The forest ended without ceremony.
One more step, and the thick humidity of the undergrowth was replaced by a dry wind, laden with fine dust and a faint scent of old paper. Lin Ye felt the change before he saw it: the texture of the world became more "annotated," as if every stone and every shadow had an invisible label attached. It wasn't a pleasant mystical sensation. It was uncomfortable—like walking inside a book that hasn't yet decided which version is the correct one.
He Lian walked ahead calmly, as if that weight had always belonged to her. She didn't look back, but her pace was adjusted to Lin Ye's—slow enough that he wouldn't seem to be chasing her, fast enough that the forest wouldn't "remember" his presence too well.
"Welcome to the West," she said without turning around. "Here, things don't disappear so easily."
Lin Ye raised an eyebrow.
"Depends on who's holding the pen."
He Lian let out a small, brief laugh, as if she liked that answer more than she would admit.
"Correct. And that's why you're here."
The path opened onto a plain of gentle hills. There were no imperial walls or symmetrical towers. Instead, wooden posts engraved with symbols stood at irregular intervals, like route markers that weren't meant to guide travelers, but to confirm that the traveler existed as they passed.
"Is that a detection system?" Lin Ye asked.
"It's a system of witnesses," He Lian replied. "If you cross three posts and all three agree you passed through, it becomes harder for the world to 'correct' your absence later."
Lin Ye swallowed. That was exactly what he needed… and exactly the kind of thing the Core would hate.
"Nice," he murmured. "On my continent, if three guards agree that you exist, they call it a 'problem.'"
"Here too," He Lian said. "We just document it better."
They walked for several hours until they saw a city spread across a plateau. It wasn't enormous, but it had something Lin Ye had never seen before: instead of banners, there were hanging plaques over every main gate, each with a different symbol. Some were old wood. Others, metal. Some were broken, yet still hung there, as if their existence mattered more than their condition.
He Lian pointed to the largest one, above a stone arch.
"They call this city Huo'an. It's one of the Registration Gates. If you want the West to recognize you, you have to enter through there… and endure being read."
"Read?" Lin Ye repeated.
"Your story," she answered. "Or what's left of it."
Deep within him, the fragmented clock pulsed with a dull warning. It wasn't direct danger. It was a cost warning: if something read his story, it might also notice his absences. And absences… always attracted correctors.
Lin Ye exhaled through his nose.
"Great. The world is chasing me, secret houses are hunting me, and now I'm getting an existential audit."
"Don't complain," He Lian said. "If they audit you, at least they consider you a taxpayer."
They crossed under the arch.
For an instant, Lin Ye felt a fine pressure sweep across his body—not like oppressive aura, but like fingers flipping through pages. The Immobile Fire activated just enough to dull the sensation of something trying to "paste" his story into a fixed form. The Silent Thunder, however, remained still: there was no hostile intent. Just bureaucracy.
"Ugh," Lin Ye muttered. "This should come with tea… or a manual."
He Lian glanced at him sideways.
"If you survive a week here, they'll give you forms. It's worse."
Huo'an was noisy, but different from imperial cities. There were markets, yes, and people, yes—but there were also scribes at public tables writing down things as absurd as "today the baker said the sky looked strange" and "three travelers argued about the time and no one won." It wasn't gossip. It was preventive record-keeping.
"Do they really write down everything?" Lin Ye asked.
"Not everything," He Lian replied. "Only what could turn into a crack. The West learned centuries ago that if you don't write the small error, the big error writes you."
Lin Ye didn't have time to answer, because the fragmented clock suddenly vibrated with sharp urgency, like a needle driving in.
Real danger.
Now.
He Lian stopped.
"What is it?"
Lin Ye didn't look at the sky or the rooftops. He looked at the ground. Spatial Memory showed him a trajectory that was far too deliberate, not matching the normal pedestrian flow: someone was coming straight at them, with fixed intent, using a "remembered" path to approach unnoticed.
"We've been scented," Lin Ye said.
"The Core?" He Lian asked, tensing.
"No," Lin Ye replied. "This smells like a human with money… and bad manners."
Three figures emerged from the crowd as if they had been there all along. They weren't dressed alike, didn't walk alike, but they moved with silent coordination. The one in front was a tall young man, overly clean, with a light smile. In his left eye, something faint glimmered—a light that wasn't aura.
Lin Ye felt the fragmented clock contract.
Not a Conciliator.
Not the House of Ashes.
Another category.
A Bearer.
The young man raised his hand in a friendly gesture.
"He Lian, right?" he said. "I've heard you bring strange things into Huo'an."
He Lian didn't move.
"If you're here to say hello, do it quickly. The city has rules."
The young man smiled wider.
"I'm not here to say hello. I'm here to claim."
His eyes settled on Lin Ye, and the glow in his left eye intensified for a second, as if trying to focus.
Lin Ye felt instant pressure at the back of his neck—not brute power. It was a gaze trying to "close" his ambiguity. Like the resonator, but alive.
The Silent Thunder trembled.
The intent was clear: classification.
"Who are you?" Lin Ye asked.
The young man inclined his head.
"They call me Qin Jue. I work for a private archive."
He Lian laughed without humor.
"There are no private archives. Only thieves with expensive pens."
Qin Jue clicked his tongue, amused.
"What an ugly way to put it. We prefer 'curators.' And you, Lin Ye… are a loose page."
Lin Ye raised an eyebrow.
"Nice. I'd rather be a chapter, but everyone dreams what they can."
The two men behind Qin Jue moved. They didn't draw weapons. They activated small, discreet talismans. The air around them hardened, forming a soft containment cage, designed so no one nearby would notice: a bubble of silence that isolated sound and sight.
He Lian took a step, but Qin Jue raised a hand.
"Don't worry. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to take him… and leave you with your dignity intact."
"How generous," Lin Ye murmured. "On my continent, they call that polite kidnapping."
The bubble closed.
And the world inside that small space began to feel like a place where the Core wasn't watching… but where someone was.
Qin Jue touched his left eye with two fingers, and his pupil contracted into a strange shape, as if it had an extra ring.
"You have something that doesn't belong to you," he said.
Lin Ye felt the fragmented clock pound violently. The central eye of his system, still incomplete, reacted as if recognizing a distant relative.
A fragment of the Eye.
One of the twenty.
And that fragment, in Qin Jue, had nothing to do with time.
It was something else.
Fixation.
"Can your eye 'pin' things into reality?" Lin Ye asked, measuring him.
Qin Jue smiled.
"Enough to make you stop running on tricks."
"Bad news," Lin Ye said, raising both hands as if surrendering. "My tricks are my only personality."
He Lian glanced at him as if to say, Are you really joking now?
Lin Ye returned a brief look: If I don't joke, I die sooner.
The first attacker lunged.
Fast. Precise. A straight punch to the chest, wrapped in condensed spiritual energy. Lin Ye didn't have comparable cultivation. He couldn't block that with strength.
So he didn't block.
He moved.
Spatial Memory whispered a trajectory: one step to the left, right where the ground showed ancient wear, as if hundreds had pivoted there to dodge carts.
Lin Ye took that step.
The punch grazed past him, cutting the air.
But Qin Jue narrowed his left eye.
And space tried to fix Lin Ye where he "should" be.
Lin Ye's body suddenly felt heavy, as if the ground were claiming him.
The Silent Thunder vibrated.
There was no elegant option. If the fixation closed, he was caught.
Lin Ye let the Silent Thunder act for a minimal fraction: it severed the fixation intent just as it formed.
There was no sound.
But Qin Jue blinked, annoyed, as if struck by something invisible.
"Interesting," he said, no longer smiling. "You're not just an anomaly. You're a walking disagreement."
The second attacker threw a spiritual rope from the right. Lin Ye turned, but the rope wasn't aimed at his body. It aimed at his shadow.
"Watch out for that!" He Lian warned.
Lin Ye understood too late. The rope caught his shadow and, with it, tried to drag his existence toward a fixed point. It was a dirty technique, used against cultivators with movement arts.
The fragmented clock vibrated urgently.
Lin Ye felt a dead instant forming. Small. Tempting.
If he stole it, he escaped.
And paid.
If he didn't… he'd be out of air in seconds.
Lin Ye clenched his teeth.
"Alright," he muttered. "Once. Just once."
He stole the minor dead instant.
The world slowed for barely a breath. Enough for Lin Ye to cut the rope with an ordinary dagger (no energy, plain metal) and throw himself backward, out of the fixation point.
The instant ended.
The price arrived as a stab behind his eyes. A word from his past unraveled. He didn't know which one. He only knew he'd lost something he once could have said without thinking.
Qin Jue saw him stagger.
"It costs you," he said with satisfaction. "That means I can force you until you're empty."
Lin Ye swallowed blood. Not much, but enough to know the first blow had come closer than it looked.
"Yeah, well," he spat. "You cost me too. Look at your face—you're not as handsome anymore."
Qin Jue frowned.
The third move was lethal.
Qin Jue raised two fingers, and his left eye shone with a complete ring. The space inside the bubble hardened instantly, as if the air had turned to glass.
Total fixation.
Lin Ye felt his heart freeze. Not literally.