The air in the Serpent's Spine was thin and carried a metallic bite, the scent of ozone and old violence. Lee Wei moved not like a spy, but like a slow, geological process. He didn't sneak; he simply was, his grey robes becoming one with the granite and shadows. The donkey, sensing the pervasive danger, had finally stopped its protests, plodding along in silent, miserable agreement.
"Left here," Elder Kong directed, his voice a tense thread in Lee Wei's mind. "The Valley of Fallen Heroes is not a poetic name. It's a literal mass grave from the last sect war. The residual death-qi will help mask your presence, but it will also attract... things. Be swift."
The path narrowed into a treacherous fissure between two mountains, opening into a vast, bowl-shaped valley. It was a stark, silent place. The ground was littered with broken weapons and the bleached white of old bones. Crude, unmarked gravestones stood at crooked angles, like rotten teeth. The very energy of the place was heavy and mournful, pressing down on Lee Wei's spirit.
'Charming,' he thought.
"Stop complaining. The gravestone we need is near the center. Look for one that's slightly taller than the others, with a crack running down the middle like a lightning bolt."
Lee Wei picked his way through the debris of the past. He saw the stone just as Elder Kong described. And perched on its apex, as still as the stone itself, was a large, glossy black crow. Its eyes were beads of polished jet, and they were fixed directly on him.
His breath hitched. 'It's looking at me.'
"Impossible," Elder Kong murmured, a note of genuine shock in his voice. "Even a Spirit-Beast Crow shouldn't be able to lock onto you so easily. Unless... unless its perception isn't spiritual. It's visual. It's just using its eyes."
The simplicity of it was terrifying. In a world of divine sense and spiritual perception, the one thing that could see him was a creature relying on the most basic of senses: sight.
The crow let out a low, guttural caw that echoed unnaturally in the silent valley. It didn't sound like a bird; it sounded like stones grinding together.
"The message. Now!" Elder Kong urged.
Lee Wei's hands were trembling as he pulled the sealed metal cylinder from his robe. He took a step forward. The crow didn't fly away. It tilted its head, its intelligent eyes tracking his every move. He felt laid bare, more seen than he had ever been in either of his lives.
He reached the gravestone. The air was frigid. Slowly, carefully, he placed the cylinder on the flat top of the stone, next to the crow's talons.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The crow looked from the cylinder to Lee Wei, and back again. Then, it did something utterly unexpected. It dipped its head and, with a sharp, precise tap of its beak, knocked the cylinder off the stone. It clattered onto the ground at Lee Wei's feet.
'What does that mean? Did I do it wrong?'
"I... I don't know," Elder Kong admitted, his confusion palpable. "The instruction was to deliver it to the crow on the gravestone. You did."
The crow let out another rasping caw, this time more insistent. It hopped down from the gravestone, landing beside the cylinder. It pecked at it, then looked pointedly at Lee Wei, before pecking at it again.
A dreadful understanding dawned on Lee Wei. "It... it doesn't want the message. It is the message. The crow is the spy."
The crow gave a final, definitive peck at the cylinder, then launched itself into the air with a beat of powerful wings. It didn't fly away into the mountains. Instead, it circled once overhead before swooping down and landing squarely on Lee Wei's shoulder.
Its talons gripped his robe, firm but not painful. It was a weight both physical and metaphorical. It tucked its head, settling in.
Lee Wei stood frozen, a young man in grey robes with a spy-bird perched on his shoulder in a valley of bones. His mission was a success. He had made contact. And he had never been more exposed in his life.
"Well," Elder Kong said, his voice a mixture of awe and horror. "This is a complication."
Getting out of the valley was the easy part. Getting back through the Serpent's Spine with a large, black crow sitting openly on his shoulder was another matter entirely. Lee Wei tried to shoo it away. It simply sidestepped his hand and let out a reproachful squawk. He tried to run. It flew alongside him, easily keeping pace before settling back on his shoulder the moment he stopped.
"It's bonded to you," Elder Kong deduced. "You completed the handoff. You are now its handler. Its source of safety. Its cover."
'Its cover? What's my cover? A junior disciple with a new pet?''
"Precisely! It's genius! Who would suspect a spy of being so blatantly obvious? The crow is your camouflage. The best place to hide a secret is in the open."
It felt less like genius and more like a walking death sentence. Every rustle of leaves, every shadow in the rocks, made him jump. He was a beacon now. A quiet, nervous beacon with a bird on its shoulder.
He was so focused on the feathered liability attached to him that he almost walked directly into the patrol.
They emerged from a side canyon, five disciples from the Blood Tiger Sect. Their robes were a brutal, bloody crimson, and their auras were aggressive and sharp, like unsheathed blades. They were young, probably on a border patrol mission, and they looked bored and hungry for excitement.
Lee Wei froze. There was nowhere to hide. The crow on his shoulder puffed up its feathers, but remained silent.
The leader of the patrol, a burly youth with a scar across his cheek, spotted him instantly. "You! Stop! What are you doing here? This is Blood Tiger territory!"
This was it. This was how he died. Not in a dramatic duel, but executed as a spy because of a bird.
"Don't speak. Look confused. Look lost," Elder Kong snapped.
Lee Wei let his shoulders slump, his face arrange itself into a mask of vacant bewilderment. He looked at the patrol leader without a hint of recognition, as if he were a particularly interesting cloud formation.
The patrol leader strode forward, his companions fanning out behind him. "I said, what are you doing here? Identify yourself!"
His divine sense washed over Lee Wei, probing, searching. Lee Wei felt it slide away, finding nothing of interest. The leader's eyes, however, stayed fixed on him. And then they dropped to the crow.
"A crow?" one of the other disciples muttered. "Since when do Verdant Cloud weaklings keep pets?"
The patrol leader's eyes narrowed. He took another step closer, peering at the bird. The crow, in response, turned its head and began preening its wing feathers with an air of profound boredom.
Something about the sheer normalcy of the scene—the utterly unremarkable disciple, the completely ordinary bird—seemed to break the patrol leader's train of thought. The dramatic tension he was so clearly craving deflated.
"Are you... lost?" he asked, his voice laced with confusion.
Lee Wei saw his opening. He gave a slow, single nod.
The patrol leader stared at him for a moment longer, then scoffed in disgust. "Useless. Probably some idiot from their Miscellaneous Affairs who wandered off while picking herbs. He's not even worth the paperwork." He spat on the ground. "Get out of our territory, you fool. Before we decide you're worth the effort after all."
He turned and waved his hand, and the Blood Tiger patrol moved on, muttering about the incompetence of rival sects.
Lee Wei stood there, his heart trying to beat its way out of his chest. He had been face-to-face with the enemy. He had been seen, questioned, and dismissed. Because of the crow.
He looked at the bird. It had stopped preening and was now looking back at him, its head cocked. For a moment, he could have sworn its jet-black eyes held a glint of ancient, cunning intelligence.
"It saved you," Elder Kong said, his voice hushed. "It didn't hide. It acted so normally that it made your entire presence normal. This is no simple beast, Lee Wei. This is a master of disguise."
Lee Wei started walking again, the crow re-adjusting its grip on his shoulder. The immediate danger had passed, but he felt a new, deeper unease. He wasn't just carrying a message anymore. He was carrying the messenger. And he had a terrifying feeling that his life of quiet obscurity was now permanently tethered to this creature of secrets.
As they descended from the spine towards the safe border, the crow suddenly shifted. It leaned close to his ear, and in a voice that was little more than a dry, rustling whisper, it spoke.
"The message was received," it whispered. "The Blood Tiger Sect moves at the new moon. Their target is not the main gate... it is the Shadow Caves beneath the Sect Leader's peak."
Lee Wei stumbled, his blood running cold. The crow knew. It understood. And it had just delivered a message far more critical than any metal cylinder could contain.
The spy had spoken. And Lee Wei was the only one who had heard it.