Two hours before Xin left the capital, an assassination attempt happened.
Not on him.
On Master Zhou.
A cultivator came through the study window at midnight — Fourth Gate, professional, moving with the speed of someone paid well and briefed thoroughly. Zhou was at his desk. The attack was fast and should have been fatal.
Zhou was not at his desk when the blade arrived. He was two feet left, already moving, his diminished cultivation apparently sufficient to feel the approach.
The cultivator hit the desk instead of the man.
Zhou put him down with a technique Xin had never seen him use — clean, efficient, the movement of someone who had spent decades pretending to be less capable than he was.
Xin arrived at the sound of the impact.
The cultivator was unconscious on the floor. Zhou wa
