Cheng Lu Academy

Qinghe Commandery.

Chenglu Academy.

The academy sat nestled in a grove of parasol trees, modest in size but crafted with care in every inch.

Blue bricks and gray walls, unadorned with vermilion lacquer. Above the gate hung a dark wooden plaque.

Carved upon it were four characters: Chenglu Academy. The brushstrokes were bold and vigorous, the strength restrained, yet there was no signature. It stood purely.

As if to prevent anyone from knowing what ties the academy had to whom.

The academy’s main gate was always open, welcoming students from all directions. No tuition was required. No questions were asked about birth. As long as one passed the assessment, they could enter and study.

Not only that, but stipends were regularly distributed, and the treatment was exceedingly generous.

Yet the content of the assessment was never disclosed to outsiders. Some said it tested knowledge, some said it tested character, and some said it tested the purity of one’s family background.

No one knew the true answer. Only the admitted scholars knew.

At this moment, in the deepest study of Chenglu Academy, sunlight seeped through the gaps in the carved wooden windows, casting slender golden threads across the blue brick floor.

Those golden threads lay silently stretched out, like a forgotten zither left behind by someone. No one played it, yet it seemed to tremble faintly on its own, as if waiting for hands that could pluck its strings.

Cui Zilu sat behind the desk.

She had changed.

From top to bottom, from the inside out, from head to toe. The whole of her seemed to have been remolded.

The hands that shaped her were not clay, not kiln fire, but the winds of Qinghe Commandery, the scholar’s air of Chenglu Academy.

It was the change that grew bit by bit from the depths of her eyes during countless late nights spent alone under lamplight, flipping through case files.

Like a tree silently sprouting upward in a place no one watched.

Today, Cui Zilu wore a pure white robe.

The collar stood upright, the cuffs were tapered, and around her waist was a pale belt of the same color, cinching her figure into a sharp, clean silhouette.

Her long hair was tied high in a neat ponytail, fixed in place with a plain white jade hairpin. The head of the pin was unadorned.

The stray strands at her forehead had been meticulously swept behind her ears, revealing a smooth, full brow and slightly upturned eyes.

From a distance, her brows and eyes were clear and refined, her figure tall and slender. She looked like a meticulous painting awaiting its final inscription.

The lines were simple, the colors elegant. All the empty space left room for imagination.

But as one drew closer, the difference became apparent.

The light in Cui Zilu’s eyes was not the gentle warmth of a scholar. Instead, it was the cold, decisive gleam honed from reviewing countless case files, handling numerous affairs, and making endless decisions while crushing those decisions under pressure.

It was the look of someone in power—like a deep pool of water, knowing what currents lurked below, yet showing nothing.

She was no longer that Cui Zilu with her hair in double buns.

No longer the girl next door who would blush to the tips of her ears at a single glance toward Gu Chengyin.

She was the legitimate daughter of the Cui clan, Cui Shifan’s only biological daughter. She was the master of Chenglu Academy.

And in the parasol grove of Qinghe Commandery, she was the one who had built an academy for someone—brick by brick, pen stroke by pen stroke, one deep lamp-lit night after another.

“Eldest Miss, here is the list of scholars who passed the assessment.”

Cui Zilu took the list calmly from the subordinate’s hands. Her fingers were long and fair, her nails neatly trimmed.

No vermilion polish, no adornments—clean, just like she was now.

Her gaze swept over the list. The names were few—only ten.

Each one had been personally vetted, interviewed, and approved by her.

They came from clean backgrounds, with three generations traceable. Their families were simple, without complex origins or tangled webs of connections. Each person was a blank sheet.

Not a blankness of emptiness, but one on which anything could be written, any picture drawn. A blank untouched by prior marks.

Loyalty was the first criterion.

Competence came second.

Without loyalty, no matter how capable, they were of no use.

That was the first rule of Chenglu Academy. And the only one that could never be negotiated.

The corner of Cui Zilu’s lips curved slightly upward. She tapped the list lightly with her finger.

“Mm. Assign them to study sect management.”

“Brother Chengyin will eventually take over the Azure Sword Sect. I must prepare the groundwork for him in advance.”

When Cui Zilu said the words “Brother Chengyin,” her tone was natural.

But something deep in her eyes flickered faintly.

It wasn’t deliberate. It was instinct—a reaction of the body that outpaced the mind.

“Yes, Eldest Miss.”

The subordinate bowed and withdrew.

Not a single extra expression crossed their face. There was no surprise at the name “Brother Chengyin,” as if it were already an everyday occurrence.

In fact, everyone in this academy—from the stewards to the servants, from the instructors to the scholars—had heard that name.

Not from Cui Zilu’s lips, but from every brick, every tile, every desk, and every lamp of the academy.

This academy itself was built for that person. That was why its name was Chenglu.

Every beam and pillar, every seam in the wall, every parasol leaf shaken loose by the wind—

each one whispered for its master the words she would never speak aloud.

Cui Zilu watched the subordinate leave. Her gaze passed through the open door, through the mottled light and shadow beneath the eaves.

Through the parasol grove where leaves rustled in the wind, she landed on a distant place.

There was the Divine Capital, the place she had left long ago—where that person was.

The corners of Cui Zilu’s lips curved another degree. The arc was wider than before, and more genuine.

As if she had recalled something that made her happy, and she could not help but almost let a smile break out.

But in the final moment, she held back a little so it would not grow too unrestrained.

From the time she returned to Qinghe Commandery until now, she had completely transformed—bone deep.

In the Divine Capital, she had been the legitimate daughter of the Cui clan, the jewel in the palm of Cui Shifan’s hand.

She had been that Eldest Miss of the Cui manor who only needed to act cute and petulant, occasionally helping her father with some trivial matters, and could live well enough.

Cui Zilu had thought that was her life. She thought it would always stay that way.

But later, she realized it was not enough.

This life was not enough.

This version of her was not enough.

If she were still that Cui Zilu with her hair in double buns and nothing but games on her mind,

she would always be standing at the edge of the crowd, watching those better, more accomplished sisters stand beside Gu Chengyin.

And she—she could only watch.

So Cui Zilu came back.

Back to Qinghe Commandery, to this land where she had grown up.

And here, she did one thing—a thing only she could do.

A thing those better, more accomplished sisters could never accomplish.

She would build an academy for Gu Chengyin.

An academy specifically to cultivate talent for him.

She succeeded.

From site selection to construction, from recruiting instructors to designing the curriculum,

from interviewing every scholar to personally approving every course—she did it all herself in every detail.

Cui Zilu had seen this academy when it was still nothing but wasteland.