Xīng Hé woke to fragrance.
It drifted through the air like a whisper—warm bread, something sweet, the faint richness of meat. Her stomach clenched before her mind fully surfaced from sleep, her body recognizing hunger before she recognized consciousness.
She lay still for a moment, staring at the unfamiliar ceiling. White. Painted with clouds. For a disorienting heartbeat, she didn't know where she was.
Then the memories came flooding back. The testing. The rage. The blood on the walls. The pain.
The pain.
She remembered it vividly—the agony that had consumed her when she first woke, the way Yao Xian's touch had only pushed it back, not erased it. The healer had been keeping her weak. Dependent.
Instinctively, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed, bracing for the lightning bolt of pain that had buckled her knees yesterday.
It didn't come.
She froze, her feet hovering above the cold floor. She wiggled her toes. Flexed her ankles. Slowly, carefully, she put weight on her legs and stood.
No pain.
Her body felt heavy, sluggish—like she was moving through water—but the grinding agony that had lived in her bones was simply... gone. As if it had never existed.
How?
She looked down at her hands, turning them over in the pale morning light. The knuckles that had been raw and bleeding two nights ago were smooth and unmarked. Not even a scar remained.
A fragment of memory surfaced—not from her waking hours, but from her dreams. She had been dreaming, hadn't she? Something vast and strange, something that felt less like imagination and more like... instruction.
She couldn't remember the whole of it. The details slipped away like water through fingers, leaving only impressions. Colors she couldn't name. A sense of weight and counterweight. And three words, burning in her mind like embers:
Balance. Restoration. Preservation.
She whispered the first word aloud, testing it on her tongue.
"Balance."
And suddenly, she knew.
The knowledge didn't come in words. It came in understanding—a truth that unfolded in her mind like a flower opening to sunlight.
All forces must remain in dynamic harmony. Creation and destruction. Authority and rebellion. Cruelty and compassion. When one grows too strong, the world tilts toward suffering and collapse.
Balance is not peace. Peace is stillness, and stillness is death. Balance is regulated tension—the invisible weight that prevents any one force from becoming absolute.
Balance is the law that keeps the world from eating itself.
Xīng Hé stood motionless in the center of her room, her heart pounding, her breath coming in short, shallow gasps.
This wasn't like understanding a lesson. This wasn't like reading a book and grasping its meaning. This was something else entirely—knowledge flowing into her, filling spaces she hadn't known were empty.
And underneath the wonder, a cold thread of fear began to wind through her chest.
She knew, from her ancestor's hidden texts, how divine existences were supposed to evolve. You saw a representation—a vision, a symbol, a private language of the soul. Then you struggled to understand what that vision meant. You wrestled with it for years, decades, sometimes centuries, trying to translate its truth into power.
That was the path. That was how it worked.
But she hadn't seen a representation.
She hadn't struggled to understand anything.
The understanding had simply... arrived. As if the concept itself had reached down and whispered its secrets directly into her soul.
I'm not understanding my concept, she realized, the thought sharp and cold. I'm guiding it. Shaping it. Making it mine.
The distinction mattered. She didn't know exactly why, but she felt it in her bones—this was different. This was dangerous.
If the Rulers found out...
She didn't want to finish that thought. But her mind finished it anyway, painting pictures she couldn't unsee. If they knew that concepts could be guided rather than merely understood, they wouldn't just use her. They would study her. Dissect her secrets. Use them to create an army of divine existences who didn't need years of struggle to evolve.
The war would become a slaughter.
And she would be the one who made it possible.
No.
She clenched her fists, feeling the phantom echo of old pain in her healed knuckles.
I have to keep this secret. Until I'm strong enough to protect myself. Until I'm strong enough to protect everyone.
Her stomach growled, a vulgar interruption to her spiraling thoughts.
Right. She was starving.
She moved toward the door, her steps steadier than they had any right to be. The fragrance was stronger now—warm and inviting, a siren call to her empty belly.
She pushed open the door and found herself in a dining hall.
It was absurdly large. The table could seat fifty people, easily, and it stretched the length of the room like a polished wooden river. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, catching the pale morning light and scattering it into rainbows across the walls.
And on the table, near the head chair, sat food.
Not just food. A feast.
Up to 20 plates, each covered with a silver dome to keep the contents warm. Beside them, a pitcher of what looked like fresh juice, a pot of tea, and a basket of bread so perfectly golden that it seemed to glow.
Xīng Hé approached slowly, almost reverently. She had grown up in a noble household. She had eaten well, by mortal standards. But this...
She lifted one of the silver domes and found sliced meat in a rich brown sauce. Another revealed steamed vegetables arranged like a garden. A third held dumplings, their skins translucent and glistening.
Her stomach cramped with desperate hunger, and all pretense of dignity evaporated.
She sat down in the head chair—her chair, in her manor, she reminded herself with a flicker of dark amusement—and began to eat.
Not delicately. Not politely. She ate like a street orphan who had found an unguarded market stall, shoveling food into her mouth with both hands, barely pausing to chew. The meat was tender and savory. The dumplings burst with flavor. The vegetables were crisp and fresh.
She emptied one plate. Then another. Then a third.
Somewhere in the middle of the fourth plate, a distant part of her mind noted that she was supposed to choose one dish, not devour all of them. The maids had clearly prepared multiple options because she hadn't specified her preferences.
She didn't care.
This was her manor. Her food. And she had been unconscious for two days, starving while her body tried to rebuild itself from the inside out.
She kept eating.
When she finally pushed back from the table, all 26 plates were empty. The bread basket held only crumbs. The juice pitcher was drained.
She felt full—truly, genuinely full—for the first time since before the drafting.
And with the fullness came clarity.
She glanced toward the windows. The light was still pale, the sky outside still grey with early morning. It would be at least two hours before the household stirred, before Yao Xian came to check on her, before questions would need to be answered.
Two hours to think. Two hours to plan.
She leaned back in the chair, her mind sharpening now that her body was no longer screaming for sustenance.
Problem one: I'm fully healed, and I shouldn't be.
Yao Xian had been keeping her weak deliberately. Xīng Hé had felt the restraint in the healing—the way the pain receded just enough to be bearable, but never disappeared entirely. It was a leash. A way to keep her dependent.
But now the pain was gone. Her body had healed itself overnight, somehow. Her concept, she suspected. Working while she slept, undoing the damage without conscious direction.
How was she supposed to explain that?
Problem two: I gained understanding of my concept without seeing my representation.
This was the bigger issue. The more dangerous secret. If anyone realized what she had done—what she was capable of doing—the consequences would be catastrophic.
She had to hide it. But how? She didn't know enough about how other divine existences evolved. She didn't know what questions they might ask, what tests they might run.
Problem three: Heiyun Jue wants to see me.
Gu Minghui had said someone would come for her today. The Transcendent himself had taken an interest. She was going to be summoned before one of the Rulers of the world, and she had no idea what he wanted or what he would do.
She closed her eyes, letting out a slow breath.
One thing at a time, she told herself. You can't solve everything at once. Pick the most immediate problem and deal with it.
The most immediate problem was Yao Xian. The healer would notice that she was healed. She would ask questions.
Xīng Hé needed an explanation. A lie that was close enough to the truth to be believable.
I'm a natural awakener, she thought slowly, the idea taking shape. They already think I'm strange. Unpredictable. Maybe I can use that.
Natural awakeners healed faster. Gu Minghui had said so himself—she had woken after two days when she should have been unconscious for a month. If her body had continued to heal at that accelerated rate overnight, wouldn't that be... expected?
It was thin. But it might work.
She opened her eyes, staring at the empty plates in front of her.
Lie to Yao Xian. Hide my true understanding. Play the confused, frightened child they expect me to be.
It wasn't a plan. Not really. It was barely even a strategy.
But it was something to hold onto. A thread of control in a world that had stripped everything else away.
She stood, smoothing her rumpled sleeping robes, and began to walk back toward her room.
In two hours, the manor would wake. In two hours, the questions would begin.
She needed to be ready.
End of Chapter 11