The walk back to his courtyard was a journey through a new world. The familiar flagstones beneath his worn shoes felt different, their texture more pronounced. The night air, once just a cold void, now had a subtle texture, a faint, humming vibration that caressed his skin. Star Essence. He could feel it. The sensation was so faint it was like trying to hear a single pin drop in a storm, but it was there. The bath had not just cleansed his body; it had peeled a layer of deafening static from his senses.
He reached his room and barred the door, his heart still a frantic drum against his ribs. The humiliation of the final moments in the bathhouse was a fresh, burning brand on his soul. He had been seen. Not just his nakedness, but the crude, undeniable proof of his desire. His aunt's final words, her cold, dismissive command to "control himself," echoed in his mind.
She had him. She had seen his base, mortal weakness, and he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that she would not forget it. Theirs was a partnership now, but one where she held all the power, a power she had earned by witnessing his shame.
He sat on the edge of his bed, forcing himself to push the memory away. Shame was a luxury he couldn't afford. He had a new, infinitely more important puzzle to solve.
He closed his eyes. He quieted his breathing. He pushed past the thrum of his own heartbeat and reached out with his newfound sense, trying to feel the ambient Star Essence in the room.
It was there. A thin, almost imperceptible presence. He couldn't draw it in. He couldn't use it. But he could feel it. The perception was a form of torture, a constant reminder of the world of power he was locked out of. He was a man dying of thirst, now keenly aware of the moisture in the air he could not drink.
His First Aunt had said it herself: he had a perfect foundation, but no key. The Awakening Trial was a gate she could not open for him.
And he knew why. It wasn't just his dormant bloodline or the clan's poverty. It was the verdict that had been passed on him a decade ago.
The memories of the original Yang Kai, once a hazy fog, were becoming clearer in moments of intense focus. He remembered the aftermath of the "accident" that had put him in the coma. He remembered hushed, sorrowful voices around his bedside. The Grand Elder, his face a mask of grim finality, had performed a deep spiritual probe.
The diagnosis had been a death sentence for his future. The accident, a fall from a training pillar, had not just damaged his body. The spiritual shock of the impact had, according to the Grand Elder, shattered his dormant Stellar Seed.
The very core of a cultivator's potential. The seed from which the World Tree was meant to sprout. It was believed to be destroyed, turned to spiritual dust within his inaccessible Sea of Consciousness.
You couldn't perform an Awakening Trial on a boy with a dead seed. It would be a waste of priceless resources and a cruel mockery of the sacred ritual.
That was the truth of his status. He wasn't just a cripple. He wasn't just a non-cultivator. He was, by the clan's highest authority, fundamentally and irrevocably incapable of cultivation. He was a road that led nowhere. This was why his mother looked at him with such shame, why his father treated him with such weary pity.
But now... now he could feel the Star Essence.
Could the Grand Elder have been wrong? Was it possible the seed was not shattered, but merely damaged? Or was this newfound sensitivity just a cruel side effect of the tempering bath, a ghost sense with no source?
The uncertainty was a fire in his gut. He had to know. He thought of the Surveyor's Journal. The Forgotten Road. The Shattered Path's Remnant. He thought of the Ancient Drake Tyrant. These were things that operated outside the known rules of the province. If an answer existed, it was out there, in the mountains.
He couldn't rely on the clan. He couldn't rely on his aunts. Their kindness was a cage. He had to find his own answers.
He gave himself one day to recover, his body screaming for rest. He spent the time solidifying his plan, a simple, desperate stratagem born of his limited options. On the second afternoon after the bath, he left the estate.
The Dregs was a lawless, dangerous place, the festering wound on the underbelly of Fallingstar Town. But it was also where the whispers were loudest. He left the estate through the familiar, disgusting passage of the storm drain. The transition was jarring. One moment he was in the empty, decaying order of the Yang Clan compound; the next, he was plunged into a chaotic maze of mud-slicked alleys, leaning shacks, and the overwhelming stench of unwashed bodies and cheap, sour wine.
Here, his Yang Clan robes, faded and worn as they were, marked him as an outsider. Hostile, hungry eyes followed him from every shadowed doorway. He kept his head down, his heart pounding a frantic tattoo against his ribs, and tried to walk with a purpose he did not feel.
He remembered Xiong mentioning that many of the out-of-work laborers and less reputable characters gathered near the town's only major tavern, the Silent Pavilion Inn. It was his only lead.
He found the inn near the Market Square. It was a large, ramshackle building, its sign a faded painting of a one-armed swordsman. He didn't dare go inside. Instead, he lingered in a nearby alley, trying to make himself invisible, searching the faces of the men coming and going.
He saw them after only a few minutes. A group of three men strode in, their movements filled with a predatory grace. They wore light leather armor and carried shortbows slung over their backs. On their belts, the sigil of a diving black hawk was clearly visible. The Feng Clan.
They took a large table near the center of the room, laughing and joking loudly, their arrogance a palpable force. Yang Kai hunched lower over a non-existent cup of tea, trying to become part of the shadows. From this distance, he could only catch snippets of their conversation.
"…the Glimmer-Scale was a clean kill. A single arrow."
"…Patriarch was pleased. The core will fetch a high price at the Trading Post."
"…that fool from the Tie Clan, Tie Gang, still thinks brute force is the answer to everything…"
It was useless bragging. He needed more.
One of the hunters, a young man with a cocky smirk, drained his ale and slammed the mug on the table. "I'm going to the back. Need to talk to One-Eyed Crow about our next run."
He stood and walked towards a corridor at the back of the inn.
One-Eyed Crow. The name sent a jolt through Yang Kai. Xiong had mentioned him. The shadowy leader of the Rat's Nest Guild. This was it. A direct link between the Feng Clan and the smugglers. Driven by a reckless impulse that overrode his fear, Yang Kai stood up. He left a few copper coins on his table and followed the hunter.
The air in the back room of the Silent Pavilion was thick with the smell of stale ale and secrets. One-Eyed Crow sat at a rough-hewn table, his single, good eye fixed on the nervous young Feng Clan pup sitting opposite him. The boy was preening, flushed with the success of a recent kill, but Crow could smell the underlying fear. Good. Fear made people predictable.
"The usual route is getting too hot," the Feng pup said, his voice a low, conspiratorial whisper. "The Governor's patrols are thicker than fleas on a dog near the Scarred Plains."
Crow took a slow drink from his chipped clay cup. "Then we use the Old Pit trail. It's a longer route, but it bypasses the patrols completely. It leads right to the back of the Survey Camp."
"The Old Pits? That place is haunted by more than just beasts," the pup said, a flicker of genuine unease in his eyes.
Crow leaned forward, his scarred face twisting into a grotesque smile. "Are you a hunter of the Feng Clan or a scared child?" he rasped, his voice like stones grinding together. "The price is the price. And my client is getting impatient for his goods."
The client. The Governor. The man was pouring a fortune into that hole in the ground, and Crow was getting rich off his desperation. It was a good business. A quiet business.
Suddenly, he heard it. A sound from the corridor. A single, sharp, and utterly out-of-place creak of a floorboard.
The voices in the room stopped instantly. Crow's single, good eye narrowed. The Feng pup's face went pale.
The voices inside stopped instantly. The sudden silence was a physical blow. He felt his blood run cold. He had been a fool. An amateur.
The curtain was ripped aside. A man stood there, his face a roadmap of scars. One of his eyes was a milky, dead white. One-Eyed Crow. Behind him, the young Feng Clan hunter's eyes were wide with alarm.
One-Eyed Crow's single, good eye narrowed, fixing on Yang Kai's face, on his Yang Clan robes. A look of cold, murderous comprehension dawned on his face.
"Well, well," the smuggler rasped, a slow, ugly smile spreading across his lips. "What does a little clan pup think he's doing, listening at my door?"
[Cycle of the Azure Emperor, Year 3473, 5th Moon, 20th Day]