in her heart. When had she become so possessive? When had her feelings toward her junior half-brother grown so... complicated?
'Am I developing a little brother complex?' The thought was simultaneously horrifying and somehow inevitable.
The healing demonstration that followed drew her professional interest despite her emotional turmoil. The technique was unmistakably the legendary "Buddha's Merciful Ark of Salvation"—a lost art she had read about during her extensive research into Buddhist cultivation methods when she was younger and interested in the arts.
Asura had certainly found himself an extraordinary master, though she still hadn't forgiven the man for striking her dear little brother.
She then began to zone out and relish all the ways she could make that little old monk pay for striking Asura, but Zhu Sheng's question immediately drew her out of her reverie.
When Zhu Sheng asked about the Immortal Phoenix Sect Tournament, Xue'er's ears perked up with keen interest. She had already planned to attend this year's tournament for the first time, using it as an opportunity to expand her information network and get some insight to the current strength of the cultivation world. Now, she would have the added pleasure of watching Asura compete.
'Luck truly is on my side.' She joyfully thought.
As master and disciple departed to continue their errands, Xue'er stepped out from behind her bush and beckoned her bodyguards.
"Young Miss," the lead guard inquired, "what are your orders?"
Though they were technically employed by the Wang family, their true loyalty belonged to her. If she commanded them to betray the family tomorrow, they would do so without hesitation. Such was the power of genuine respect over mere financial obligation.
"It's time we pay considerably more attention to the cultivation world," she said thoughtfully, her mind already spinning with new possibilities. "Unexpected and extraordinary things are surely about to happen."
She extended her hand, and her bodyguards produced three paper talismans covered in intricate sigils and symbols. These were her own creations—an advanced version of basic teleportation arrays that she had modified through extensive research and experimentation. Rather than requiring massive permanent formations, her design allowed for instantaneous travel through small, portable tags infused with qi.
The original technique had come from a dusty tome in the City's local library, but her superior memory and analytical capabilities had enabled her to refine it far beyond its original specifications. Where traditional arrays required permanent anchor points, her version created temporary spatial bridges that could be activated anywhere.
As her bodyguards ignited the talismans with their qi, Xue'er allowed herself a small smile. The carefully ordered world she had spent years navigating and manipulating had just become infinitely more interesting.
Her little brother was alive. He was strong. And he was competing in a tournament that would draw attention from across the empire.
'This has made things much more intriguing,' she mused as the teleportation formation activated around them. 'And I couldn't be more delighted.'
The last thing she saw before the spatial distortion claimed them was her junior brother's figure disappearing around a distant corner, his master's laughter echoing off the surrounding buildings.
Soon, Elder sister and Junior brother would meet again, but definitely not in any way they would both expect.