The world outside the Ancestral Hall was a maelstrom of contained panic. Disciples and servants scurried through the courtyards, their faces pale, their voices hushed whispers.
The news of the First Young Master's disastrous breakthrough was spreading like a poison through the clan's veins.
Yang Kai slipped away from his vantage point by the latticed window, his heart hammering a frantic, desperate rhythm. It was a rhythm of fear, but also of a wild, audacious hope.
The study will be empty.
The thought was a blazing fire in his mind. His Third Aunt had given him the location of the key—her brother's forbidden research.
And the clan's crisis had just given him the opportunity to steal it.
He moved through the shadows of the estate, his steps silent, his senses screaming with adrenaline. He was no longer the aimless, wandering ghost. He was a thief in the night, his purpose sharp and clear.
Inside the Ancestral Hall, Patriarch Yang Kun sat on his ceremonial chair, a king presiding over the collapse of his own kingdom. The air was thick with the cloying scent of Spirit-Calming Incense and the metallic tang of his son's blood.
He watched as Madam Lan, her face a pale mask of frantic terror, worked tirelessly, her jade-green Star Force a gentle, useless stream against the chaotic storm raging within Yang Wei's body.
Failure, the Patriarch thought, his hands clenching into fists beneath the table. My heir. My house. All turning to dust.
His gaze shifted to his youngest brother's wife, a silent statue of pale lavender silk standing near the elders. Madam Xue.
Her proposal—to beg the Tie Clan for the use of their Stillness Anvil—was a blade of humiliation aimed at the heart of his pride. But it was their only option.
The price would be astronomical, a debt that would shackle their clan for a generation, but the price of failure was absolute extinction.
He had no choice but to agree. This sudden crisis had consumed the attention of every elder, every guard, every person of consequence in the entire clan. The rest of the estate was an afterthought.
Yang Kai reached the Patriarch's residence, the East Wing. It was a grander, more imposing version of the other clan houses.
But tonight, it was strangely quiet. The guards who usually stood sentinel at its entrance were gone, redeployed to secure the Ancestral Hall.
He crept up to the main building, his body pressed against the cold stone wall. He found the window of the study easily.
It was dark.
He listened for a long moment, the only sound the frantic beating of his own heart. Empty.
The latticed window was covered with thick paper, but it was not barred. The lock was a simple wooden latch on the inside.
He pulled a thin, stiff piece of wire from the hem of his own worn-out robes—a trick learned not from this world, but from a life of obsessive reading in his last one.
His hands trembled as he slid the wire through a small tear in the paper and fished for the latch. It was a clumsy, amateurish attempt. The wire scraped against the wood. For a terrifying minute, he thought it was impossible. Then, with a soft click, the latch gave way.
He froze, listening. Silence.
Slowly, carefully, he slid the window open just enough to squeeze through. He dropped into the room, landing in a graceless crouch on the floor.
The study was a world away from the dusty, neglected library. The air smelled of expensive ink, sandalwood, and power. A massive, ornate desk carved from dark, polished wood dominated the room.
The shelves were not empty, but lined with scrolls and leather-bound books, each one likely a valuable technique or clan record.
But his eyes were drawn to a single object in the corner of the room: a large, iron-banded chest. It was made of heavy, dark wood, and a complex, bronze puzzle lock secured its front. This had to be it.
He hurried over to the chest. The lock was not a simple mechanism.
It was a series of concentric rings etched with characters that had to be aligned in the correct sequence. He felt a wave of despair. It was impossible. He could be here all night and never guess the combination.
He ran his hands over the chest, his desperation growing.
There had to be a way. He noticed a small, almost invisible seam along the back of the chest, where the hinges were attached. They were heavy, iron hinges, held in place by thick, sturdy bolts.
He didn't have the key for the front, but perhaps he didn't need it.
He looked around the room. On the Patriarch's desk, amidst a neat stack of scrolls, was a heavy, bronze inkstone used for grinding ink. It was solid, dense. A makeshift hammer.
He took it, his heart pounding. This was a tremendous risk. The noise…
But the entire clan's attention was elsewhere.
He went to the back of the chest, took a deep breath, and brought the inkstone down on the head of one of the iron bolts.
The sound was a dull, heavy thud, muffled by the thick wood. He froze, listening. Nothing. He struck it again. And again. He worked with a frantic, desperate energy, his own pathetic, untempered muscles screaming in protest.
Slowly, agonizingly, the bolt began to give way. The old, dry wood around it splintered. He worked on the second bolt, then the third, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
Finally, with a soft groan of protesting wood, the top two hinges tore free from the back of the chest. He hadn't unlocked it. He had broken it.
He lifted the heavy lid from the back. The air that wafted out was musty, the scent of old, forgotten paper.
Inside, there were no treasures. No gold. No Star-Jades. Just a neat stack of journals and rolled-up maps, tied together with a simple cord.
He reached in with trembling hands and lifted them out. He couldn't take all of it. It was too bulky, too obvious. He selected two of the most promising-looking journals and one of the annotated maps. He would have to come back for the rest.
He quickly tucked them deep into the front of his robes, his heart pounding with a wild, triumphant rhythm.
He gently lowered the lid of the chest back into place. From the front, it still looked perfectly locked and undisturbed. The damage was only visible from the back, which was pressed against the wall.
With any luck, it would not be discovered for days, perhaps even weeks.
He slipped back out the window, carefully sliding it shut behind him, his clumsy fingers struggling with the latch. He left it unlocked. He might need a quick way back in.
He crept back through the darkened estate, a phantom carrying stolen secrets. He didn't go to his own room. It was the first place they would look if the theft was discovered. Instead, he went to the one place no one would ever think to search for him.
The Dregs.
He slipped out the same servant's gate he'd used before and plunged into the chaotic, mud-slicked maze.
The district was quieter at this late hour, but it was not asleep. The low, drunken laughter from the Silent Pavilion still echoed through the alleys. Shadowy figures lurked in doorways.
It was a dangerous place, but tonight, its lawless chaos felt safer than the suffocating order of the clan.
He found an abandoned shack, its door hanging off a single hinge, and ducked inside. The hovel was small, filthy, and smelled of mildew and rat droppings. It was perfect.
He lit a tiny nub of a candle he had pocketed from the study. His desperate goal was information. He unrolled one of the journals first, its leather cover cracking with age.
The script inside was fine, dense, and obsessive. He scanned the pages frantically, his eyes searching for anything, any clue. He found an entry:
"...the legends of the Ancient Era are fragmented, dismissed as heresy. But the whispers of the 'Forgotten Road' persist. A path to a 'great treasure,' they say. A potential source for a catalyst of unimaginable power. My research into the old territorial surveys has given me a location, a speculative starting point in the deepest of the Old Pits. But the true path is guarded. The legends all agree on this one point. The path leads deep into the Tyrant's Domain..."
He unrolled the map. It was a detailed chart of the foothills. He saw the Old Pits. He saw the Whispering Shadow Forest.
And he saw a dotted line, drawn in a different, fainter ink, leading from one of the collapsed shafts—a place labeled "Forgotten Road?"—deep into the mountains.
The line ended at a single, hand-drawn 'X' in a region ominously marked with a single, chilling, handwritten word:
'Sorrow.'
He felt a jolt of recognition. It was not a recognition of a name. It was a recognition of a feeling. The scholar had named his final, desperate destination after the only emotion such a hopeless quest could bring.
The path to salvation led through the lair of an unbeatable monster and ended in a place called Sorrow.
A wave of despair, cold and profound, washed over him. The secret he had risked so much to steal had only shown him a taller, more insurmountable wall. He was a mortal. He could not possibly survive such a journey.
He was so absorbed in his despair that he didn't hear the footsteps outside until it was too late.
The air in the alley outside the hovel was cool and thick with the smell of cheap wine and desperation. Xiong, the massive laborer from the Grinder, wiped a smear of blood from his lip with the back of a hand as thick as a brick.
The brawl at the Silent Pavilion had been profitable, but messy. He needed a quiet place to divide the winnings with his men.
"This rat-hole should be empty," he grunted to the two thugs behind him. "Let's count the coins."
He strode towards the abandoned shack, his heavy boots silent in the mud. As he approached, he saw it. A faint, flickering light from within. He held up a hand, stopping his men. His eyes narrowed.
He crept to the wall of the hovel, peering through a wide crack in the rotting wood.
His eyes widened in surprise. It was the clan pup. The strange, quiet boy from the Yang Clan. The one who had endured the Grinder without breaking.
He was sitting on the filthy floor, surrounded by what looked like ancient, valuable-looking scrolls and maps.
What is this? Xiong thought, his mind racing. A pampered young master, hiding in the Dregs with stolen goods? This is more interesting than a tavern brawl.
He saw the look of utter despair on the boy's face as he stared at a map. He saw an opportunity.
Xiong grinned. He stepped back from the wall and, without a word to his men, kicked the door open. It slammed against the inside wall with a sound like a thunderclap.
A massive figure filled the doorway, silhouetted against the pale light of Selene's Veil.
"Well, well," his familiar, gravelly voice rumbled. "Look what the rats dragged in. The little clan pup. Hiding in my territory."
His eyes fell on the map spread out on the floor, on the expensive-looking journals. His gaze sharpened, a flicker of understanding—and greed—in his eyes.
"It seems," Xiong said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his face, "you've been a very busy boy, Yang Kai."
[Cycle of the Azure Emperor, Year 3473, 5th Moon, 20th Day]