"Good evening, sir!"
"Not good."
Even though the man before him commanded the entire Xianzhou Cangcheng as its General, Rrakavasha still refused to soften his expression, meeting his gaze with barely concealed irritation.
"Don't be like that." Teng Xiao's smile brightened, his tone carrying practiced familiarity. "No matter what, I was once a Qingyun graduate too. When I broke my leg as a child, you personally carried me to the clinic."
"So this is how you repay me?" Rrakavasha's voice sharpened. "Sending recruits to train under a civilian worker?"
"Don't be angry, sir."
"You'd better call me by name." He deliberately emphasized each word. "You are now the General of Cangcheng, and I'm just an ordinary academy teacher. Etiquette matters."
"One thing is one thing." Teng Xiao's smile never wavered, as if he hadn't heard the sting in those words or simply didn't care about the distance being forced between them. "You call me General, I call you sir. No conflict there."
"General, has anyone told you that you're terrible at pretending to be confused?"
"Accurate!" Teng Xiao rubbed his hands together with mock earnestness, his eyes gleaming. "Before I was even born, a fortune-teller pointed at my mother's belly and proclaimed my biggest flaw would be that I could never play dumb. So tell me, sir, can I still change?"
"If you could change, others would have a bigger headache."
The truth was, Rrakavasha already had a headache, a persistent one that had been building up for months.
As the saying goes, it's not the thief you fear, but the thief thinking about you. The phrase didn't quite fit Teng Xiao's character, but the logic held. He was indeed being targeted, hunted with the patience of a man who had all the time in the world.
This year alone, Teng Xiao had sent more than ten letters, roughly once a month, each more insistent than the last. Now it was even worse; he'd started acting first and explaining later, forcing confrontations like this one.
"Give up, General." Rrakavasha's voice flattened into something immovable. "I've already lost the will to keep fighting. I have no intention of returning to the Cloud Knights."
The teahouse fell silent, the ambient chatter dying as if someone had snuffed out a candle.
Staring intently at Rrakavasha's expressionless face, Teng Xiao finally dropped his playful demeanor; when he spoke again, his voice carried a gravity that seemed to age him. "At least give me a reason, Rrakavasha. The reason you left the army doesn't convince me."
Lost the will to fight?
What a joke.
One of his family's ancestors had been among the first generals to become an Emanator of the Hunt, blessed directly by Lan's divine gaze. Though his service lasted less than three hundred years, a mere blink in Xianzhou terms, he was recorded as an important historical figure in the Alliance annals. Not only as the first Cangcheng Emanator, but his heroic deeds were still widely celebrated, inspiring countless adaptations and legends told to children.
In such a family, every generation served in the military without once disgracing its name; their swords had defended the Alliance for millennia.
By Rrakavasha's generation, he'd surpassed them all, every single ancestor, every celebrated warrior who came before.
Hundreds of years ago, during the Second War against the Denizens of Abundance, he'd defended the entrance of a refugee grotto on the Xianzhou alone with nothing but a single sword. Not only had he saved hundreds of millions like his ancestor, but he'd also surpassed that legendary feat in both scale and horror.
When the battlefield was finally cleared after the war's end, anyone who laid eyes on him stood frozen in shock.
He'd lost his right arm entirely. His left hand gripped a broken sword, its blade shattered halfway down. He stood quietly before the entrance, unmoving, as if carved from stone.
Countless abomination corpses formed a grotesque wall, stacked so high they nearly blocked the grotto entrance entirely.
One man guarding the pass; tens of thousands unable to break through.
At the time, Rrakavasha hadn't even reached his fiftieth year.
The killing aura surrounding him, combined with the mountain of corpses and literal sea of blood pooling at his feet, made even his allies shudder when they approached. The entire Cloud Knight army believed he would become the youngest Sword Champion in Cangcheng's history, perhaps even General before his second century ended.
No one doubted his future; it seemed written in the stars themselves.
Yet this same hero had retired, claiming he'd lost the will to fight, and turned to civilian teaching instead.
Who would believe there wasn't a hidden reason?
The previous Cangcheng General had guessed it was related to his fallen family members, those who'd died in the war. But it remained only a guess, unsupported by evidence or any confession.
Teng Xiao found it impossible to accept. Rrakavasha was not someone who feared death; he'd proven that a thousand times over. He wouldn't fear battle because he'd watched relatives die; if anything, that should have hardened his resolve.
"Rrakavasha, say something." Teng Xiao's voice softened, almost pleading. "Don't stay silent on me."
"What's your reason?"
"What reason?"
"The reason for me to return." Rrakavasha's tone remained frustratingly calm, as if discussing the weather. "Cangcheng won't collapse without me."
This time, Teng Xiao fell silent, his expression unreadable.
After a long moment, he reached into his coat and pulled out a confidential document, handing it over with uncharacteristic seriousness. "This is the reason."
"…A divination?"
As Rrakavasha read, his expression gradually shifted from indifference to something far more serious; his eyes narrowed, his jaw tightened.
The content was mercifully short, written in the archaic divination prose favored by the divinners.
In plain terms: Within three years, Xianzhou Cangcheng may face a disaster comparable to the Second War against the Denizens of Abundance.
"What do they recommend?" His voice dropped lower. "What did the Marshal say?"
"Highest war alertness." Teng Xiao's frown deepened, carving lines into his forehead. "Approved without hesitation."
He leaned forward slightly. "Now you understand why I keep asking you back."
"In less than two years, I'll be six hundred." Rrakavasha's response came immediately, almost reflexive. "I've exceeded retirement age by a century. Even if I was strong before, that was the past, ancient history."
Suddenly, a giant sword tore through the air toward Rrakavasha's head, moving with lethal speed.
If it connected, he'd be split clean in half from head to toes.
Yet he didn't move, didn't even flinch.
The blade stopped less than a hair's breadth from his skull, the displaced air ruffling his hair.
"In the entire Cloud Knight Legion, fewer than five people could stay calm like that." Teng Xiao grinned wickedly, clearly pleased with himself.
"Maybe I was just too slow to react?" Rrakavasha's voice remained dry. "Scared stiff?"
"If you wet yourself, I'll drink it."
"..."
Seeing that Teng Xiao wouldn't relent, Rrakavasha finally sighed, a sound heavy with resignation. "Teng Xiao, retired Cloud Knights fall to Mara far more often than ordinary citizens. That's been documented knowledge since the Era of Three Calamities."
Hearing him drop the formal address at last, Teng Xiao dismissed the sword with a gesture and leaned back, listening intently.
"After the war ended, my mother showed early signs of Mara."
"What?!"
Teng Xiao's expression transformed instantly, shock replacing his earlier confidence. He quickly rifled through his mental records, calculating dates and lifespans.
His father and elder sister died in battle at ages 474 and 85. His mother survived severe injuries at 397.
Which meant…
Qiu Zhiyan was now 995 years old.
After seven hundred, the risk of becoming Mara struck rises exponentially with each passing year. A retired Cloud Knight living nearly a thousand years was almost unheard of, a statistical impossibility that defied every medical record.
But that wasn't the truly terrifying part.
The key was this: After showing symptoms, it hadn't erupted for hundreds of years.
A chilling speculation slowly surfaced in Teng Xiao's mind, sending an icy shiver down his spine.