The air in the Thousand Alchemy Hall was thick with the smell of scorched cloves and bitter root. It was a heavy, stagnant heat that sat in the back of the throat.
Lei Ze sat up. The movement was too fluid. The stiffness that should have claimed his joints after a fall from that height wasn't there. Instead, there was a strange, buzzing clarity in his marrow. He looked at his hands. They didn't shake. His mind, however, was a jagged mess of images: a boot connecting with his chest, the terminal velocity of the gorge, and then that red, suffocating weight beneath the water.
The door creaked, dragging across the stone floor. Lán Tíng, Wèi Kāng, and his wife hurried in. They looked like people who had spent the last hour contemplating a funeral.
"Are you real?" Lán Tíng reached him first.
Her hand was cold as she gripped his shoulder, her thumb pressing into the muscle as if checking for a fracture. "I heard they pulled you from the bank. The stream doesn't give people back, Lei Ze."
Lei Ze forced a smile. It felt heavy on his face. He reached up and gently moved her hand. "I'm here. Mostly."
Lán Tíng's face tightened. She didn't look relieved; she looked like she wanted to hit him. "Don't you ever do it again," she said, her voice dropping into a sharp, brittle register. "Don't you dare try to—to end it. Life is hard enough without you looking for a shortcut to the dirt."
"End it?" Lei Ze's brow furrowed.
The realization hit him like a physical weight. They thought he'd jumped. He opened his mouth to correct her—to tell her about Hú Yì's sneer and the way the senior had watched him fall. But the words died in his throat. Hú Yì was a problem, but Elder Gāo Fēng was a catastrophe. To accuse the nephew was to invite the uncle's scrutiny, and right now, Lei Ze felt like a man carrying a live coal inside his chest. He couldn't afford a spotlight.
"But what happened?" Wèi Kāng stepped forward, his eyes narrowing. He was a man who lived by the logic of the mountain; things didn't just happen. "People don't just fall into the Forbidden Stream and walk out dry enough to sit up."
Lei Ze rubbed the back of his neck. The skin was hot. "I was... practicing," he said. The lie was clumsy, but he pushed it out anyway.
"The Seven Spiritual Sword Art. I was near the edge of the overlook. Moss was slick. My foot gave."
Lán Tíng didn't blink. She watched him with the steady, unnerving focus of someone who had seen him lie since they were children. "You were practicing sword forms on a cliff edge?"
"Stupidity doesn't require a reason," Lei Ze said, staring at the floor.
Wèi Kāng let out a long, wheezing breath. He patted his stomach, the tension leaving his frame in a slow, sagging motion. "Right. Stupidity. I can believe that of you. Next time, try practicing in the middle of a paved courtyard."
"Understood, Master Wèi."
They lingered for a few more minutes, the conversation awkward and drained. When they finally left, Lán Tíng stayed at the door for a heartbeat longer than the others. She didn't say anything, but the way she looked at him—sad and unconvinced—was worse than a lecture.
The door clicked shut. Lei Ze let his head fall back against the wooden frame of the bed. "I'm protecting him," he muttered. "I'm actually covering for that snake."
He closed his eyes. Immediately, he was back under the water. The red orb. The weapon in the volcano. It didn't feel like a dream; it felt like a memory that hadn't happened yet.
Hú Yì didn't use the bell. He shoved the heavy oak doors of Gāo Fēng's pavilion aside and stepped into a room that smelled like boiling bile and old parchment. The Elder sat in the center, a statue wrapped in heavy silks. Steam rose from a bronze tripod beside him, carrying the scent of herbs that stung the eyes.
"Uncle," Hú Yì hissed. He walked to the center of the rug, his boots leaving muddy streaks on the woven patterns. "Uncle, wake up. I'm in a hole."
Gāo Fēng didn't move. His breathing was so shallow it didn't even disturb the steam. Hú Yì paced the length of the room, his fingers twitching at his sides. He waited. The sun moved an inch across the floorboards.
"What do you want, Yì Fēng?"
The Elder's voice was a dry rattle. He didn't open his eyes.
Hú Yì winced. "I told you. Just Hú Yì. Don't use the family name like that."
Gāo Fēng opened one eye. It was a cold, milky grey. He stood up, his bones popping like dry kindling. "The family name is for men who don't tremble like a beaten cur in my meditation room. Speak."
"It's the boy. Lei Ze. I... we had an encounter near the gorge. I thought he was gone. I told the Sect Master he fell." Hú Yì's voice broke.
"But he's back. He's in the hall right now. If he talks, Uncle—if he tells Lǐ Yúnzhōu I pushed him—"
Gāo Fēng walked to the window. He looked out at the jagged spine of the mountain range. "He survived the Forbidden Stream."
"Yes! How? Nobody survives that."
"I don't care how," Gāo Fēng murmured. He wasn't looking at his nephew. He was thinking about Jìng Xū. The monk didn't pick up strays unless they were worth the effort.
"If he were going to talk, the guards would have been at your door before you reached mine. The boy is hiding something of his own. That makes him dangerous, but it also makes him quiet."
Hú Yì wiped sweat from his upper lip. "So what do we do?"
"We?" Gāo Fēng turned, a thin, cruel smile touching his mouth. "You go back to your quarters and act like a senior brother. I will find out what the stream did to him. Now, get out. You're ruining the air."
"Lord Lǐ. Master Jìng."
Lei Ze knelt on the cold stone of the Central Hall. The space was too big, the ceiling lost in shadows. Lǐ Yúnzhōu stood near the dais, his face pale but his eyes bright.
"Stand up, boy," the Sect Master said. He reached out, his hand heavy and warm on Lei Ze's shoulder. "I've seen men die from a fall off a stool. To walk out of that gorge... it's a miracle the ancestors won't let me ignore."
Jìng Xū stood further back. He didn't look relieved. He looked at Lei Ze the way a carpenter looks at a piece of wood that might have rot in the center. "The stream," the monk said. "Tell me what you saw."
Lei Ze gave the lie again. The moss. The slip. The darkness.
Lǐ Yúnzhōu nodded, accepting the simple tragedy of it. But Jìng Xū's eyes didn't move. He knew. He just didn't care about the moss.
"Next week," Lǐ Yúnzhōu said, his voice hardening. "The Treasure Hunt. It's not just a trial anymore, Lei Ze. Every sect is sending their best. The Eastern Lands are hungry."
"Where?" Lei Ze asked.
"The Five Flames Valley. Wǔ Yán Gǔ."
Lei Ze's hand tightened into a fist. The volcano. The image from his vision—the magma, the black rock—snapped into focus.
Jìng Xū stepped closer, his voice dropping into a low, private register. "Listen. In that valley, there is a place called the Jade Sun Pagoda. It is old. It holds the kind of peace your spirit needs. Go there. Claim the treasure at the top. It will settle your path."
Lei Ze nodded. "And the rest?"
The monk's hand clamped down on his shoulder. His grip was like iron. "Stay away from the central caldera. There is a chamber there, deep in the throat of the mountain. It tastes of the old world. The Demon King's rot. If you go there, the Buddha won't be able to reach you. Do you understand?"
"I understand," Lei Ze said.
The rumors moved through the sect like a fever. By the time Lei Ze walked back to his quarters, the air had changed. People didn't just look at him; they stepped off the path. The whispers were no longer about 'the rat.' They were about 'the monster.'
He saw girls from the inner sect—disciples who wouldn't have looked at him if he were on fire—suddenly finding reasons to linger near his path. It was hollow. It was noise.
"Why now?" he muttered, his pace quickening.
Suddenly, the world tilted.
A sound—not a voice, but a vibration—tore through his skull. It felt like a jagged piece of metal being dragged across stone. He collapsed, his knees hitting the gravel with a sickening thud. He clutched his head, his fingers digging into his scalp.
Lei Ze. You are on the Tri-Path.
The words weren't spoken; they were carved into his mind. They tasted of copper and old blood.
Accept the dark. The Dao is a cage. The Buddha is a shroud. Take the power, little king. The world only respects what it fears.
A surge of crimson Qi roared through his meridians. It was violent, hot, and hungry. It tried to expand, to tear through his skin and paint the ground red. Lei Ze screamed, a raw, guttural sound that tore his throat.
Then, a counter-pulse.
Deep in his chest, the Golden Relic Bead flared. It wasn't a roar; it was a wall. A cold, steady light that met the red tide and held it. The two forces ground against each other, using Lei Ze's body as the whetstone.
He stayed in the dirt, gasping for air, his vision flickering between gold and blood-red.
"What... what am I?" he wheezed, his face pressed into the cold earth.