The moon hung heavy, pale and bloated, as if it had swallowed the secrets of the mountain and now brooded upon them.
Wei Xie stood at the base of the bell tower, its broken spire stabbing the sky like a forgotten relic. Wind howled through the gaps in its frame, whispering names long unspoken. The tower hadn't tolled a bell in generations—its bronze tongue had shattered in the war before peace.
And yet tonight, the air vibrated with the silence of something waiting to ring.
Wei Xie stepped forward.
No torch. No blade. Only his hands hidden in his sleeves, and eyes that gleamed like oil under moonlight.
The doors creaked open on their own.
A welcome.
Or an invitation to be devoured.
---
The tower's interior was layered in dust and shadows. Old banners clung to the walls, depicting stylized lotus flowers in a thousand stages of bloom and rot. Most bore the colors of the sect's past—silver and jade—but in one corner, a tattered tapestry hung bearing the mark of the Black Lotus.
Wei Xie's breath caught.
He had seen that mark only twice before.
Once in the hidden pages of the Records Hall.
And once in the dreams that never left him.
Footsteps echoed behind him.
He turned slowly.
Three figures entered, hooded and silent. None bowed. None spoke.
The one in the middle, the tallest, removed his hood.
It was the man in crimson from the central plaza. Closer now, Wei Xie saw that his eyes were ringed in faint red veins, as though he had not slept in years. His expression, however, was calm. Almost kind.
"Disciple Wei Xie," the man said. "You burned our note. Most would take that as refusal."
Wei Xie did not blink. "I assumed you would know better."
The man smiled. "Indeed. The Black Root watches carefully."
Wei Xie's mind flickered. A name. A faction? No—more than that.
One of the Three Hidden Branches.
Blood sects whispered of them. The 'Roots' that fed the unspoken cultivation paths: Lotus, Mirror, and Void.
And if this was the Root… then this was a rite.
---
The tall man gestured. The other two acolytes stepped aside, revealing a small altar in the tower's hollow base. Upon it rested a bowl of silver, filled with water that did not ripple despite the wind.
"Drink," said the man.
Wei Xie approached. His eyes caught movement beneath the surface—shapes, faces, memories.
His own mother's hand, reaching for him.
The man who killed her, smiling.
The reflection of his own face.
Unmoving. Emotionless. Unchanged.
He drank.
The water was cold. Then hot. Then fire.
It wasn't pain that took him.
It was the unraveling.
---
He stood again in the tower—but not.
The banners were gone. The walls were molten stone. Shadows of giant lotuses bloomed across the floor, pulsing with a rhythm not unlike a heartbeat.
Before him stood himself.
Younger. Seven, maybe eight. Dressed in bloodied rags.
"You forgot her," the boy said.
"I remember too well," Wei Xie replied.
"You left her to die."
"No," he said. "I watched."
"Same thing."
The boy raised a blade. Not steel. Not spirit. Something worse. It was made of words—of all the names Wei Xie had betrayed.
The blade fell—
Wei Xie caught it in his palm.
He bled.
And then smiled.
"I am not here to repent."
The world cracked.
---
He collapsed to his knees in the tower.
The real tower.
The bowl shattered beside him, silver pieces dissolving into smoke.
The crimson man stood over him, watching.
"Few survive the Rite of the Rotting Bloom," he said.
Wei Xie wiped blood from his mouth. "Then they were not worthy."
The man inclined his head. "Tonight, you take your first step. Not as a cultivator—but as a gardener."
Wei Xie raised an eyebrow.
"The Black Lotus does not bloom in battle," the man said. "It blooms in minds. In choices. In corruption."
Wei Xie stood. Slowly.
"I've been planting seeds for years," he said.
The man's smile widened.
"Then we shall help you harvest."
The two other hooded figures stepped forward, and for the first time, they spoke—not in words, but in unison chant. A soundless intonation that resonated deep within Wei Xie's bones, like an echo of an oath he hadn't known he'd made.
His shadow bent oddly.
His breath steamed black for a moment.
A new mark began forming at the base of his spine—a tiny lotus sigil etched in spiritual ink.
"A fragment of the Rot," the man said. "It will grow with your deeds."
Wei Xie's lips curled. "I plan to cultivate it well."
The crimson man stepped closer, lowering his voice.
"The Sect will not see you change. But they will feel it. In the ways people falter around you. In the doubt you sow. In the fear that creeps behind admiration."
Wei Xie nodded. "They've never seen me as strong."
"They never needed to," the man answered. "They only need to trust you."
Wei Xie's expression darkened into something more precise than malice—something like anticipation.
"Then let them," he whispered.
---
When Wei Xie left the tower, the moon had dipped below the mountain. The cold seeped into his skin, but he did not shiver.
The Sect would wake in a few hours. Elders would gather for morning lectures. Outer disciples would run drills until their limbs collapsed.
And Wei Xie would walk among them, unchanged in appearance.
But utterly different.
He walked alone.
But not unwatched.
And every step forward left behind a petal black as night.
---