Mei Ling stood where she wasn't supposed to stand.
Not far but not truly close. Just close enough to feel the air change.
Beyond the archway... beyond the last line of carved stone pillars and the shimmering boundary that everyone pretended not to see... Skyvault City existed. A living, breathing world of voices, lanterns, markets, ascending bridges, and distant music that drifted in on certain winds like an insult.
She could not see much from here. Only a sliver stone stairs leading downwards, the faint glow of a formation platform, and the far-off silhouette of rooftops stacked in a descending slope.
But it was enough.
It always was.
Mei Ling's fingers curled around the hem of her plain servant robe. Her heart beat a little faster, as if her body knew she was committing a crime even if no one had yet noticed. A strange yearning tightened in her chest... an ache she had never been able to explain, only endure.
Freedom.
A word she had heard whispered in corners.
A word the elders spat as if it were poison.
A word her mother refused to say at all.
"MEI LING!"
The yell cracked through the courtyard like a whip.
Mei Ling shoulders rose instinctively as she flinched.
Her mother's footsteps came next, beating sharply against the ground. The older woman emerged from a side passage with a stern and her hair tied tightly. Her eyes hid fear disguised as anger.
"How many times do I have to tell you?" her mother hissed, grabbing Mei Ling by the wrist and yanking her away from the archway. "Don't go near the exit!"
Mei Ling stumbled, then yanked her arm back with flushed cheeks. "I wasn't leaving. I was just—"
"Just staring," her mother snapped. "Just longing. Just dreaming. That's how it starts."
Mei Ling gritted her teeth. "Maybe I want it to start."
Her mother's eyes widened, then narrowed dangerously. She lowered her voice, as if the walls themselves could report them.
"Don't speak like that."
"Why not?" Mei Ling whispered fiercely. "Why can't I want to see the world? Why can't I go outside like other people? I'm sixteen now. I'm an adult."
Her mother's expression twisted with defeat.
"Adult," she repeated softly, almost bitter. "Yes. That's exactly why you must stop this."
Mei Ling's throat tightened. "Stop what? Breathing?"
Her mother released a slow exhale as her gaze flicked toward the archway as if even looking at it too long was dangerous.
"Our family is tied to this residence," she stated. "We serve under Master Wen. We will live here. We will die here. That is the truth you were born into."
Mei Ling's hands curled into fists. "That's not truth. That's a prison."
Her mother's face hardened again. "Prison or not, it is our fate. You think you can walk into Skyvault City and blend in? You think you can climb those tiers and live freely? You don't even have a token. You don't have a lineage. You don't have protection."
"I could work," Mei Ling insisted. "I could—"
"You will do no such thing," her mother said sharply. "You will marry someone from within the residence. You will bear children. You will continue our bloodline like you are supposed to."
Mei Ling stared at her, horrified. "So that's all I am? A womb for the household?"
Her mother's eyes flashed. "Watch your mouth."
Mei Ling's voice shook. "No. You watch yours. You talk about fate like it's holy, but this isn't holy. It's slavery."
The word fell between them like a dropped dish.
Her mother went very still for a few seconds... and then...
Pah!
She landed a hefty slap on Mei Ling's face.
Not hard enough to injure but hard enough for her to feel a blistering sting.
Mei Ling's head snapped to the side as her eyes burned.
Her mother's hand trembled afterward, as if she regretted it immediately.
"Don't ever say that word again," her mother whispered. "Not here. Not in this place."
Mei Ling slowly turned back with glossy eyes. "Why? Because it's true?"
Her mother did not answer.
Instead, she grabbed Mei Ling's wrist again but a little gentler this time and pulled her away from the archway, back into the inner courtyards where servants moved like ants and cultivators patrolled like silent statues.
Back into the residence.
Back into the only world Mei Ling had ever known.
---
The residence was so large it could swallow a town.
Courtyards upon courtyards, connected by covered walkways and stone bridges. Ponds filled with lotus that never wilted. Training grounds where cultivators sparred under the watch of strict elders. Servant quarters that lined the lower edges like a ring of shadows. Storage halls stocked with food, supplies, cloth, and herbs. Farmlands, workshops and so many other production areas.
It was like a small village...
Only… no one was allowed to leave.
For as long as Mei Ling could remember, it had been like this.
Born here.
Raised here.
Bound here.
Destined to die here.
All because Master Wen... Wen Xu, had refused to ever step out.
And since the master did not leave, neither could the servants.
Neither could the guards.
Neither could anyone.
The residence did not open. The arrays were his doing prevents entry and exit for the past few centuries.
Mei Ling walked through the courtyard, forcing her face into neutrality as she joined other servants sweeping leaves that somehow always fell, polishing stone that somehow always dulled, carrying water between places that never truly changed.
Her dissatisfaction did not make her careless.
Carelessness was punished here with reassignment, starvation rations and isolation.
Or worse…
Being sent closer to the inner halls where the cultivators lived.
Mei Ling kept her head down.
But her heart refused to.
---
When she was five, she didn't understand why the archway was forbidden.
She remembered it clearly... the day she first tried to cross it.
She had been chasing a bright-winged spirit butterfly that drifted too close to the boundary. Laughing with her small feet slapping against grounds as she ran straight toward the archway.
Her mother screamed.
A guard appeared.
Mei Ling remembered the sudden pressure that made her tiny lungs seize. The air thickened like invisible hands around her body. She fell forward, not from impact, but from the sheer weight of the boundary rejecting her.
The guard lifted her by the collar like a kitten.
Mei Ling had cried, confused, frightened, asking what she did wrong.
The guard had only said: "You cannot leave."
When she was eight, she began to ask questions.
Where did the food come from if no one went out?
Why did they never see other people?
Why did Master Wen never appear?
Her mother always had the same answer.
"Stop asking."
When she was twelve, the questions turned into anger.
She had watched older servants talk quietly about a time before the residence closed. She had overheard cultivators mention "the sealing" and "the vow" and "the master's will." She pieced together fragments like stolen scraps.
The residence used to open.
It used to interact with Skyvault City.
Then something happened.
And Master Wen decided it wouldn't anymore.
Everyone else simply… obeyed.
Mei Ling began to hate the obedience more than the walls.
When she turned sixteen, it became unbearable.
Adulthood, in their world, began at sixteen. It meant responsibility. It meant marriage arrangements. It meant your life was no longer something you could pretend was still forming.
It was already decided.
For Mei Ling, adulthood meant learning that her mother truly believed she would never leave.
Not "could not."
Would not.
As if the idea of leaving was so impossible that it wasn't even an option worthy of discussion.
Mei Ling scrubbed stone steps until her fingers ached, watching cultivators glide past without sparing her a glance.
She carried trays of food to inner halls she was not allowed to enter.
She washed robes embroidered with symbols she could not read.
And every time she passed the forbidden archway, she felt it like a magnet in her bones—calling, mocking, promising a world she was denied.
---
That night, she returned to the servant quarters, cheek still faintly stinging from the slap.
Her mother sat by a low table, mending cloth.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Finally, Mei Ling whispered, "Have you ever been outside?"
Her mother's needle paused.
Slowly, she shook her head.
"No."
Mei Ling swallowed. "Not even once?"
"No."
The word was a final response that left no room for other questions.
Mei Ling stared at the candle flame.
"How can you accept that?" she questioned with a trembling voice. "How can you tell me to accept that?"
Her mother's shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath.
"Because wishing doesn't open doors," she said softly. "Because rebellion gets people killed. Because we serve Master Wen and he—"
"He doesn't even come out," Mei Ling cut in bitterly. "We serve a ghost."
Her mother's gaze snapped up.
Fear flashed in her eyes again.
Mei Ling stood suddenly causing the chair to scrape against the ground.
"I don't care," she snapped. "I don't care if you slap me again. I don't care if the guards punish me. I don't care if the walls crush me."
Her mother rose too, trembling. "Mei Ling—"
"I want to see the world," tears spilled as Mei Ling s spoke. "Just once. Before I die in this place like an insect trapped in amber."
Silence~
Her mother's lips parted, but no words came.
Because deep down, Mei Ling knew—
Her mother wanted it too.
She had simply buried that desire so deeply she could survive without it.
Mei Ling wiped her tears and turned toward the door.
Outside, the residence remained vast and quiet, its courtyards orderly, its servants obedient, its cultivators vigilant.
And the forbidden archway stood somewhere beyond, unseen but ever-present.
'Do you truly wish to leave?'
A deep masculine voice suddenly resounded in her consciousness, causing her to freeze in place.