But before I tell you where the man in black goes next, I have to tell you whose hand was writing his legend from the shadows.

You see, the Divine Empress Yuxian was not born an empress. Nobody is. And the woman who watched the masked stranger destroy the Dark Venom Sect, the woman who wept a single tear at the sight of his cloak, had been waiting for that moment for more than a hundred years — ever since she was a girl in red wedding robes, standing before a monster.

Once, her name was Zhen Caihuan.

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In those days there was a city called Shatang, a walled town of willow trees and mill ponds, known for its paper lanterns and its mild-tempered governor. The wealthiest household in Shatang was the Zhen family, whose silks went as far as the capital. Their eldest daughter, Zhen Caihuan, was nineteen years old, and the people of Shatang loved her like their own child.

She was beautiful, yes — hair like a curtain of black water, skin like warm jade, eyes that crinkled gently whenever she smiled — but beauty alone doesn't make people adore you. It was her kindness. She read letters for the illiterate fishmongers' wives. She paid for medicines for families who couldn't afford them. She handed out her own winter cloaks to the beggars on the bridge, and pretended not to notice when the governor's wife disapproved.

"She's too soft," the old woman clucked. "The world will eat her alive."

The world sent something worse to try.

He was called the Demon Swine, and he was exactly what he sounded like: a demon lord the size of a small ox, with a porcine snout, yellowed tusks, and a voice like wet stones grinding together. For years he had terrorized the lands south of Shatang, devouring travelers and razing villages, growing fat on fear. Now his appetite had turned toward the city itself.

Give me your daughter, his ultimatum read, and I will let your people live. Deny me, and I will eat everyone in your walls, starting with the children and ending with you, Governor.

The governor wept. The Zhen family wept. Caihuan's father offered gold, land, his own life. The messenger just laughed.

And Caihuan, beautiful even in her sorrow, stood before her family in …