The world returned slowly.
Lin Xuan's first sensation was pain—deep, bone-deep, like fire burning through his veins. Every breath carried knives through his chest. His limbs felt heavy, foreign, as if he had been forged anew in a furnace that had not yet cooled.
Then came the sound of water. A faint trickle, the rhythm of a small stream winding close by. The air was cool and thick with qi, richer and denser than the forests of Azure Mist.
Lin Xuan forced his eyes open. A canopy of red-leaved trees stretched above him, their branches trembling faintly in the wind. He lay on soft moss beside the stream, wrapped in a rough blanket.
For a moment, he didn't move. Memory returned like shards of shattered glass. The shrine. Ren Hao. Yu Ling. The python's roar. The blinding talisman. The tearing of space itself.
He shot upright with a gasp. Agony lanced through his chest, and he crumpled back down with a hiss, clutching his ribs.
"Don't move."
The voice was calm but firm. He turned his head.
Yu Ling sat a few paces away, cross-legged beside the unconscious forms of her fellow disciples. Her azure robes were torn, stained with blood, her face pale. Yet her bearing was steady, eyes fixed on him with quiet intensity.
Lin Xuan's throat felt dry, words rasping when he finally spoke. "Where… are we?"
Yu Ling's gaze flicked toward the trees. "Far from Azure Mist Village. Far from the Misty Cloud Sect." She paused, as if weighing how much to say. Then: "We are in the Crimson Star Dominion. Across the border. Another nation. Another sect's land."
The words fell heavy. Lin Xuan's mind reeled. "Another… country?"
Yu Ling nodded once. "The talisman I used—it was not meant for what I forced it to do. It was designed to pull one person away from death. But desperation…" She looked at the two unconscious disciples, her eyes softening. "…demanded more. It shattered its limit. And so it cast us beyond the reach of the python."
Lin Xuan's hands curled weakly in the blanket. He remembered the beast's eyes, its venom, the roar that split the heavens. His breath shivered. "That thing… what was it?"
Yu Ling was silent for a long moment, her gaze lost in the rippling stream. When she finally spoke, her voice was low, almost reverent.
"The Venomscale Python. A guardian beast sealed beneath that shrine centuries ago. It was bound by the ancestors of our sect—perhaps even before the sect existed. The shrine you stumbled upon was never a place of prayer. It was a prison."
Lin Xuan's body chilled. A prison. He thought of his training, kneeling on that earth, drawing qi into his veins while unknowingly disturbing what slept beneath.
"I woke it," he whispered hoarsely.
Yu Ling's eyes snapped to him. "No. The seal was already weakening. You merely drew attention to yourself when your qi surged. Its hunger was inevitable. Sooner or later, someone would have paid the price."
Lin Xuan closed his eyes. But her words didn't ease the weight pressing against his chest.
He forced himself to ask the question that had gnawed at him since the moment her sword deflected Ren Hao's strike. "Why were you there? Why were you watching me?"
Yu Ling's lips tightened. Her hands clenched briefly in her lap. Then, with a breath, she gave the truth.
"Because Elder Ji ordered it. You are not just a boy from Azure Mist Village. The jade fragment you found—it is no common stone. It is a relic. A fragment of something older, perhaps from an ancient treasure or cultivation artifact. And when you touched it, it bound itself to you. The sect felt its resonance."
Lin Xuan's chest tightened. His mind flashed back to that night, to the wolf's jaws and the jade's sudden light.
"We were ordered to watch you," Yu Ling continued, her voice steady. "To observe your growth. To determine if you posed danger… or promise. Elder Ji said if you became unstable, if the fragment consumed you, we were to end you before you could harm others."
The words struck like a blade. Lin Xuan's breath caught, a bitter taste filling his mouth. "So I was… a threat. A burden to be culled."
Yu Ling flinched, but she didn't deny it.
Lin Xuan laughed bitterly, though it came out more like a cough. Blood flecked his lips. "And I thought I was only cursed. Now I see I was prey."
Silence stretched between them. Only the stream whispered.
Finally, Yu Ling's voice softened, almost breaking. "But you fought. Even knowing you could not win, you stood. That is no small thing."
Lin Xuan turned his face away, ashamed. He remembered his fear, the way his legs had locked when Ren Hao's strike fell. He remembered Yu Ling's sword, her blood, her defiance—while he had trembled.
"I nearly died cowering," he said bitterly.
Yu Ling shook her head. "No. You nearly died fighting. Do not twist the truth in your heart."
Her words lingered, unwanted yet warming. Lin Xuan closed his eyes, chest aching with a different kind of pain.
After a long silence, he asked, "Ren Hao. Why did he…?"
Yu Ling's eyes hardened, the gentleness replaced by steel. "Ambition. Greed. Ren Hao saw glory in seizing you himself. He disobeyed the elder's order and sought to either claim you or kill you before others could. If the Blood Serpent Sect had learned of you first, he feared what it would mean. But more than fear…" She looked away, disgust flickering across her face. "…he wanted the honor. The power."
Lin Xuan clenched his fists. His mind replayed Ren Hao's sneer, his blade flashing, the mocking laughter. "So he would have killed me. Not for the sect. For himself."
"Yes."
The air grew heavy again. Lin Xuan stared at the red canopy above, thoughts twisting. He had always believed death would come from hunger, beasts, or illness. Now he saw that cultivators were far crueler predators.
Yu Ling's voice softened again, breaking his thoughts. "Lin Xuan… do you understand what has happened? You cannot return. Ren Hao will not forget, nor forgive. He will twist the truth. To the sect, we may already be traitors, deserters who fled into foreign lands. If word reaches them, they may send others. To kill us. To kill you."
Lin Xuan's throat tightened. He turned to look at her fully for the first time. Her face, pale with exhaustion, still carried that same resolve he had seen when she defied Ren Hao's blade.
She had chosen this path. For him.
"…Why?" he whispered.
Her eyes widened slightly.
"Why save me? Why fight your own sect brother? Why carry me across nations when you could have left me to die?"
Yu Ling's lips parted, but no words came. For a long time she only stared at him, the firelight of her eyes flickering with conflict.
Finally, she whispered, "Because I believe in what I saw. A boy who refuses to kneel, even broken. A spark that the heavens themselves chose to protect. If I must risk exile, if I must be branded traitor… then so be it. I would rather stand beside someone who refuses to surrender than bow beside those who betray honor."
Lin Xuan's chest ached, but not from wounds. His heart pounded, something fierce rising within it. For the first time since the shrine, since the wolf, he felt the faint stirrings of hope—not because he was strong, but because someone believed he could be.
Silence fell again, but it was no longer heavy.
The unconscious disciples stirred faintly. Yu Ling glanced at them, then returned her gaze to Lin Xuan.
"Rest now. When dawn comes, I will tell you more. About the sects. About the jade. About the path you have been forced onto. If you are to survive, you must know the world beyond your village."
Lin Xuan's eyes burned with exhaustion, but he forced himself to nod.
As sleep dragged him down, one thought lingered, heavy as steel in his chest.
No matter what storm awaited, no matter what sect branded him a threat or prey, he would not break.
Not again.
And this time, he swore, he would stand.