Lady Yueh narrowed her gaze. Ren's blade sliced awkwardly through the air—footing uneven, posture abysmal. It was not a technique. It was noise.
And yet, as she watched, something stirred.
A shift.
A ripple.
Then a surge.
Her cultivation pulsed once—twice—then broke through into Early Step Seven. No intention. No insight. Just… his clumsiness, her witnessing, and the Dao beneath both revealing itself.
"It makes no sense," she whispered, her voice flickering like wind across frost. "His swordplay is in disorder. But my cultivation…" She paused, eyes narrowing with reverent confusion. "There's more to him than meets the eye."
Fairy Jin stepped into view, her twilight robe catching motes of stray starlight. Her gaze lingered on Shen Wuyin—not with amusement, but with deep calculation.
"I felt it too," she said. "Step Seven came, unbidden. He dresses plainly. Moves stupidly. Speaks even less. But he's hiding something. I saw it the moment I met him. Like the Dao itself is pretending to be a fool."
They watched together—two paragons of clarity, elevation, and control—staring at a man who couldn't hold his blade straight… and who was somehow shaping them both.
When Ren finally sheathed his sword—a crooked arc that would make most elders wince—he sat beneath the pines and began refilling his qi. His breath was slow. His posture flawed. Yet the spiritual energy circled him still, patient and unbothered.
The squirrel remained on his shoulder, nestled like a tuft of living fur. Asleep. Unafraid. It had been there for days—uninvited, undisturbed, undeterred.
Ren offered it a piece of dried fruit. The squirrel stirred, blinked once, and accepted the offering without hesitation. There was no hunger in its movements. Only quiet recognition.
And somehow—without training, without technique—it now mirrored Ren's cultivation.
No breakthroughs. No martial forms. Just sleep and proximity.
It had stayed. And the Dao had done the rest.
Fairy Jin had noticed days ago. She hadn't spoken. Only watched—lips pursed, gaze unreadable.
Lady Yueh had tried to rationalise it. Charts. Diagrams. Resonance models. All failed. Eventually, she conceded:
"This squirrel is ascending. And I have no idea why."
But Ren did not seek answers. He simply scratched behind its ear, leaned back beneath the Windless Pine, and closed his eyes.
He did not cultivate brilliance.
He cultivated presence.
And the Dao responded.
Ren awoke beneath the same pine, limbs crooked, qi threadbare. His sword practice resumed with the grace of a drunken crane stumbling through fog. His form was fractured. His angles offensive. His momentum nonexistent.
And yet—
By midday, he had ascended into Mid Step Five.
It made no sense.
Fairy Jin, who had once watched talent bloom slowly across decades, stood in quiet disbelief. This was not progress. It was narrative collapse.
On Ren's shoulder, the squirrel stirred. Yawned. Blinked once with imperial indifference. Then returned to sleep. And somehow, it too now radiated Mid Step Five cultivation.
No effort.
No technique.
Just divine proximity.
Gao Yun—plump, previously irrelevant, spiritually stagnant—had begun preparing tea. By dusk, he was calling Ren "Senior Brother" with genuine awe.
"Your blade form… it confuses me," he said, voice trembling with reverence. "But when I watch it, my qi dances. It feels… provoked."
Ren had now mastered ten sect techniques. Each consumed with impossible speed. Each flawed just enough to make instructors reconsider their syllabi.
Gao Yun, once too lazy to kneel, now followed Ren with fanatical devotion: half butler, half bodyguard, complete disciple. Ren never acknowledged him.
And the squirrel?
It nibbled slowly on a walnut.
Commanding with its eyes.
A flick of its tail sent Gao Yun scrambling for offerings. A twitch of its whiskers launched protective formations. It had become more than a pet. It was an administrator of absurd destiny.
Even Gao Yun's cultivation had surged—Late Step Three. Stable. Glowing.
Meanwhile, Liáng Xu and Fei Yan watched in horrified silence.
The fat man—once dismissed as sect furniture—had nearly matched their rank, simply by orbiting Ren and appeasing his squirrel.
Liáng Xu's calligraphy grew erratic. His brush trembled like a leaf. Fei Yan nearly struck a willow tree.
"The heavens have cursed us," Fei muttered, voice taut with disbelief. "First Ren. Then his pet. Now the fat guard. What is happening?"
Their glory? Gone.
Their thunder? Hijacked.
Their narrative? Rewritten—as supporting roles in a squirrel's cultivation saga.
But humiliation breeds fury.
Driven not by enlightenment, but by rage against rodent hierarchy, they plunged back into cultivation.
Late Step Four.
Still behind.
But climbing.
Meanwhile, Fairy Jin and Lady Yueh approached Step Eight—an advancement that echoed across the entire Level Ten Providence, where sects rose and fell like tides. The Glass Lotus Sect, already mythic, was now spoken of with reverence and envy.
Banners unfurled. Elders wept. Alliances shifted.
But within the celebration, a quiet truth emerged:
None of this had begun with intention.
Ren had not sought glory.
The squirrel had not sought power.
And yet, their quiet absurdity had become the axis of the sect's destiny.
Ren stopped training.
His sword rested, forgotten, against the pine. His posture remained uncorrected. The squirrel snored softly beside him.
And yet, he had reached Late Step Six.
No breakthroughs.
No heavenly insights.
Just clumsiness, naps, and luck so obscene it bordered on divine comedy.
The elders couldn't explain it.
Fairy Jin no longer tried.
Lady Yueh had resorted to silence—her only refuge from mounting disbelief.
Within the sect halls, a new proverb was whispered:
Heaven is cruel. And Heaven loves Shen Wuyin.
No one argued.
Shen Wuyin was ascending not in spite of his foolishness, but because of it.
And the squirrel?
Already halfway to Step Six.
Nibbling walnuts like heavenly tributes.
Radiating smug approval.
Ren decided, quite suddenly, to accelerate his cultivation. No pacing. No restraint. Just quiet resolve—like someone sprinting down a mountain to see how many trees they could dodge.
Late Step Six arrived within days.
It was absurd.
It wasn't kind.
It was divine favouritism, carved into reality like a prank played by the heavens.
And as if summoned by the tension in the air, Liáng Xu and Fei Yan approached.
They had ascended to Peak Step Five—dragged upward by rage, pride, and the stubborn refusal to be remembered as footnotes.
Their robes were immaculate. Their expressions composed.
But their eyes betrayed the truth—still clinging to elegance, still aching for acknowledgment dressed as reverence.
Behind them, a quieter tragedy unfolded.
The women they had seduced—disciples, elders, childhood partners, the whole constellation of hearts once pulled by their orbit—were waking up.
Not to illusion.
To reality.
Their lives hadn't been guided by the heavens.
They had been controlled. Tilted. Rewritten by something they couldn't name.
And under that weight, their true will had been undone.
They hadn't meant to betray the ones they loved.
They never would have—if they'd been truly free.
But they weren't.
And now, the illusion had cracked.
Their eyes opened.
Too late.
Their Dao partners—the men who had once stood beside them with loyalty and dreams—were gone. Vanished like morning mist. Carried away on winds that no longer looked back.
There were no apologies strong enough.
No path tender enough.
Only silence.
Only grief.
Ren felt it all—sensed the weight in the space between steps and breath.
He watched the two approach.
Didn't greet them.
Didn't flinch.
Just looked.
With complete indifference.
Before Ren could respond—before the squirrel even blinked—Liáng Xu and Fei Yan lunged.
Their pride had swollen past containment.
Being ignored by Ren, dismissed by the heavens, reduced to footnotes in a squirrel's ascension—it was too much.
Their attacks were elegant. Furious.
Formations flared. Qi surged.
But neither touched him.
Because before they reached striking range—
Fairy Jin appeared.
One hand to Liáng Xu's cheek, the other to Fei Yan's—two crisp, ceremonial slaps that echoed through the courtyard.
Lady Yueh followed half a breath later, striking each of their backsides with a flicker of qi-infused discipline—the ancient sect's punishment for spiritual misconduct.
"Control yourselves," Fairy Jin said coldly, folding her arms.
"You're not just failing the Dao," Yueh added. "You're embarrassing it."
Liáng Xu staggered back, stunned and stinging.
Fei Yan blinked twice, eyes watery with humiliated rage.
Ren said nothing.
He resumed sitting, eyes glazed, squirrel still balanced perfectly on his shoulder.
In truth, he hadn't noticed the fight.
He was trying to decide whether the dried fruit in his sleeve was a walnut or a chestnut.
Ren sat, squirrel draped across his shoulder like a royal sash of unearned prestige, and let out a slow breath beneath the pine. His sword leaned against the bark, crooked as always. The sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the courtyard.
Far away—within the flaming void of his inner domain—Emperor Shadow lounged upon his obsidian throne.
Dragon armour pulsed with restrained chaos.
Fire swirled. Shadows curled.
And beneath that helmet sat a grin far too entertained.