Rise of the Wolf Smoke

1,324 words

Chapter 652: Rise of the Wolf Smoke

"Xuanpin? What are you doing here?" Li Huowang stared at the dark figure inside the red robe.

"The world has fallen into chaos. We must combine the might of the Imperial Household and the Supervisory Heavenly Office to survive this crisis. As the Chief Astrologer, is it not within my right to enter the palace?" Xuanpin's wide robe drifted as he drew closer to the two men.

Li Huowang looked him up and down for a moment, then turned back to Gao Zhijian. "The Fa Sect is bound to make a move soon. I'm not comfortable leaving you alone, so I came to check in."

"How about this—I'll just take up residence in the palace from now on. Bodyguard duty, up close and personal."

Before Gao Zhijian could answer, Xuanpin spoke first. "No."

"I wasn't asking you."

"We have received your message. Rest assured—His Majesty's safety is in the hands of the National Preceptor, the Warrior School, and the Supervisory Heavenly Office. You may return."

Li Huowang, who had been sitting on the stone steps, slapped his knees and stood up, staring straight at Xuanpin. There was a tremor of anger in his voice. "What exactly are you worried about! I am Ji Zai's Heart-Pan. The transformation arts you use—you learned them all from him. Who the hell are you secretly guarding against!"

The gazes that had followed him since he entered the palace. The National Preceptor's watchful eye. And now this sudden visit from the Chief Astrologer. If Li Huowang couldn't tell that these people didn't trust him, the double pupils in his eyes might as well be ornamental.

"Back then, if it weren't for me, the Dice would have taken the Dragon Vein long ago! If I had any ulterior motives, why would I have bothered to stop him? Wouldn't it have been easier to just sit and watch the show?"

"And now you turn around and treat me like a threat? What's your angle here? Aren't you Ji Zai's man? The enemies he said he was hunting down—the Fa Sect—does that include you?"

"First," Xuanpin paused, then continued, "I have confirmed that, had it not been for you, the Dice would never have seized the Dragon Vein in the first place. Your rescue of the Dragon Vein is, at best, a cancellation of fault against fault."

"Second, everything I have learned came through enlightenment from the Dao. I do know someone named Ji Zai. That person is you."

Li Huowang almost laughed. "Xuanpin, are you playing dumb with me, or do you really not understand?"

"I used the power of Cultivating the True to imagine into existence the Siming of Bewilderment right in front of you. Don't tell me you didn't see that!"

At this, the Chief Astrologer fell silent. A strange gaze pierced through the darkness of his black robe and nailed itself into Li Huowang.

"Huh? What's going on? Is he genuinely unaware? Is he lying to me? Or has the past been altered again?" A chill ran through Li Huowang's heart. He looked up at the sky.

Xuanpin began to drift backward, as if preparing to leave, but Li Huowang grabbed his robe. "Wait, hold on. I need to confront Ji Zai! This needs to be straightened out!"

The moment the words left his mouth, both Li Huowang and Xuanpin lifted their heads simultaneously, staring at the sky beyond the layered rooftops.

A flock of birds suddenly burst from the imperial garden, circling in panic as if spooked.

"Something's happened." Li Huowang's heart sank. He didn't know what, but he could feel it—a shift in the very fabric of the world.

Xuanpin's six slender arms slid out from beneath his red robe. All six hands began calculating at once, fingers tapping against his palms.

After a few short breaths, he lowered his hands. A low voice emerged from within the Daoist robe. "A Heavenly Calamity."

"A Heavenly Calamity?! The sky is perfectly clear! What calamity?!" Li Huowang's pupils contracted. He knew that Heavenly Calamity meant more than just a solar eclipse.

But then, from the eastern horizon, three columns of black wolf smoke rose rapidly.

"What does that mean?!" Li Huowang pointed at the smoke, shouting.

"An army at the gates."

"What army? From where?"

Before anyone could answer, three more columns of black smoke rose from the southwest and then the north.

"That's not smoke from outside the city. That's smoke from inside the city walls. Someone has broken through."

Hearing this, Li Huowang abandoned his interrogation of Xuanpin and moved instantly. "I'll go check it out. You and the National Preceptor stay with Gao Zhijian! Li Sui, let's go!"

As soon as he opened his mouth wide and swallowed Li Sui back inside him, two of Li Sui's tentacles burst out from within his body. They quickly pulled out two sheets of ginger-yellow paper, drew talismans with blood at lightning speed, and slapped them directly onto Li Huowang's kneecaps.

The moment the talismans made contact, Li Huowang's body blurred, and he shot out of the palace like a gust of wind.

Meanwhile, inside the capital city of Shangjing, Scholar Lyu Juren was carrying his daughter, Xiu’er, back from the opera garden into the rear courtyard. A box of pastries wrapped in oiled paper dangled from his hand.

Just as he passed through the second gate, he saw his wife, Luo Juan, lounging in a recliner, half-asleep, listening to the opera from the front stage and idly tapping her long fingernails.

Two pretty young maids still stood beside her—one massaging her legs, the other her shoulders. There was probably no one else in all of Shangjing who knew how to enjoy life quite like she did.

"Juan'er, you should get up and move around. Ever since we came to the capital, you've put on weight."

"What's wrong with being fat? Only well-off families can raise plump wives." Luo Juan opened her eyes with mild displeasure.

When she saw the box of pastries in her husband's hand, she asked curiously, "Scholar, what's that?"

Scholar Lyu Juren looked a bit awkward. He dismissed the two maids, then shyly placed the box on his wife's slightly rounded belly.

Luo Juan opened it with mild confusion and saw neatly stacked strips of white, square-shaped pastries inside. Her face lit up with surprise. "Oh my! It's Lantern Wick Cake!"

She picked up two strips, popped them into her mouth, and savored the soft, sweet, sticky texture.

"Delicious. I haven't seen these since we left Siqi. Dear, what made you think to buy these for me?"

Scholar Lyu Juren scratched his head sheepishly. "I didn't go out of my way to find them. A new pastry shop opened near the market. Turns out the master there fled from Siqi as a refugee. I saw it and bought some on a whim."

Luo Juan felt a sweetness spread through her—not just her mouth, but her heart. She knew how hard it was to find this treat in Daliang.

Back when they had no money, this kind of pastry was a luxury. The only time she'd ever had it was on their wedding day, when they'd bought exactly six liang.

She'd eaten all six liang herself that day because it was the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted. She never expected that this stubborn man of hers had remembered it all these years.

"I... on the road... I said some things I shouldn't have. Don't hold it against me."

Seeing his embarrassed expression, Luo Juan felt as if she were looking at the blushing young man from years ago, his face red as a monkey's bottom. She covered her mouth with a giggle.

"I'm trying to be serious, and you're laughing." Unable to save face, Scholar Lyu Juren set their daughter down and headed back toward the front opera house.

Next chapter update.

(End of chapter)

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Reading Guide Decoding

Paranoia, Pastries, and an Army Inside the Gates

Cultural / Xianxia Notes

Lantern Wick Cake (灯芯糕) is a traditional Chinese snack, particularly associated with the Jiangxi region. It's a soft, white, strip-shaped pastry made from glutinous rice flour and sugar, sometimes flavored with osmanthus or other aromatics. The name literally means "lantern wick cake" because its shape resembles a candle wick. In the context of this novel, it's a deeply nostalgic item—a taste of home from a region the Lyu family has been displaced from. That little box of pastries carries more emotional weight than a dozen alchemy pills.

Heavenly Calamity (天灾) in this novel's context goes far beyond natural disasters. It refers to an ontological catastrophe—a rupture in the fabric of reality itself, often tied to the movements of the Siming or the corruption of the Heavenly Law. Li Huowang's first instinct is to dismiss it because the sky is clear and bright, but he quickly remembers that not all calamities are solar eclipses. The black wolf smoke is an ancient military signaling system—beacon towers using smoke mixed with wolf dung to produce thick, dark columns visible from great distances. Three columns from three cardinal directions means a coordinated, multi-pronged assault. The fact that the smoke is rising from inside the city means the defense lines have already been breached.

Heart-Pan (心蟠) is a mortal who acts as a causal proxy for a Siming. Li Huowang's claim that he is Ji Zai's Heart-Pan is significant because it implies a direct, almost corporeal link to a higher-tier entity. Xuanpin's refusal to trust this claim—or his genuine ignorance of it—is a major red flag. Either the past has been edited again, or Xuanpin is playing a very long and very dangerous game.

Chapter Overview

Trust is a commodity in even shorter supply than clean water in the Dao-Twisted World, and this chapter drives that point home with a hammer. Li Huowang storms the palace, trying to get a straight answer out of Gao Zhijian and the unsettling Chief Astrologer, Xuanpin—only to find that nobody, not even the guys who supposedly share his boss, wants him within spitting distance of the emperor. The bureaucratic paranoia is thick enough to choke on, and just as the confrontation is heating up, the world decides to throw a brand new disaster into the mix. Three columns of black wolf smoke from every direction: an army at the gates. And no, not from outside. The threat is already inside.

Don't get too comfortable with the military tension, though, because the chapter takes a sharp left turn into domestic fluff. Scholar Lyu Juren brings his wife some Lantern Wick Cake—a nostalgic treat from their old hometown—and suddenly we're watching a middle-aged couple relive their courtship over six liang of pastry. It's soft, it's sweet, it's painfully normal. Which, in a novel like this, means you should probably brace yourself for the other shoe to drop.

Key Plot Points

— Li Huowang arrives at the palace to check on Gao Zhijian, suspecting an imminent Fa Sect strike. Xuanpin appears and immediately shuts down his offer to stay as personal bodyguard. — A tense confrontation unfolds: Li Huowang throws his "I am Ji Zai's Heart-Pan" credentials in Xuanpin's face, demanding to know why he's being treated like a security risk. — Xuanpin delivers a cold reality check: Li Huowang's role in the Dragon Vein incident is considered "net zero" at best, and Xuanpin claims Li Huowang himself is the Ji Zai he learned from. — The conversation is cut short by a sudden mass panic—birds fleeing the imperial garden, an ominous shift in the world's atmosphere. Xuanpin calculates and declares: "A Heavenly Calamity." — Black wolf smoke rises from the east, then southwest, then north. The threat isn't outside the city walls—it's already inside. Li Huowang swallows Li Sui and bolts. — Scene switch to Scholar Lyu Juren bringing his wife, Luo Juan, a box of Lantern Wick Cake. She's delighted; he's awkward. They share a quiet, domestic moment of unspoken love and apology.

Reading Guide

Hold onto your hats, folks, because this chapter is a masterclass in tonal whiplash. The first half is pure paranoia and high-stakes bureaucratic showdown—Li Huowang, Gao Zhijian, and Xuanpin circling each other like three crabs in a bucket, each trying to figure out who's holding the real knife. The question of trust hangs over everything: Is Xuanpin genuinely oblivious, or is he gaslighting Li Huowang? Has the timeline been scrambled again? The answer is probably yes, and that's the kind of existential headache that makes this novel sing.

Then there's the sudden, brutal pivot to Lyu Juren and his wife. It's sweet, almost painfully so. The little gesture of buying a forgotten hometown snack—six liang, the exact weight from their wedding day—is the kind of quiet, long-married intimacy that could belong in any slice-of-life story. But here, in this world, it's a siren song. The calm before the storm. If you've read this far, you know that the Dao-Twisted World doesn't let anyone keep nice things for long. Enjoy the pastry scene while it lasts, because something very, very bad is about to happen.

Also, Li Huowang using Li Sui's tentacles to slap talismans on his own kneecaps at mach speed is the most beautifully grotesque visual of the chapter. His kid is a living combat tool belt, and he's proud.