Night fell like a held breath.
Li Yaochen limped away from the pavilion with the careful slowness of a man who knew that any haste might draw a blade. The Fringe swallowed him quickly—canvas roofs, crooked alleys, the low murmur of lives pressed too close together. He did not look back.
Looking back invited pursuit.
Only when the incense-sweet air faded did he allow himself to breathe normally. Even then, the tightness in his chest remained, a cold knot that pulsed in time with his heart. The cultivator's question replayed again and again.
What would you be willing to pay?
Li Yaochen had not answered with words, but the truth was simpler than any vow.
He would pay with time.
With blood.
With the slow erosion of whatever softness still clung to him.
---
He reached his shelter near midnight—a half-collapsed storage shed reinforced with scavenged beams and prayer ropes stolen from a broken shrine. It kept out rain. It did not keep out sound.
Li Yaochen sat, back against the wall, and closed his eyes.
The pressure returned.
Not pain.
Weight.
It settled behind his sternum, deeper than muscle, like an unseen hand resting on something fragile and vital. He clenched his jaw, waiting for the familiar surge of panic.
It did not come.
Instead, a sensation unfurled—ancient, cold, and patient.
Then the world tilted.
For a heartbeat, the shed seemed to hollow out, its walls thinning to sketches. Beneath the dirt floor, lines appeared—faint, ash-gray veins forming circles within circles. Arrays.
Old.
Crude.
Incomplete.
Li Yaochen's eyes snapped open.
The vision vanished.
He sucked in air, hands shaking. Sweat soaked his collar despite the cold.
"That wasn't mine," he whispered.
He had seen arrays before—etched stones near sect gates, diagrams scratched into manuals—but this was different. This knowledge had not passed through his eyes.
It had risen.
From below.
From him.
Li Yaochen pressed his palm against his chest. The pressure eased, as if satisfied with being acknowledged.
He laughed quietly, humorless. "So that's how it is."
Not strength.
Not enlightenment.
Just awareness.
The cruelest gift of all.
---
Sleep came in fragments.
When dawn bled through the cracks, Li Yaochen was already awake. He wrapped his leg tighter, ignored the dull ache, and stepped outside.
The Fringe buzzed.
The pavilion had been dismantled overnight. Word spread quickly: the sect had taken what it wanted and moved on. Those left behind scrambled to fill the vacuum—petty gangs, information brokers, false prophets preaching fortune.
Li Yaochen kept moving.
He headed for the ash fields.
The land beyond the Fringe dipped into gray dunes where burned soil met scattered bone. Monsters rarely wandered this close to the settlement, but neither did sect enforcers. It was a place for people who wanted to disappear for a while.
Li Yaochen wanted to think.
As he walked, the pressure stirred again, faint but persistent. The world sharpened in odd ways. He noticed the direction of the wind before it touched him. He felt the subtle hum beneath his feet—the echo of something buried long ago.
Ruins.
He stopped.
Ahead, half-swallowed by ash, stood a stone slab tilted at an angle. Weathered symbols marred its surface. Old enough that even the Fringe scavengers had given up on it.
Li Yaochen approached cautiously.
The moment his shadow crossed the slab, the pressure surged.
This time, the vision did not fade.
Lines blossomed across the stone, invisible ink turning visible. An array revealed itself—not active, not whole, but purposeful.
A mural without pictures.
A warning.
Li Yaochen swallowed.
The symbols spoke of tiers. Of beasts that learned to hunger beyond flesh. Of plants that remembered the sun from older skies. Of worlds layered atop one another like folded cloth, each pressing down on the next.
At the center was a hollow circle.
An absence.
Li Yaochen staggered back, heart pounding.
He understood none of it.
And yet, he understood enough.
This slab was not a treasure.
It was a boundary marker.
Something had once been sealed here.
Something that did not want to be remembered.
A laugh drifted across the ash.
Li Yaochen turned.
Three figures emerged from the gray haze—men in mismatched armor, weapons worn but sharp. Their eyes gleamed with a hunger far more immediate than ancient mysteries.
"Look at this," one said. "A crippled rat sniffing rocks."
Li Yaochen raised his hands slowly. "I'm leaving."
Another spat. "You already found something."
"I found nothing," Li Yaochen replied truthfully.
They advanced anyway.
The pressure in his chest tightened.
Not in warning.
In insistence.
Li Yaochen's gaze flicked to the slab, to the broken array lines. His mind raced. He had no strength, no weapon worth naming. Running would only prolong things.
Cowardice, he thought.
Yes.
But clever cowardice.
As the first man lunged, Li Yaochen kicked ash toward the slab and threw himself sideways. His heel struck one of the faintly glowing lines.
The world lurched.
The ash field sank.
Not collapsing—folding.
The men screamed as the ground swallowed them to the knees, then the waist. The array flared once and died, exhausted by the effort.
Li Yaochen lay gasping, ears ringing.
Silence returned.
He did not wait to see if they escaped.
He crawled, then limped, then ran until his lungs burned.
---
By the time he reached the Fringe again, the pressure had retreated, leaving behind a hollow ache.
Li Yaochen leaned against a wall, laughing breathlessly. "You nearly got me killed," he muttered.
There was no answer.
Of course there wasn't.
Gifts did not explain themselves.
As night fell, Li Yaochen understood one thing with painful clarity:
This world was not waiting for him to grow strong.
It was waiting to see how long he could survive knowing how small he truly was.
And somewhere beneath the ash, something ancient had felt his touch.
It would remember.