The moment the heavy front door of the Hall of Assembled Treasures clicked shut, the oppressive weight of Lin Wei's presence vanished. The silence that rushed in was heavier than the noise had been.
Xiao Tong stood frozen for a long moment, her back to Chen Wei, her shoulders rigid. Then, with a sudden, sharp cry of pure frustration, she spun around and kicked a low wooden stool, sending it skittering across the floor.
"Anomalous pet?!" she seethed, her voice a furious whisper. "A 'child playing with forces she barely comprehends'? He talks about tradition and order, but he can't see a miracle even when it's bleeding from the nose right in front of him!"
Chen Wei was leaning against a display case, pinching the bridge of his nose to stop the fresh trickle of blood. His head throbbed with a dull, persistent ache. He felt hollowed out.
"He's not wrong, though," Chen Wei said, his voice raspy. "About me being anomalous. About us playing with forces we don't fully understand."
"That's not the point!" Xiao Tong shot back, pacing like a caged animal. "The point is the hypocrisy! The Sect preaches about maintaining balance. But when a true threat, a Greater Yao, sets up a feast in their backyard, what do they do? They 'monitor.' They 'observe.' They hide behind their ancient treaties because they're afraid. Afraid of starting a war, afraid of a monster who is smarter and older than all of them combined."
"So we stop," Chen Wei said, more as a statement of fact than a suggestion. It was the logical conclusion. They were outgunned and now, officially, outmaneuvered. "He gave us a direct order."
Xiao Tong stopped pacing and stared at him, her eyes blazing. "Is that what you want to do, Chen Wei? Go back to your spreadsheets? Go back to pretending none of this exists, and just hope that Hu Meilan gets bored of her 'dining' before she decides to sample someone you care about?"
Her words struck him with the force of a physical blow. Of course he didn't want that. The old world, the world of logic and safety, was an illusion that had been shattered forever. There was no going back. His 'logical conclusion' wasn't based on a desire to stop, but on a deep-seated fear of consequences.
Xiao Tong saw the conflict in his eyes. Her uncle's words stung because they held a kernel of truth. She had always operated under the Sect's shadow, chafing at its rules but never truly breaking them. Chen Wei's ability was a wild card the old men didn't understand, and their first instinct was to lock it away. It was the same tired, rigid thinking that allowed monsters like Hu Meilan to flourish.
Chen Wei pushed himself off the display case, a wave of vertigo making the room tilt. He looked at his hand. In the low light, he could see faint, silvery lines of energy—residual Urban Qi—dancing just beneath his skin, like static electricity made visible.
"I don't know if I can stop," he admitted, his voice barely a whisper. "Since the... 'crafting session'... it's different. I can't turn it off. I can still hear everything. The lights, the data from your phone, the security camera across the street. It's quieter now, but it's always there. A constant background hum."
He looked at his hands again. "What if your uncle is right? What if this power is a sickness? What if the more I use it, the less human I become?"
This was the core of his fear. It wasn't about defying the Sect; it was about losing himself.
Xiao Tong's anger finally broke, replaced by a wave of empathy. She walked over and gently took his hand, inspecting the faint, dancing light beneath his skin. Her touch was cool and steady.
"It's not a sickness," she said, her voice soft but firm. "It's a language you were born speaking, and you've spent your whole life in a library where no one else could read. Of course it's overwhelming now that you've started to use it. You don't need to stop. You need to learn grammar. You need to learn how to whisper instead of shout."
She met his gaze, her own eyes filled with a fierce, unwavering resolve. "My uncle sees a risk. An anomaly. An unacceptable variable. I see a weapon that only we know how to wield. He wants to lock the weapon in a box. I want to aim it at the monster."
She let go of his hand and stood tall. "He gave me an order. He didn't give one to you. You're not a member of the Sect. You're not bound by its rules."
Chen Wei stared at her, understanding dawning. It was a loophole. A technicality. A razor-thin line of plausible deniability. She was offering to take the fall if they were caught. She was putting her entire future, her legacy, on the line for this, for him.
"They'll disown you," he said.
"Let them," she replied without hesitation. "I'd rather be a pariah who fought back than a 'dutiful child' who stood by and did nothing. But I can't do it alone. I have the knowledge, but you... you are the key. So, I'll ask you one more time. Do we stop?"
The choice hung in the air, heavy and absolute. He could walk away, try to find a way to silence his senses, and let the mountain of the Sect handle the tiger. Or he could embrace the terrifying, exhilarating reality of what he had become. He could stand with the only person who saw him not as a pet or a problem, but as a partner.
He looked at the capacitor box sitting on the workbench, a testament to what they could accomplish together. He looked at the fierce determination in Xiao Tong's eyes. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his stomach, but for the first time, it was overshadowed by something else. Resolve.
"No," Chen Wei said, his voice clear and steady. "We don't stop. We accelerate. We finish this before they have a chance to stop us for good."
A slow, dangerous smile spread across Xiao Tong's face. The mice had been warned by the mountain, and they had decided to poke the tiger anyway.