He looked back at the left-hand number.
"Ten."
He took a slow breath, his eyes shifting to the number on the right. "Ninety," he mumbled, his focus snapping from the question mark to the other children.
One by one, he examined the lifespan numbers above their heads, but none bore that strange question mark symbol.
His mind raced, sifting through the knowledge the coffin had given him, but it offered no answer. Then, slowly, a possibility dawned.
"The only difference between them that I can't see… is a spirit root."
Yes—it had to be a spirit root. Only that could explain it. Only a spirit root granted the chance to step onto the path of cultivation, and with cultivation ones own fate and death can be changed.
Beside him, Wang Da watched in growing confusion. From his view, Wuji was staring at the children as if they were priceless jade.
"If I'm right," Wuji thought, his gaze lingering on the boy, "he won't stay in the village long after the annual testing." He paused. "But if he does…" His eyes darkened slightly. "Then that mark means something else entirely."
Another thought followed, slower and more dangerous. "If it truly is a spirit root… wouldn't I be able to identify potential cultivators without the cumbersome ceremony?"
The idea took shape before he could stop it. "If I can see spirit roots this way, then future cultivators will never truly be hidden from me. The younger they are, the weaker, and their memories… easier to deal with."
The grim realization had formed fully before he could halt it. He stiffened, cutting the thought off sharply, his breath catching as a cold unease crept up his spine.
He had never thought of harming anyone, let alone children. Not in this life, nor the one before.
The mere idea of turning his gaze toward them filled him with a quiet, sickening revulsion. Yet, the temptation was there—the lure of a stolen lifespan, quiet and insidious.
The promise of more years was already eroding something within him. Wuji realized, perhaps too late, that the Heaven Burial path would demand not only strength, it would steadily test how much of his humanity he was willing to lose.
Worse still, this nascent path he was preparing for might forge him into nothing more than an unblinking instrument of death.
To calm his fraying mind, he turned his gaze to the chickens idly pecking at the ground, the only path he hoped might offset, or at least delay, the inevitable.
[Lifespan: 4/8]
[Lifespan: 3/15]
[Lifespan: 6/20]
His eyes lingered on the final number: Twenty.
It hovered above a large, glossy hen with full feathers and a languid strut. Compared to the flickering bronze spans of the others, this hen's lifespan glowed with a deeper, denser light.
"Twenty years," he mused, a cold glint surfacing in his eyes. "Enough to squeeze something useful from it. Perhaps a full year, I hope."
He turned and approached the owner, a woman sitting in front of her house, busy winnowing beans. She looked up, sensing his approach, and startled when she saw him clearly.
"Heavens!" she exclaimed, lurching to her feet. "What happened to you? You look like a walking corpse!"
"Don't trouble yourself over it," Wuji replied dismissively, his focus already back on the hen. "How much for that one?"
The woman followed his gaze, then frowned. "Too bad, Old Ye. We're not selling. That hen's been like family to us for nine years now."
Wuji almost smiled at the exaggeration. "A hen as family?" he said mildly. "I've known your husband since he was a boy. He'd never let a fat chicken roam the yard untouched for that long."
"Tch. And what if he wouldn't?" she snapped. "Who cares what he thinks? I like the hen. If I say it's not for sale, then it's not."
Before Wuji could respond, Wang Da spoke up, earnest as ever. "Master, it's just a hen. Can't you buy another one to nourish yourself? There's no real difference."
The woman's fingers twitched. Wuji, noticing the movement, chuckled softly. "You're right," he said, nodding. "I was being inflexible. I just thought a large hen might help me recover faster. Ah, well. Old habits." He waved a hand dismissively. "At least it saves me the silver."
He turned away, but watched her from the corner of his eye. As he expected, at the mention of silver, her demeanor shifted. Her gaze fixed on his sleeve, and she swallowed visibly. "Wait! Wait!" she called out.
Wuji stopped and turned back, Wang Da beside him.
"There's no need to spoil a good relationship over a mere chicken, right?" she said, her voice now quick and practical. "Especially one that might die any day now." Her earlier pride was gone, replaced by naked greed.
Wuji met her gaze calmly. Floating faintly above her head were the bronze numbers:
[Lifespan: 39/45]
"If only she knew the 'mere chicken' might outlive her," he thought, though he didn't truly care.
He reached into his sleeve and drew out two silver coins, letting them clink softly in his palm.
"I'll take that one," he said, pointing to the large hen. Then his finger shifted slightly to the left. "And those two as well."
The woman froze. "What?" she snapped. "Don't get greedy. I agreed to one, not three. Do you think I'll let you underpay me?"
Wuji snorted. "For two silver, I could buy a dozen in the city," he said, turning to leave without another word.
"Aiya!" she cried, hurrying after him. "You're so short-tempered! Can't you take a joke?" She forced a tight smile. "Fine. Take them. But no more changes."
She thrust out her hand, afraid he'd walk away. Wuji placed the coins in her palm. Behind him, Wang Da stared, puzzled. Two silver for three chickens? That was unlike the thrifty master he knew.
Something must have happened to him while he was unconscious, Wang Da thought, watching with growing unease. Something's definitely changed.
"Stop gawking," Wuji said, turning toward his house. "Help me carry them."
Wang Da hurried forward and grabbed the squawking hens. Feathers flew as they flapped and jerked in panic. Their frantic noise cut through the children's laughter, and the kids stopped playing to watch him struggle with the fluttering bundles.
Wuji walked ahead unhurriedly, the future victims flapping helplessly in Wang Da's arms behind him.
Back inside, Wang Da shoved the squawking chickens into Wuji's room and slammed the door, muffling the noise. Wuji frowned at the feathers already scattering across the bare floor, but the mess hardly mattered—he owned so little.
"Go prepare three graves," Wuji said, already turning toward the workshop.
Wang Da froze. "I thought we weren't burying anyone today. What happened? What about the chickens?"
"I have plans for them," Wuji replied without looking back. "Now hurry."
Still confused, Wang Da hesitated only a moment before heading out.
Inside the workshop, Wuji walked to the shelf on the right and took down a folded letter. He stared at it for a long moment, his fingers tightening around the paper.
Then he stepped closer to the candle by the wall, held the letter to the flame, and watched as the last words he had written to his sons curled, blackened, and turned to ash.
Only then did he turn to the Heaven Burial Coffin. It loomed in the workshop like an oppressive, immovable shadow, dwarfing his frail body.
Just by its size, he knew carrying it across villages, or into the wilderness and to those far away cities, would be impossible in his condition. "Assuming I ever leave this place."
"Perhaps I'll need a cart," he thought. "Or a way to shrink it, to store it like a true spirit weapon." The last idea lingered, but he knew it was impossible for now with his strength.
He sat atop the coffin and waited, his gaze following the candlelight as it crawled along the engraved words on its side, stretching and shrinking with each flicker. His eyes drifted back to the panel.
Slowly and deliberately, he began to sort through the usage and limits of the power he now held.
The Heaven Burial Coffin could be used only once per burial.
This "use" was not merely activation. From the moment their bond formed, he knew that after each interment, the coffin would vanish entirely from the material world, sinking into a dimension beyond his current understanding.
This knowledge came without explanation, only certainty. There, in that unreachable space, the coffin did more than steal lifespan.
It devoured memories. Not fragments, like those the young disciple had gleaned from a normal coffin, nor mere echoes. It consumed entire lives: combat instincts, mastered techniques, hard-earned experience, even the quiet habits that define a person.
In essence, it could strip a being down to its barest identity and digest it whole.
The thought made his scalp prickle. Fortunately, or perhaps cruelly, this process was not instantaneous. The coffin needed time to digest, leaving Wuji vulnerable and without its power while it worked.
He would have to endure that exposure, knowing the treasure was being refined beyond his reach, and prepare for whatever dangers might emerge upon its return.
Resummoning the coffin would be more demanding still.
To retrieve it from that unknown dimension, he would need to create a returning blood array, bound by strict and unforgiving conditions. The first was blood.
His own would be most effective, resonating cleanly with the coffin. Other blood could be substituted, but only if it matched in quantity and quality.
The second condition made his jaw tighten.
Lifespan.
It was a sacrifice measured not in pain, but in years permanently carved from his stolen reserves. At least the cost wasn't fixed—it grew with how long the coffin remained in the unknown dimension.
Still, the rule itself rankled. "Power, it seemed, was never easily accessed."
The complexity of its use left his forehead throbbing with a dull, persistent ache. Yet the reward was tempting enough to quiet his hesitation. Power rarely came cheap, that much he knew, and at least this one paid fairly, limitations and all.
Besides, the Heaven Burial Coffin was not his only option. He could still use ordinary coffins, though the rewards would be different.
The amount of lifespan harvested from an ordinary coffin depended on two things: the target and the ritual. The more thorough and grand the burial, the higher the return of lifespan and memories.
Rare incense, proper formations, refined offerings, each detail mattered. If the buried being was powerful, the gains increased accordingly.
It seemed the Heaven Burial Coffin honored burial ceremonies, or perhaps it was simply his own professionalism as a coffin maker that influenced the outcome.
Two hours passed as he slowly organized the information in his mind, committing every rule and restriction to memory. Only then did the workshop door creak open.
Wang Da stumbled inside, his robe streaked with dirt, his hair disheveled, his breath uneven. He dragged himself to a stool and collapsed with a groan, his chest heaving.
"That was… too much," he muttered.
At that moment, Wuji stood, took a knife from the shelf, and walked past Wang Da without a word.
Wang Da watched him leave, and his exhaustion vanished as a single thought surfaced: Chicken meat. Saliva pooled in his mouth. It had been so long since he'd tasted meat, and tonight, he felt hopeful.
But that hope shattered with the first frantic squawk outside. He jumped to his feet and rushed out.
The sight that greeted him stopped him cold.
Wuji was slaughtering the chickens with efficient, merciless precision. Blood soaked into the dirt; feathers drifted in the evening breeze.
For a man who had never wielded a sword, Wuji's movements were steady and practiced—experience and memories from the young disciple he had buried.
Moreover, his eyes held a strange, unsettling focus for someone his age, a man who was supposed to be forgetting his own name. There was no hunger in his gaze, only an icy anticipation for what this experiment would yield.
Wang Da swallowed hard, then hurried forward to help. Within minutes, the yard reeked of blood, and feathers drifted aimlessly into the darkening sky.
"I'll go boil some water first," Wang Da said quickly. He was eager to help, but more than that, he wanted to eat and sleep as soon as possible.
"Wait." Wuji's voice stopped him, and Wang Da turned.
"Who said we were going to cook them?"
The words hit Wang Da like a slap. His face went blank with confusion. "Then… what are we doing with them? Are we storing them for another time?"
Wuji wiped the blade clean with a rag, his expression unreadable. "No. We're going to bury them."
The color drained from Wang Da's face. "Bury… what? Bury chickens?" he stuttered. "How? And why?"