The crudeness of it. The words hung in the air like a slap. The disciples' shoulders flinched. The door shut.
Mei stood before the closed door.
A soundproof barrier bloomed into existence across the walls, the frame, the windows. A formation of divine qi, seamless, absolute, sliding over the room like a second skin. Nothing would come out. Not a scream. Not a moan. Not a single slap of flesh.
She bit her lip. Pressed her palm against it.
'I need to make my decision quick. To save my disciples.'
But even as she thought it, even as she turned away from the door, another thought slithered beneath it like a serpent beneath a stone. The breakthrough. Another realm. The realm of legend. The thing she had quietly, secretly, in the deepest hour of the deepest night of three hundred years of stagnation, ached for.
She flew toward her peak. She would meditate. She would think. She would weigh.
