The inner palace of the Ji Clan was silent as ever—guarded by spiritual arrays that dulled even birdsong. It was peaceful. Or so others believed.
Ji Yuanheng sat at his study desk, a brush held loosely in his hand, the scroll before him still blank.
Not because he had nothing to write.
Because his thoughts wouldn't hold still long enough to shape into ink.
She had not cried. She had not begged.
She simply bowed.
And vanished into the gates of the Crimson Cloud Sect like a drop of blood into wine.
He had not looked back.
But now he couldn't look away.
"Master."
The quiet voice of his attendant broke the stillness. Yuanheng didn't raise his head.
"Speak."
"A letter arrived by spirit crane, from the Crimson Cloud Sect."
He gestured lazily, and the letter floated to his hand. No seal. No name. Just a folded parchment imbued with faint crimson qi.
He opened it. Read it. Paused.
Then read it again.
His eyes narrowed.
"'She walked the Soul Path without faltering.'"
"'No medicinal aid. No rest. No fear.'"
Yuanheng's grip tightened on the scroll until the parchment tore slightly beneath his fingers.
He remembered that path.
He remembered the screams of those who failed to cross it.
The sect master had once told him that even low-level disciples cried blood on that trial.
And she, a servant girl, had walked it alone?
No. That couldn't be all.
He turned to the window. Outside, the mountain wind stirred the willows. The sun was setting again—and still, he hadn't written a single word.
There had been a time, not long ago, when the thought of Shen Liuyin barely registered in his mind.
Just a shadow.
A minor presence.
One among hundreds in his household.
Until her silence became louder than screams.
Until she stopped looking at him like he was divine—and started looking like she saw right through him.
He had expected tears when he summoned her punishment.
He had expected resentment.
But what he saw that day…
A quiet back. A stiff neck.
A girl who didn't ask why.
Just accepted it.
As if she had always expected to be discarded.
As if she knew that loving him—once—was already her mistake.
Ji Yuanheng let out a slow breath.
This was foolish.
She was one of many. A former servant. A disobedient girl who dared to raise her eyes too high.
She had no spiritual root. No divine body. No destiny.
And yet…
And yet…
"Master," the attendant spoke again, hesitating. "Another message. This one… from the Crimson Cloud sect mistress herself. She wishes to thank you."
Yuanheng's gaze sharpened.
"For what?"
The servant lowered his eyes. "For the gift."
Yuanheng's chest tightened. A strange feeling coiled there—annoyance, maybe. Discomfort. Or something far worse.
He waved the attendant away.
Alone again, he stood and moved toward the window. His reflection flickered faintly against the polished jade—tall, cold, perfect.
And increasingly haunted.
He thought of her again.
Not as she was now—cloaked in Crimson Cloud's silk, bowing before ghosts—but as she had once knelt before him.
That day.
The day she begged.
Her sister's blood staining her hands, her robes. Shen Yueyin's breath slowing. That broken voice.
"Please… please, she's still alive. Just let me—"
And he had looked at her with disdain. Like a dog begging at his feet.
"You are not important enough to be remembered."
The memory returned like a slap.
Ji Yuanheng swallowed nothing.
He had forgotten her.
Deliberately.
Now her image refused to fade.
Her defiance, her silence, her scars.
The Crimson Cloud Sect devoured girls like her. Either they crumbled… or transformed.
He had meant to punish her.
But perhaps—perhaps he had forged something worse.
Not a broken thing.
But something sharpened.
And aimed back at him.
Ji Yuanheng turned from the window, walked to his table, and finally dipped the brush in ink.
He wrote one name.
Shen Liuyin.
Then he paused.
Crossed it out.
Wrote again.
Crimson Cloud.
And beneath it: Observe. But do not interfere.
His brush trembled slightly as he set it down.
He didn't know what scared him more.
The morning mist in the Crimson Cloud Sect wasn't mist at all—it was spiritual poison, drifting down from the jade cliffs like dew. It clung to the lungs. Burned the skin. And that was just the beginning.
Shen Liuyin stood barefoot at the center of the Red Lotus Arena.
Around her, disciples watched in silence. Crimson robes rustled. Painted lips curled with delight. The air tasted of blood and bitter incense.
At the highest seat on the carved jade platform sat her—the woman in red. Her gaze was languid, fingers drumming against the porcelain armrest, as if waiting for Liuyin to crumble like so many others.
"This is your final trial," the sect mistress purred. "Not of body. But of obedience."
A flick of her sleeve, and two other disciples dragged in a kneeling girl, gagged and blindfolded.
Liuyin's breath caught.
It wasn't Shen Yueyin.
But the girl was young. Shivering. A servant, no older than she had been when she first entered the Ji estate.
"Strike her," the woman said, as casually as if offering wine. "She disobeyed me yesterday. You'll whip her until she no longer screams."
"And if I refuse?" Liuyin's voice was calm. Cold.
"Oh, darling," the woman smiled. "You won't. Or the next girl might be someone you actually know."
Laughter echoed.
The whip was handed to her—a long, silken strand soaked in spiritual venom. Each lash would scar more than flesh. It'd burn the meridians. Cripple the soul.
Liuyin stared at it.
Not for what it was.
But for what it meant.
Her hands trembled. Just a little. Then steadied.
She stepped forward.
The girl whimpered under her breath, too terrified to beg.
And Shen Liuyin raised her arm—
"Stop."
The voice came not from the sect mistress.
But from above.
A messenger crane soared overhead, releasing a scroll tied in gold thread. It drifted down like a falling leaf and landed silently at the sect mistress's feet.
Everyone stilled.
The woman in crimson raised an eyebrow. She unrolled the scroll with one manicured finger, eyes scanning the text.
Her expression didn't change.
But her lips curled into a dangerous, unreadable smile.
"Well, well," she murmured. "What impeccable timing."
She snapped her fingers. The blindfolded girl was dragged away. The whip vanished into smoke.
Liuyin's breath returned—but shallow, wary.
"Shen Liuyin," the mistress called, louder now. "You are summoned by Ji Yuanheng. Immediately."
The name cracked across the arena like thunder.
Some gasped.
Others looked at her with new interest, eyes gleaming.
Liuyin did not flinch. Not outwardly.
Inwardly, something twisted.
She bowed deeply.
"Understood."
The sect mistress watched her for a long moment, then turned away.
As Liuyin walked through the arena, past the watching eyes, down the blood-streaked stairs, she didn't look back.
She couldn't afford to.
Not here.
Not yet.
---
The path out of the Crimson Cloud Sect was long and winding, but this time, she was escorted by a spirit boat gilded in black.
She sat alone within the inner cabin, surrounded by silence.
Ji Yuanheng had summoned her.
After all this time. After all the pain.
Why?
She clenched her fists.
Memories came unbidden—her sister's smile, her own laughter, a time when she had been foolish enough to think that serving the Ji Clan would bring honor.
Instead, it brought chains.
And Ji Yuanheng had been the one who tied them.
And now he summoned her like a pet? A toy?
She closed her eyes. Her cultivation burned like ice beneath her skin, simmering with everything she had hidden for so long.
Let him see what he had forged.
Let him see what he cast aside.
And let him suffer—just a little—when the girl he broke no longer bowed like a servant.
The boat cut through clouds like a blade, heading straight for the Ji Clan estate.
And this time, she would not arrive as property.
She would arrive as a reckoning.