Xīng Hé found Yao Xian waiting in the corridor outside the dining hall.
The healer leaned against the wall with her usual air of profound boredom, her beautiful face arranged in an expression that suggested she had better things to do than escort children through pocket realms. But there was something different about her posture today—a tension in her shoulders, a sharpness in her eyes that hadn't been there before.
"I would like to head home immediately," she said.
She expected the twist of teleportation—the stone crushed, reality folding, instant displacement to her manor. Her body ached with exhaustion, her mind still reeling from the meeting with the Eminence. All she wanted was her room, her bed, the illusion of safety behind closed doors.
Yao Xian looked at her.
"We are walking."
Xīng Hé paused. Surely she'd misheard.
"I'm sorry?"
"We are walking." Yao Xian pushed off the wall and began moving down the corridor, not bothering to check if Xīng Hé was following. "Your legs work, don't they? One foot in front of the other. It's not complicated."
Confusion flickered through Xīng Hé's mind. Walking? They had teleportation stones. They'd used one to get here. Why would they—
"But—" Xīng Hé hurried to catch up, her still-weak body protesting the sudden movement. "You have teleportation stones. We used one to get here. Why would we—"
Yao Xian stopped.
She turned, and for the first time, Xīng Hé saw something in those ancient eyes that made her blood run cold.
Yao Xian's expression was composed. Professional. But her eyes told a different story. Something burned there, barely contained—anger, visible despite every layer of control wrapped around it. The kind of fury that didn't shout but waited, patient and sharp.
"Did I stutter?" Yao Xian asked, her voice soft as silk and sharp as a blade. "We. Are. Walking."
Xīng Hé's protest died in her throat.
She didn't know what she had done to earn this punishment—because that's clearly what this was, a punishment—but she knew better than to push. Yao Xian was Attuned stage at minimum, possibly stronger. One wrong word, one perceived slight, and Xīng Hé could end up broken on the floor again.
And this time, she thought grimly, there might not be anyone to put me back together.
"Yes," she said quietly. "Walking. Of course."
Yao Xian studied her for a moment longer, then turned and continued down the corridor.
Xīng Hé followed, glancing back toward the distant spires of Heiyun Jue's palace. Her manor was somewhere on the far side of this pocket realm. She had been teleported here in an instant.
Walking back... she didn't want to think about how long that would take.
She followed anyway. What choice did she have?
Behind Xīng Hé's stumbling form, Yao Xian walked in silence, her expression blank, her thoughts churning.
How dare she.
The words repeated in her mind like a drumbeat. How dare that child give orders in my presence.
She replayed the moment again—Xīng Hé standing in the corridor, calmly instructing the guard to treat her little friend "wait for me." As if she had authority here. As if she had standing. As if two days of consciousness and a fancy manor made her anything more than a particularly shiny piece of Heiyun's collection.
The memory burned—standing in that corridor, receiving commands from a child who hadn't even manifested her concept consciously yet. A child who should have been groveling for guidance, not dispensing instructions like some petty noble in her family's estate.
And Yao Xian had obeyed.
She'd had no choice. The Eminence had made his interest clear. This girl was valuable. Protected. Not to be damaged.
Heiyun clearly stated she shouldn't be broken, Yao Xian thought bitterly. If not for that order, she'd be begging for her life already.
But "not broken" left room.
Walking wouldn't break her. Exhaustion wouldn't break her. Days of travel without the comfort of teleportation, without proper rest, without the luxury she clearly expected—that was punishment, not damage. That was a reminder of where she truly stood in the hierarchy of this world.
This is the most I can do.
For now.
Yao Xian allowed herself a small sigh, quiet enough that mortal ears would never catch it.
But knowing Heiyun... she would still be broken anyways. Eventually.
The Eminence was patient. He was also thorough. This girl might be valuable now, might be protected now—but that protection had limits. And the Eminence had ways of reshaping even the most stubborn souls into something more... compliant.
Yao Xian continued walking.
The girl would learn her place.
They always did.
✦
Back at the pavilion, the second guidance session was drawing to a close.
Elder Pei Leng stood at the front of the room, surveying the two hundred children with an expression of profound disappointment. He had asked a simple question—how many of you have seen improvement?—and not a single hand had risen.
Not one.
The silence stretched, thick and suffocating.
He had given them the knowledge of their current rank. The rest was supposed to be up to them. And with the look of things, their fates were already decided.
Unfortunate, he thought, studying their frightened faces. Some of them might have had potential.
He knew what awaited those who failed to evolve before the ten-year mark. Some would be sent on missions from which no one was expected to return—fodder for the front lines, bodies to throw at problems too dangerous for valuable assets. Others would find themselves in the research halls, their bodies and souls dissected in the pursuit of knowledge. A fortunate few might be permitted to serve their more successful peers as attendants and servants.
Death. Pain. Slavery.
Those were the only paths for the useless. The system did not tolerate waste, but it found uses for everything—even failures.
He let the silence stretch a moment longer, then sighed.
"I see," he said aloud, his voice flat. "No progress. None at all."
He began to pace, his footsteps echoing in the vast chamber.
"Very well. Since none of you have found your own way, I will offer one small mercy."
The children stirred, uncertain. Mercy was not a word they had come to expect in this place.
"From now until the end of the month," Elder Pei Leng continued, "you are permitted to share your representations with one another. Describe what you saw in the testing room. Listen to what others saw. Let them tell you what meaning they see in your vision." He paused, letting the words sink in. "Sometimes, understanding comes not from within, but from without. Another mind may see what yours cannot."
A murmur rippled through the children—hope, fragile and uncertain.
Elder Pei Leng raised a hand, and the murmur died.
"Do not mistake this for leniency," he said. "The path from Awakened to Resonance can take a single moment of clarity. It can also take a lifetime of struggle." His cold eyes swept across them. "So long as you draw breath, understanding remains possible. That is the nature of concepts—they wait, patient and eternal, for the mind that can grasp them."
He clasped his hands behind his back.
"But here, you do not have a lifetime. You have ten years. By the end of the ten-year mark, your fate will be decided. What that fate is... depends entirely on you."
He didn't elaborate. The children couldn't possibly understand what awaited them—not truly. They were too young, too sheltered, too ignorant of what the system did with its failures.
Better that way, he thought. Let them cling to hope a little longer.
"Do not give up," he said, and there was something almost like sincerity in his voice. Almost. "Continue seeking understanding. It is your only chance."
He turned and walked toward the exit, his footsteps echoing in the silence.
"Dismissed."
The children sat frozen, too stunned to move.
Chén Yè was the first to stand.
Share representations, he thought, the gears of his mind already turning. Tell each other what we saw. Help each other understand.
It was the first useful thing the Elder had said. Not because Chén Yè expected it to work—not for him, anyway, not with his impossible dark room and million lights—but because it was an opportunity.
He didn't know what "fate" awaited them if they failed. The Elder's words had been deliberately vague, the threat implied but never spoken. But Chén Yè had lived on the streets long enough to understand one simple truth: the powerful did not keep the useless around out of kindness.
Whatever awaited the failures, it wouldn't be pleasant.
If people started sharing their visions, he could listen. He could learn. He could start to understand the patterns, the meanings, the connections that others missed.
And knowledge, in this place, was the closest thing to power he could hope to have.
He glanced across the room toward Bai Zixian, who was standing slowly, his broad face creased with confusion and fear.
Tomorrow, Chén Yè decided. I'll approach him tomorrow.
Today, he had other things to think about.
End of Chapter 15