Silence folded over the ruined auction hall like a wet cloth. Dust floated in the shafts of late sun; the crowd, which had only moments ago been a roiling sea of greed and fear, froze into frightened statues. Faces upturned, breaths held.
Chen Xiao stood on the iron gate with the Mountain-and-River Map slung on his back, calm as if he'd stepped out for a stroll. Around him, Xingyue Base's stunned core members tried to compose themselves. Li Tailong spat blood and hatred; Li Xiang's jaw clenched so tightly his knuckles went white. An Xinning's eyes narrowed, every line on her face hard with command.
Then the courtyard doors banged open.
A column of soldiers moved through the broken gate as if a heartbeat had given them life: dark uniforms, measured steps, weapons that gleamed like a river of light. At their head, a man walked slowly, carrying no obvious weapon. He was neither young nor old, tall enough to cast a long shadow, broad-shouldered, with a posture you felt in your bones. Draped across his back were three black iron gates — not props but heavy, glyph-etched monoliths as real as any wall. The sight of them alone made a hundred mouths go dry.
He stopped three paces from Chen Xiao and bowed his head slightly — a formal, almost ritual motion that felt like the hinge of some unspoken law closing.
The portrait on the wall, the one with the blunt warning beneath it, found its living echo in this man's face.
"Gate-Carrier General," someone breathed.
An Xinning's composure cracked for a half-second. Her voice went low and urgent: "General Pei Tianyuan."
The man—Pei Tianyuan—did not answer with words. He looked at Chen Xiao as if he were weighing a coin. There was no hate in him, no gloating vindication. Only a long, slow assessment.
"Pei Tianyuan," Li Xiang blurted, panic threading his tone. "You—why are you here? The capital—"
Pei's eyes flicked in Li Xiang's direction, as if accepting the question and discarding it simultaneously. "I'm here because someone burned a bridge that cannot be rebuilt," he said finally, each syllable measured. "Because Dachang's plan threatened to turn choice into robbery." He turned back to Chen Xiao. "And because certain debts must be settled by hand."
The name settled like a stone. Pei Tianyuan — the same First Executive who had once made Chen Xiao an offer in Zhang Family Pond — stood at the center of the chaos, three iron gates like a private constellation behind him. Around his feet, soldiers formed a ring; overhead, drones hovered like hawks.
Li Tailong's face went white; the Green Snake Jasper Sword at his side hummed as if it heard an old enemy's name. Zhou Xun, clutching the bright lamp, paled as well. Even An Xinning, the capital's iron will, found herself measured.
Chen Xiao did not flinch. He folded the map and slung it up casually. He could sense the moment's scale — the capital's finger had landed here. The auction had been a single rotten cog, and now the whole machine had noticed.
"General Pei," Chen Xiao said, voice calm enough to be disarming, "you're a long way from your headquarters."
Pei's gaze didn't change. "Long enough to see chaos," he replied. "You've ruined Dachang's plans. That was not part of my instruction." There was no accusation in it; it read like fact. Then, as if indulging curiosity, he added, "Yet you also redirected destruction from innocent people. This place deserved neither your mercy nor your blood. It deserved...a choice."
A thousand questions crashed at the crowd, but none were permitted to surface. Li Xiang scrubbed his face with a hand as if to find his courage. Li Tailong's breathing became a ragged drumbeat.
An Xinning stepped forward, military authority personified. "General," she said, voice sharp as an order, "Dachang has abducted custodial rights over that opportunity. They mobilized to collect Evolution Points—this is an operation across the Sanjiang Basin. We—" she cut herself off, the diplomatic script breaking. "If the capital intervenes, the consequences are not limited to Dachang."
Pei's mouth flattened. He inclined his head once toward An Xinning. "I know the politics." He looked toward the heap of black cloth that had once contained the opportunity, then at Chen Xiao. "But when law dissolves into slaughter, intervention is a duty—no matter the province."
Li Tailong snorted. "You side with him? With this—this thief? He stole our chance."
"Did he?" Pei asked quietly. "Or did he claim what the auction attempted to turn life into—indiscriminate plunder?" His stare landed on Li Tailong like a physical thing. "You tried to take what men had earned and turn it into leverage for war. That is not leadership. That is greed, and greed kills a region."
Heat and cold warred across the courtyard. Men spat, some fell silent, some dropped to their knees with the weight of what had nearly happened.
Pei's soldiers shifted as if nudged by strings only he could feel. Then, a surprising half-smile ghosted across his face and he inclined his head toward Chen Xiao. "You are dangerous," he said, with neither praise nor insult. "You choose your enemies loudly and your allies quietly. For now, we will not arrest you in the capital's name. I came to see who you are, not to sign your death warrant."
"Then why bring your men?" Chen Xiao asked.
"Because when the capital walks, cities listen," Pei said simply. "Because Zhou Xun's lamp is more than ornament, and Li Tailong will not be deterred by a slap. Because the world changed when the moons stirred, and those changes are not for private auctioning." He cast a brief look at An Xinning, then back to Chen Xiao. "Choose your next move carefully."
Chen Xiao checked his options. The Mountain-and-River Map hummed against his back like a trapped animal. The Nine-Foot Seal still thrummed in his bones — he could, if he wished, seal this whole courtyard and take everything inside into a new law of his making. He could walk away with the scroll and a hundred enemies, but the capital's name was a different scale of trouble.
He let his fingers brush the map's silk and smiled the kind of smile that said he wasn't finished with surprises. "General Pei," he said, voice light, "you came for balance. I came for a reckoning. Let's see which the auction gives us: salvation, or another funeral."
Pei's eyes sharpened like a blade. The air snapped; the soldiers braced. Li Tailong gritted his teeth, preparing to explode. An Xinning's hand went to a comms band at her wrist. Zhou Xun's lamp pulsed.
Above them, drones circled and translated the moment into images that would be replayed in a thousand capitals and ruined camps.
A long, dangerous breath passed through Dachang. The next decision would not be made by words alone.
Chen Xiao stepped down from the gate, map folded, water at his fingertips and iron at his shoulder. He walked away from the broken stage, toward the center of the shattered auction hall, like a man stepping toward a dinner he had already ordered.
Pei Tianyuan watched him move and, for once, allowed something like approval to tighten his brow. "Don't make me hand the capital what I carry," he murmured to nobody in particular. "There are things even I cannot bear to be changed."
Chen Xiao heard him. Beneath the surface of the map, the world turned a fraction. The game had raised its stakes. The capital had come to Dachang.
And somewhere, far above the ruined roofline, the third Blood Moon waited to creep higher into the sky.