The Empress Is Looking for Ye Xuan

Xuanzhou. The Great Xia Immortal Dynasty.

Lingxiao Hall.

This towering palace, supported by nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine pillars of heaven-reaching spirit wood, bridged by beams of ten-thousand-year golden-thread nanmu, and roofed with three layers of dragon-scale glazed tiles, was the absolute center of power in the Great Xia Immortal Dynasty.

The ninety-nine massive pillars within the hall were entwined with lifelike reliefs of five-clawed golden dragons. Embedded in the eyes of each dragon was a fist-sized luminous pearl, ensuring the hall was as bright as day even without lighting a single candle.

The floor was paved with flood dragon jade harvested from the abysses of the Southern Sea. It was as warm and smooth as fine fat, and walking upon it produced the faintest sound of a dragon's cry.

In the exact center of the grand hall, atop a flight of twelve steps, sat the dragon throne forged from a single, massive piece of meteoric iron.

Suspended above the throne were four gilded characters written by the dynasty's ancestor: Mandate of Heaven.

Yet at this moment, the atmosphere within this hall, the very symbol of supreme imperial authority, was oppressive to the extreme.

Smack!

A crisp sound rang out.

In the deathly silence, it was jarring enough to strike fear into the heart.

It was the sound of a thick stack of memorials being viciously hurled to the floor.

Dozens of meticulously mounted memorials scattered across the ground. Their silk covers splayed open, revealing densely packed, fly-head-sized regular script inside. If one were to look closely, they would find that the contents of every memorial were largely identical, all beginning with...

This humble subject is terrified. Having scoured such-and-such region, no trace of Consort Xuan has been found...

Begging Your Majesty for forgiveness, the clues regarding Consort Xuan have been verified as a false alarm...

This subject led three hundred Dragon Guards to search such-and-such mystic realm for half a year, but turned up empty-handed...

Every memorial was a report of failure.

Every word was like a fine needle, piercing the heart of the person seated upon the dragon throne.

Ten years!

A hoarse roar of fury exploded from the direction of the dragon throne, causing the entire golden hall to tremble faintly.

A full ten years!

Wu Lingxiao stood up.

She wore a bright yellow dragon robe embroidered with nine five-clawed golden dragons in gold thread. Every scale of the dragons had been stitched on piece by piece using incredibly precious celestial silkworm gold thread, shimmering with blinding brilliance under the light.

The hem of her dragon robe dragged across the floor, billowing up with her abrupt movement to stand, like a golden wave whipped up by the wind.

Upon her head she wore a twelve-tasseled imperial crown. The bead curtains cascaded down before her face, but they could not conceal those crimson eyes.

Those were a pair of eyes that were once so majestic they could make a million-strong army bow in submission and terrify countless cultivators.

But right now, alongside that majesty, there was something else in those eyes.

Exhaustion. Anxiety. A faint hint of madness.

And a kind of vulnerability, suppressed deeply at the very bottom, that she refused to let anyone see.

Wu Lingxiao's face, even in this state of absolute fury, remained beautiful.

Her features were incredibly delicate: eyebrows like distant mountains holding dusk, lips like dabbed vermilion, a nose tall and straight like carved jade, and a sharp, graceful jawline. Her skin was so fair it was almost transparent, like the finest mutton-fat white jade, gleaming with a cold luster in the light.

Yet at this moment, this face, beautiful to the point of near perfection, was haggard.

Deep dark circles, like two dark storm clouds, entrenched themselves beneath her eyes. Her lips were cracked and peeling from prolonged anxiety and insomnia, faintly seeping blood.

Her once smooth and full cheeks had grown much thinner, making the contours of her cheekbones far more pronounced than they had been ten years ago.

She had once been the most graceful and luxurious woman in the entire Great Xia Immortal Dynasty.

Now, she looked more like a trapped beast, tormented day and night by something, teetering on the edge of a breakdown.

My Great Xia Dragon Guards are spread across three thousand provinces!

She walked down the steps one by one, each step landing heavily on the flood dragon jade with a muffled thud. Her dragon robe trailed behind her like a golden tail, sweeping over the scattered memorials on the floor.

We have even scoured the endless ice plains of the extreme north! For that forbidden death zone where even Soul Formation cultivators dare not tread, I sent in three elite squads of Dragon Guards, and one hundred and seventy-two men froze to death!

The deserted islands of the Southern Sea! Those with names and those without, I had people turn them over one by one! We did not even spare the coral reefs at the bottom of the sea! It took three years! We lost eight treasure ships!

The shifting sands of the Western Regions, the Penglai Immortal Mountains of the Eastern Sea, the Ten Thousand Demon Forest of the Northern Barbarians, the miasma-filled poison woods of the Southern Frontier...

Her voice grew higher and higher, sharper and sharper, until it nearly became an out-of-control shriek:

Two living, breathing people! How could they vanish into thin air? He is not a True Immortal! His cultivation has not reached the realm of spatial teleportation! Even if he ran to the ends of the earth, he should have left a trace!

How can there be nothing? Absolutely nothing!

Below the dais, hundreds of civil and military officials knelt on the ground.

More accurately, they were prostrating on the ground.

They buried their heads so low that their foreheads were practically wedged into the cracks of the flood dragon jade.

No one dared to make a sound.

No one dared to move.

No one even dared to breathe too loudly.

Because they all knew that over the past ten years, the Empress's temper had deteriorated to an appalling degree.

No, bad was no longer sufficient to describe it.

It should be called madness.

In these ten years, the number of spies, secret envoys, and Dragon Guard members executed for failing to effectively search for Ye Xuan's whereabouts had exceeded three thousand.

Three thousand people.

What did this number mean?

One must know that the Great Xia Dragon Guard was the most elite intelligence organization in the entire dynasty. Every member was an elite selected through layers of screening from among millions, with a minimum cultivation at the Golden Core stage. Training a qualified Dragon Guard required at least twenty years and an immeasurable investment of resources.

Three thousand Dragon Guards...

This was nearly one-third of the total roster of the Great Xia Dragon Guards.

And it was not just the Dragon Guards.

Local prefects, county governors, and city lords—anyone who failed to find traces of Ye Xuan within their jurisdiction—suffered demotions and docked salaries at best, and dismissal and imprisonment at worst. The most tragic few were directly slapped with the charge of being ineffective and passive, resulting in their entire families being exiled three thousand miles away.

In the imperial court, everyone feared for their own lives.

There were originally over six hundred officials standing in this golden hall. Over the past ten years, nearly two hundred had been demoted, dismissed, or imprisoned for direct or indirect reasons.

Although the empty spots were quickly filled with newcomers, the new officials learned an ironclad rule on their very first day in office...

In front of the Empress, there were three words that absolutely could not be mentioned.

Ye. Xuan. Haven't.

The first two words formed that person's name.

The third word was the haven't in haven't found.

If anyone accidentally let slip a phrase like this subject and others haven't found him yet during an audience, they could basically start making their funeral arrangements.

Therefore, the grand hall right now was quieter than a ghost realm.

Wu Lingxiao paced back and forth in the grand hall, the hem of her dragon robe producing a rustling friction against the floor. Her steps were hurried and chaotic, completely lacking the composure and steadiness a sovereign ought to possess.

She was like a lioness trapped in a cage, irritable, anxious, and brimming with aggression.

But if one looked closely into her eyes...

Through that layer of anger and brutality, in the deepest, deepest depths, there was a trace of something incredibly hidden and difficult to detect.

It was fear.

It was not a fear of a specific person or a specific event.

Rather, it was a deeper, existential dread.

She was afraid she would never find him again.

She feared that Ye Xuan had truly vanished from this world, like a drop of water merging into the ocean, leaving no trace behind.

She feared that even if she exhausted her entire life, she would never see the day they met again.

"Keep searching!"

Wu Lingxiao suddenly stopped in her tracks, whirling around to glare fiercely at the trembling ministers below the dais.

Her voice was terribly hoarse, carrying a teeth-gritting, absolute resolve:

"Even if you have to scrape three feet of earth from the Kunwu Continent! You must find him for Us!"

Her fists were clenched tight, her nails digging so deeply into her palms that beads of crimson blood seeped out.

"If he is alive, I want to see him. If he is dead..."

Her voice suddenly caught in her throat.

The word "dead" was something she simply could not bring herself to say.

Her lips trembled violently. On her face, which was usually as cold and hard as iron, a momentary flash of vulnerability and panic appeared. Though fleeting, it was still caught by the sharp eyes of her attending eunuch.

The old eunuch sighed silently in his heart.

Having served three generations of emperors in the palace, he had seen every kind of storm.

But he had never seen this Empress lose her composure like this.

Yet now, just because of the disappearance of one man, she had been reduced to this state.

"No, he cannot die!"

Wu Lingxiao's voice was piercingly shrill, stirring up layers of echoes within the vast and empty imperial throne room.

"He absolutely cannot be dead!"

Her eyes grew red.

"He promised me."

Her voice suddenly dropped very low, so low that only she could hear it.

"He said... he said he would come back..."

When had this happened? No one knew. And no one dared to ask.

The officials below merely buried their heads even lower.

"Court is dismissed."

Wu Lingxiao suddenly waved her sleeve and turned toward the side door at the back of the great hall. Her back appeared somewhat frail against the contrast of her sweeping dragon robes, and her footsteps were no longer as brisk and forceful as when she had arrived.

The hem of her dragon robe brushed over the memorials scattered across the floor, making a soft rustling sound, like the autumn wind sweeping through fallen leaves.

"All of you, get out."

The officials felt as if they had received a grand pardon. They filed out one by one, none daring to make an extra sound, even deliberately keeping their footsteps extremely light.

The grand doors of the Lingxiao Hall slowly closed behind them.

Inside the hall, Wu Lingxiao was left all alone.

She stood in the center of the vast, empty hall, surrounded by the memorials scattered across the floor.

The light of the luminous pearls shone coldly upon her, stretching her shadow long and thin, casting it all alone onto the flood dragon jade floor.

Suddenly, she bent over.

This Empress, who was arrogant beyond compare, now seemed as if all the strength had been drained from her body as she slowly, so slowly, crouched down.

Crouching among the scattered memorials, she reached out a trembling hand and pulled something from the inner lining of her dragon robe.

It was a jade pendant.

A jade pendant that had been clutched so often it was warm to the touch, its edges worn smooth.

Carved on the back of the pendant was a small character: "Xuan."

No one knew where she had obtained this jade pendant. And no one dared to ask her.

She simply pressed the jade pendant against her cheek and closed her bloodshot eyes.

A single tear slipped from the corner of the Empress's eye, rolling down her pale cheek to fall upon the jade pendant.

"Ye Xuan..."

Her voice was as faint as a gossamer thread that could snap at any moment.

"Where... are you..."

In the empty and vast throne room, no one answered her.

There was only the light of the luminous pearls, shining coldly upon this lonely woman.