CHAPTER XV — Thunderclap on Level Ground! Whose Hand?
1755 Words
The glacial asphyxiation within Stellar Tower’s summit suite hung thick as a strangler’s grip, saturated with terminal despair. A stark, infernal contrast blazed within the Shen ancestral manor’s Golden Chalice Pavilion—its grand dining hall a maelstrom of febrile euphoria.
Immense crystal chandeliers bathed the scene in molten-gold radiance, setting the imperial rosewood banquet table and matched cloisonné enamel service ablaze with refracted glory. Air thickened with the heady mélange of aged Cuban cigars, Périgord truffles, and the berry-rich bouquet of perfectly decanted Château Lafite. Heavy silver candelabra flickered, their flames impotent against the glacial void radiating from Shen Qingxue’s marrow.
She sat rigidly at the table’s lower end. Before her, on bone china of exquisite delicacy, a slab of Miyazaki Wagyu—rosy marbling kissed by searing heat—lay adorned with black truffle shavings. To her eyes, it resembled cold carrion. Knuckles whitened around the icy silver fork; the Bordeaux in her glass trembled, mirroring the suppressed, near-shattering fury and humiliation beneath her frozen gaze.
Shen Yaoyang, the Shen patriarch’s eldest son, presided from the head seat. Swathed in deep violet velvet, flushed with last night’s patriarch’s “death-rattle rally” and today’s cataclysmic “celestial windfall,” he vibrated with unrestrained, near-manic exultation. He brandished a goblet, its ruby contents sloshing like agitated plasma.
“Hah! Five billion! Interest-free! Two billion in global orders! Tianhai Group! By the heavens!” His voice, hoarse with adrenaline, shook the chandeliers. “The Shen ancestral graves exhale auspicious smoke! Our dynasty soars! I, Shen Yaoyang! The Shen lineage! Destined to eclipse Jiangcheng! Nay—all Huaxia!”
He gulped wine, face crimson, sweeping a conquering gaze over the assembled Shen elite—core scions and collateral elders. His eyes blazed with messianic fervor: “Do you grasp the magnitude?! Tianhai! An entity whose footfall trembles the globe! With this leviathan as our escort, what is Shen Pharmaceuticals?! What is Zhao Tianxiong, that posturing buffoon?! I’ll make him grovel! Lick the grime from our threshold! Hahaha!”
His deranged laughter, each syllable a white-hot needle, lanced Shen Qingxue’s nerves. The suffocating pressure of Zhao’s siege remained; this seeming salvation was, for her, a venomous mockery, a gilded cage of ultimate indignity!
“Father… composure…” A collateral uncle ventured, unease threading his tone. “This… suddenness… How would Tianhai possibly…”
“Sudden?!” Yaoyang slammed the table, porcelain rattling. He surged upright, looming, eyes like searchlights pinning Shen Qingwu, nearly drowned at the table’s foot by his spittle-flecked euphoria! “Not sudden! Destiny! Fortune! Shen’s rightful due!!” His voice crescendoed, a nauseating decree:
“All thanks to Qingwu! My precious daughter!” He rounded the vast table, strides buoyant as if treading clouds, halting behind Qingwu. A meaty palm crashed onto her frail shoulder!
Qingwu flinched violently! The spoon in her hand clattered into her consommé bowl. Scalding broth splashed, staining her threadbare, incongruous cotton-linen dress. She instinctively shrank, blind eyes wide with terror, the impact site burning.
“Behold! Behold!” Yaoyang ignored her distress, brandishing her like a sacred relic, spittle flying. “My Qingwu! Ever docile! Gentle! Pure! This? This is blessing! Nobility! Heaven’s favor!”
He swept a triumphant gaze over the stunned assembly, eyes glinting with vulgar shrewdness, as if unveiling cosmic truth: “Consider! Tianhai’s Young Overlord! A paragon! Dragon-phoenix grace! Discerner of jade amidst stone! Surely… in some gathering… he glimpsed our Qingwu! Captivated by her innate purity!”
His fervor mounted, gesticulating wildly: “Undoubtedly! Precisely so! The Young Overlord, smitten long! Seeking approach! Hence this ‘Life Oasis’ gambit! Lavishing colossal wealth upon his beloved’s name! Hahaha! This is called—”
He slashed the air, a general commanding legions, thundering: “—Forsaking empire for beauty!!!” The final words reverberated through the hall!
The Shen kin’s expressions morphed—shock! Dismay! Then searing, unconcealed envy! All eyes riveted on the cowering figure at the table’s end—Qingwu, shoulders hunched like a sparrow, face spattered with broth, utterly lost!
Fortune’s vessel?! This blind wretch?! Shen’s golden key?! Merely for catching the eye of Tianhai’s mythic heir?!
Absurd! Unthinkable!
Yet the five-billion bounty was tangible! Forced awe bloomed! Gazes turned covetous!
“Qingwu! My treasure!” Yaoyang bent, theatrical affection dripping, ignoring her rigidity and damp face. “Henceforth! Cleave to the Young Overlord! He’ll cherish you! Shen’s future rests upon you!” He hammered her back—a gesture of possession, embedding her fragile frame into Shen’s rising galleon.
Qingwu reeled—a storm-tossed seabird on alien shores. The sudden, ravenous stares threatened to devour her. Her father’s fantasy—Tianhai’s heir desiring her? Impossible! She’d never left Jiangcheng! Tianhai’s gates remained a mystery! This avalanche brought not joy, only suffocating dread! That unseen “Young Overlord” coalesced in her fractured mind—a vast, nameless terror! A devouring maw! An abyss poised to consume!
Amidst the clamor—
*Tch—!*
A glacial snort—contempt incarnate—sliced the fevered air!
Heads swiveled!
Opposite end of the table!
Shen Qingxue lowered her silver fork. Graceful. Deadly cold. She lifted her gaze, glacial phoenix eyes blazing with incinerating frost-fire! It swept her father’s ecstatic distortion, then impaled Qingwu! A gaze like honed, poisoned steel, scraping the girl’s terrified, vacant face!
“Tianhai’s Young Overlord…” Qingxue’s voice, low, precise, carried bone-chilling clarity, each word an ice pellet on crystal. “…Discerning jade? Enchanted by her innate ‘purity’?”
Her voice cracked—a polar ice shelf shearing! Laced with vitriolic scorn:
“Hah! A sightless wretch barred from Jiangcheng’s elite! A gutter-dweller! Worthy of Tianhai’s heir’s ‘secret longing’?! Father! Is your delusion not grotesque?!”
She rose! Her tall frame cast an oppressive silhouette under the chandeliers’ glare! Her gaze—twin arctic lasers—locked onto Qingwu!
“This reeks of manipulation!” Qingxue’s voice hissed, serpentine, sharp with paranoid fury ignited by profound humiliation. “Shen Qingwu! Where did you skulk yesterday?! Whom did you meet?! Did that scrap-collecting mountain savage employ dark arts?! Or did you… behind my back… consort with f*******n powers?!”
Her eyes dissected Qingwu—scalpel-sharp, flaying soul and flesh. “Years in Beijing’s circles! Connections! Secrets! Beyond your dust-mite comprehension! Tell me—!” Her voice spiked, shrill: “—Zhou Wenyan of the Zhou? Su Zimo of the Su?! Or that reclusive invalid heir of the Xie?! Was it one of them… championing you?! Or perhaps…”
Qingxue’s tone plunged into lethal territory, a scalpel probing the core, stabbing Qingwu’s deepest dread:
“…Could that myth-shrouded, world-renouncing ‘Young Overlord of Tianhai’… truly be known to me?! Someone from my Beijing circle?!”
*Detonation!*
Qingxue’s seismic conjecture ignited an inferno of wilder, more frantic speculation among the Shen!
Yaoyang’s ecstasy froze, morphing into rapacious greed! Zhou! Su! Xie! Any—a Beijing colossus! Any—Shen’s dream patron! Let alone the god-like “Young Overlord of Tianhai”! If… if that man truly knew Qingxue… Shen would ascend beyond the clouds!
Collateral kin and core scions breathed raggedly! Eyes burned with avarice! Scrutinizing Qingwu and Qingxue—two treasures bartering Shen’s fate!
Qingwu convulsed as if lightning-struck! Qingxue’s thunderous names detonated in her dark void—each a monolith of unimaginable power and glacial distance. That phrase—“Could that myth-shrouded… be known to me?!”—gave form to her deepest terror, an abyssal maw yawning cold above her! She felt infinitesimal, shredded by the suction of that nameless horror!
“N-no… I don’t know…” She shook her head blindly, voice a terrified whisper, shrinking from the incinerating stares.
“Don’t know?!” Qingxue lunged forward! Stilettos cracked like execution drums on marble! She closed the distance, a blizzard of menace, seizing Qingwu’s slender wrist with pitiless force!
Arctic! Vise-like!
“Ah!” Qingwu gasped, agony lancing her wrist—bone-grinding pressure! Qingxue, a headsman poised, icy nails gouging flesh!
“Look at me!” Qingxue’s command was arctic hell-wind—absolute, invasive. She yanked Qingwu closer! Those venomous eyes—frozen abysses—pinned Qingwu’s petrified face, dissecting with maddened scrutiny, probing the blind voids for Tianhai’s earth-shattering secret!
“Now! Answer!” Qingxue’s whisper was a constrictor’s hiss, each word ruinous: “—Zhou Wenyan?! Su Zimo?! The Xie invalid?! Or… or…” She inhaled sharply, a gambler’s final throw, voice laced with twisted envy and a shriek’s edge:
“—That legend-bound ‘Young Overlord of Tianhai’! Lin—Jiu—Yuan?!”
Lin Jiu Yuan?!
As this f*******n name tore from Qingxue’s envy-twisted lips—a soul-rending violation—
*KABOOM!!!*
Cosmic retribution detonated in the soul’s sanctum!
*HUMMM—!!!*
Qingwu’s sightless void wasn’t darkness—it was obliteration!
Her spirit-core—already frayed, near rupture—was hurled into the cosmic storm’s heart!
An indescribable apex of pressure!
From time’s primordial terminus!
Transcending celestial law!
Bearing supreme, pitiless judgment!
Like the implosion of a galactic core!
Like a billion stars snuffed in an instant!
Carrying annihilating silence! An absolute “Erase” command!
Pure, distilled—“Primordial Void” will!
Instantaneous! Distance null! Dimension breached!
A frozen guillotine!
Aimed at—the name profaned by Qingxue’s twisted invocation!
That name—an unspeakable taboo! The “True Name Law Barrier” intrinsic to a manifested Primordial Entity, violated—triggering absolute backlash!!!
Qingwu’s soul froze, was ripped away, core-locked by an incomprehensible, trans-dimensional cold will! “Lin Jiu Yuan” detonated within her, fracturing into infinite spatial rifts, each mirroring a universe’s apocalyptic demise!
*“Ngh… ah…!”*
A strangled, soul-flaying keen of primordial agony tore from Qingwu! Her body crumpled as if crushed by cosmic mountains! Spine arched violently! Face drained to corpse-wax! Blood seemingly vanished! The half-healed bruise at her temple blackened to necrotic purple! Violent convulsions seized her! A surge of corrupted blood and soul-deep frost clawed up her throat!
*SPLURT—!!!*
A torrent of viscous, ice-crystal-flecked, dark clotted gore—a geyser of violated life-essence and glacial corruption—erupted from Qingwu’s mouth!
Scalding! Profane!
A blood-mist!
Macabre! Desperate! Like dying starlight’s scream!
This soul-scarred, taboo-defiled blood—a grotesque fresco of irony—splattered, thick and unsparing, across Shen Qingxue’s flawlessly beautiful, yet contorted and venomous face!!!
- Writer
