He forced his thoughts back into order, grinding his teeth until his jaw ached. "This is the second time that damned thought has crept in," he mumbled, his words little more than a hiss.
"I can't let it take root. I need real strength to hunt powerful beasts. Not to eye the innocent."
His gaze fell to his left hand. It was frighteningly thin, with sharp, jagged bone lines tracing beneath the skin. It trembled with a faint, uncertain rhythm, as if the skeleton itself were unsure of its place.
In barely three days, his body had become a ledger of costs paid too early and too steeply.
His mind felt like three hostile tenants forced to share a crumbling house: the primal, skittish instincts of a chicken, a ravenous hunger for more years, gnawing at his marrow, and an overwhelming desire to bury.
Each pulled in different directions, none willing to yield, all desperate for more stolen years.
His skin bore the clearest signs of decay. It had faded to a parchment pallor, drained of all warmth.
Because he failed to replenish the blood lost to the Heaven Burial Coffin, his veins stood out in stark, bruised blues, like exposed roots clawing through dead soil.
Little warmth remained in his limbs. Though he could not perceive it directly, the residue of death qi from his grim work had seeped into his marrow, staining his complexion with a subtle, lingering blight.
The blood qi that had once dominated his body now smoldered like dying embers, gradually extinguished by the encroaching chill of death qi.
He knew the cure. Blood qi could be replenished, but every path was barred to him. Pills were scarce, little more than a fantasy for someone in his position. As for elixirs, they were the stuff of legend. Their existence was little more than a myth, perhaps a story told to dying mortal emperors. Even most cultivators doubted their existence.
Rare spirit herbs might have sufficed, but such treasures were locked behind the gates of distant sects, far removed from this graveyard of feathers, whispered village curses, and condemning stares.
Moments later, the plan—that weak and unsavory scheme involving the young woman—surfaced again. It made his skin crawl. It was distasteful, but it was the only option left that wouldn't end in a shallow grave.
As a frail old man stripped of status and protection, this was his only chance to reach the resources monopolized by cultivators, assuming nothing unforeseen happened.
"Tomorrow," he thought, forcing himself upright as his legs shook beneath him. "Tomorrow, I'll send the letter. The sect disciples will arrive soon to test for spirit roots."
Whether the young woman would take the bait depended on a question he could not answer: Did she still love the young man's soul, or only his body, which had already begun to rot?
He turned and began the slow trudge home. Wang Da followed a few paces behind him in silence, the worn shovel resting on his shoulder like a grim burden.
Wuji glanced back from the corner of his eye, gauging how the young man was holding up as a witness to his strange, unsettling work.
Then he froze. For a brief, heart-stopping instant, the glowing bronze numbers above Wang Da's head shuddered and turned a deep, warning crimson.
His breath hitched. He blinked hard, refocusing. But the numbers snapped back to normal: dull, steady bronze. They were unchanging, just as they had always been.
"Am I hallucinating?" Wuji muttered to the encroaching darkness.
He dismissed the thought almost at once. Three days without proper rest, endless burials, and the mental toll of stolen lifespans had stretched his mind to its limit. If something was wrong, it was him. At least that explanation made sense.
Minutes later, the workshop came into view. Without hesitation, Wuji entered. By the dim candlelight, he located the Heaven Burial Coffin, lifted its lid, climbed inside, and closed the lid over himself.
Wang Da lingered at the entrance. Whether he had grown accustomed to the sight or simply forced himself to accept it, he could not say. In the end, he turned away and left to rest, knowing that tomorrow, he might be made to watch the madness continue.
Inside the coffin, Wuji did not hesitate. He willed the stored lifespan into himself.
At once, the sigils etched along the inner walls ignited. Bronze threads slithered free like living veins and plunged into his body. Nausea struck him instantly. His limbs spasmed as forty years of stolen time flooded into him in a single, crushing surge.
His consciousness wavered. His stomach twisted. His heart thundered. His mind—or perhaps his soul—felt heavy, as if struggling to bear the sudden weight of added existence.
Slowly, the glow dimmed. He exhaled through clenched teeth and focused on the panel.
[Lifespan: 82/127]
He simply stared at the added years for a long moment. They were not just numbers. They were mornings he would wake up to again. Winters he would be forced to endure. They were years torn from the jaws of heaven and fate—hard-won and dearly paid for.
Satisfied, for now, he pushed the lid aside and climbed out. His steps were unsteady yet deliberate as he crossed to the right wall, weaving past the waiting coffins. He reached the shelves, grabbed a quill and ink, and sat down at his worktable, illuminated by two candles.
Then, he started writing the letter to the young woman.
In the silence of the early night, he described moments known only to her and the deceased disciple: the quiet exchanges, the small habits, how the young man always hesitated before speaking her name, and the private jokes they shared when they were alone.
Every word was chosen with care. Each memory was placed like a hook, meant to elicit equal measures of grief, longing, and disbelief.
Only then did he explain his situation: that he now inhabited the body of an old man.
He did not state it plainly. Begging to be believed would fail before it began. Instead, he framed it as an impossibility, something she would instinctively reject. He suggested that disbelief was natural and that the truth could only be verified by writing back or coming to see him in person if possible.
Wuji knew the danger of what he was doing. But love had always been a reliable weakness. If the woman was still the same as he remembered, her caution would blur beneath emotion.
If not, then he would adapt.
He dipped the quill once more and finished the letter with trembling hands. He took the seal from the shelf—a stamp carved in the shape of a coffin—and pressed it into the wax, closing the letter.
He set it aside and stared at it for a long moment. In his gaze, mingled hope, revulsion at his own actions, and resignation. The situation no longer permitted hesitation.
He stepped outside. The cold night wind cut through him, making his body shudder as he pulled his robes tighter. He lifted his eyes to the sky, where clouds drifted slowly, obscuring the moonlight and stars alike.
He did not notice the arrival of Wudi and Mei Xu, who were now silently hovering above the dark, partially sleeping village.
Instead, he went back inside, got a pot of water, and washed up behind the house. The sound of the water striking the earth echoed too clearly in the surrounding stillness, stillness that felt wrong.
Only moments ago, the night had been alive with the sounds of insects and distant beasts from the forest.
Now, there was nothing. Wuji did not dwell on it. Exhaustion dragged him back to his room, where he collapsed onto his bed and fell asleep.
••••
Meanwhile, several kilometers away, a group of young men and women clad in blue robes rode through the forest on horseback.
At the front rode a young man who appeared to be the leader of the disciple recruitment sect mission. From time to time, he glanced back toward the rear of the group, his eyes lingering on the spirit-testing pillars they carried.
There were four pillars, each nearly two meters tall and etched with nine glyphs. A single line ran from the base to the peak of each pillar, which had a mid-tier spirit stone.
As the pillars swayed with the horses' movement, the air around them grew unnaturally still.
The riders weaved between massive tree trunks as they approached the villages. The closer they came to Wuji's village, the more unsettled the young man felt.
Something about the forest felt wrong. There were no animals in sight. No wild beasts crossed their path. Not even the distant cries they were accustomed to hearing on such journeys.
It was as if the forest had been swept clean.
The young man kept a signaling jade in his hand, ready to shatter it the instant anything went wrong. After all, he did not fully trust the so-called protectors the mission hall had mentioned. He could not perceive them at all; who knew if they were doing their work seriously?
Yet, even after hours of riding through the dimly lit forest by moonlight and torchfire, nothing happened.
The trees remained still. No ambush came and no ripple disturbed the night.
"Am I being too tense?" the young man wondered as he slipped the warning jade back into his spatial pouch.
At the same time, Mei Xu and Wudi were still hovering above the village chief's hut, their gazes fixed on the figures gathered outside the yard of the chief's house, villagers who had been waiting all night to welcome the disciples. They knew their village was the first destination of the recruitment mission.
Mei Xu fidgeted with her array plate, fingers moving ceaselessly as she fine-tuned the illusion array. From time to time, she flicked array flags into place around the village.
Moments later, she slowly released the plate. It floated from her grasp, pulsed once, then gradually faded from sight.
"Done," she said, turning to Wudi.
His right eye glowed red, his gaze tracking the disciples as they reached the outskirts of the village and came to a clearing.
"Mm." Wudi nodded, never looking away from the group.
"You think a trash-tier stealth technique can hide from my eyes?"
He had already noticed them, the three concealed auras trailing the disciples. Protectors, just as he had guessed.
Moments later, the group entered the village. As expected, the village chief came to greet them with excessive politeness, bowing and offering compliments nonstop.
"That's enough," said the group leader, Yun Li, flatly. "We're short on time. We'll begin the test tomorrow, let us rest for now."
Yun Li then scanned the area with his spiritual sense. As a cultivator at the middle stage of Foundation Establishment, his perception extended no more than a hundred meters. Fortunately for him, the three elders hidden above were scanning the area as well.
"Hm," one of the elders transmitted after completing his sweep. "Nothing out of the ordinary, except for those three houses. I sense death qi, though it seems faint."
Yun Li's expression shifted from surprise to understanding as he turned to the village chief. "Whose houses are those?"
He pointed toward Wuji's dwellings, where a faint candle glow lingered. "Ah, those?" the village chief replied quickly. "They belong to our coffin maker. He is the father of the legendary Twin Sword Elders."
"The Twin Sword Elders' father...and a coffin maker," one elder murmured.
"That explains it," another added dismissively. "Faint death qi. Those who handle such things never live long, and he is mortal at that." In his judgment, Wuji was already a dead man.