Crossing the threshold of my own home had never felt so strange. Usually, the sound of my boots against the packed dirt floor brought a sense of relief—the end of the workday. But today, with her walking behind me, the cabin felt cramped. She made no noise. She didn't smell like sweat or the fields; she smelled like something I couldn't quite name, like mountain air after a storm—too clean for this place.
"You can sit there," I said, pointing to the only chair with a backrest that my grandfather had finished carving before he died. It felt almost like an insult to offer her that piece of old wood, but it was the best I had.
The woman moved with a fluidity that made the space seem to pivot around her. She sat down without her robes even brushing the dust on the floor. She didn't look at the poverty of the room with contempt, but with a scientific curiosity, like someone observing a curious rock formation.
I got to work immediately. I didn't know what else to do. The silence was thick, but it wasn't that comfortable silence from when grandfather was here. I stoked the embers in the hearth and put on the pot with turnip stew and a bit of pork fat I had left. The sound of crackling wood helped anchor me. I'm supposed to be offering her rare flower tea or something, but all I have is well water and hard bread. If she's really looking for "simplicity," she's getting a double helping today.
Aethel moved through the kitchen with the parsimony of someone who has repeated the same gestures a thousand times. There was no elegance in his steps, only a rough efficiency. As he sliced the bread, his hands—wide and calloused—moved with a slowness that wasn't laziness, but a total lack of hurry.
The cultivator watched him. To her, every movement Aethel made was a contradiction. There was no trace of spiritual energy in him, no technique, no cultivation. And yet, every time he let the knife fall onto the wood, she felt a dull vibration in her own meridians, as if the weight of the young man's existence were too much for the reality of that room.
A thought crossed Aethel's mind: Wait, isn't this the part where the protagonist meets the old cultivator who gives him the fortune of a lifetime? He didn't have time to dwell on it before the cultivator's voice interrupted him.
"Have you lived here alone for long?" she asked. Her voice filled the cabin, not by volume, but by a clarity that made all other sounds seem blurry.
"A year since the old man passed," Aethel replied without turning around. "Four since I arrived in the valley."
I didn't want to give details. Why bother? She wouldn't understand what it's like to wake up in the body of a starving child and have to learn how to use a hoe just to avoid dying again. I served her a bowl of the stew and set it before her, along with a worn wooden spoon. Then I served mine and sat on the stool across from her. For a moment, I felt ridiculous. A goddess of the clouds and a peasant with mud under his fingernails sharing boiled turnips.
They ate in a stretching silence. Aethel ate with real hunger, the kind earned after a day in the stream. She, on the other hand, barely tasted the broth. She didn't seem to need sustenance, but accepted the gesture as part of her own search.
That was when it happened.
Aethel looked up to reach for the water pitcher, and his eyes met hers directly, without the filter of shyness or mortal respect. It was pure contact—pupil to pupil.
The cultivator had no time to look away. In that instant, the world of the cabin—the smell of smoke, the taste of the turnip, the cold of the night—vanished like an illusion struck by the wind.
It wasn't an illusion technique or an attack. It was a fall.
Both suddenly found themselves in that plane of absolute darkness Aethel visited in his dreams. But this time, he was conscious. There was no floor, no sky, no stars. Only that infinite black flow, a current moving not sideways, but inward.
The woman remained there, suspended. Her white robes were the only point of light in a universe of nothingness. She showed no terror; her face maintained its eternal calm, but her eyes dilated as she felt her own essence begin to stretch. She saw the threads of her power, centuries of cultivation and understanding, turning into thin filaments flowing toward the center of that void.
Aethel was beside her but seemed unaware of her, or at least he appeared so in that dimensionless space. He didn't glow like she did. To him, this place was familiar—a refuge of silence where time had no meaning.
In that void, the cultivator did not try to fight. She simply watched as the current enveloped her, feeling the disintegration of her form into something more primal. There were no screams, no struggle, only the silent unravelling of light before the density of Aethel's core. For a moment, both were just two consciousnesses floating at the origin of everything, where the life force flows so slowly it seems to stop.
Just as suddenly, Aethel was the first to give way; he could see nothing but darkness before vanishing.
Aethel blinked. He was back on his stool, water pitcher in hand, his heart beating with that slow, heavy thud: Thump... Thump...
Becoming aware of himself, Aethel had no time to think of anything else, as he saw the woman with her head on the table. She appeared to have fainted.
Dammit all to hell. How did we get to this? A minute ago I was trying not to choke on a turnip, and now I have an entity that could erase my village from the map sprawled across my grandfather's table. I stared at her, waiting for it to be a joke, but she didn't move. Her breathing was so subtle that for a second I thought she had run out of soul in that dark place.
Aethel set the pitcher on the table with a sharp thud. The sound seemed too loud in the deathly silence of the cabin. He wiped a hand over his face, feeling cold sweat running down his neck. That dream... or whatever it was, had been different. This time he hadn't been alone, and the feeling of having "dragged" someone with him made him feel as if he had committed a crime without knowing it.
He stood up, but his legs felt heavy, as if the gravity of that void were still pulling at his heels.
What am I supposed to do? If her kind find out one of their own fainted in a peasant's house, they aren't going to ask for explanations; they'll burn the whole valley just in case. I tried calling her, my voice a bit shaky, though I struggled to hide it.
The memories I had forgotten slowly returned to me. Suddenly, a situation flashed in my head where young masters came "friendly" to ask for an explanation.
"Hey? Ma'am?" Aethel extended a hand but stopped it inches from her shoulder. He didn't dare touch that white fabric that looked as if it were made of clouds. "Come on, wake up. I don't have a spare bed, and the floor is too cold for you to stay there."
The woman didn't respond. Aethel sighed and, bracing himself, decided to ignore divine protocol. If she wanted "simplicity," she was going to get the treatment of any traveler who faints from exhaustion.
With an effort that made him grit his teeth, he took her by the shoulders to try and lean her better against the back of the chair. Upon touching her, he didn't feel skin, but a cold vibration that ran up his arms. It was like touching an ice statue that, nonetheless, throbbed with an energy greater than his own body.
Although Aethel was quite agitated inside, his actual heart barely reacted to the changes, moving rhythmically as always.
She weighs less than a sack of straw. It's as if she isn't made of flesh and bone. I settled her as best I could, praying she wouldn't wake up and disintegrate me for daring to touch her. I sat back on my stool, watching her under the dying light of the embers. Her face... it no longer had that statue-like calm. There was a shadow of something new, a confusion that didn't fit someone of her caliber.
Minutes passed, feeling like hours to Aethel. The fire began to die, casting long, dancing shadows on the stone walls. He stayed there, standing guard over his own plate of cold stew.
Suddenly, the woman's fingers twitched against the wood of the table. She let out a long sigh, a sound that seemed to return reality to the room. She opened her eyes slowly. They weren't focused on the cabin, but on something much further away.
Aethel froze, spoon still in hand.
Here it comes. Now is when she realizes I dragged her into my madness and decides the best thing is to erase the evidence. I kept my gaze low, concentrated on a knot in the wood of the table. I didn't want to be the first to speak. If you're going to die, better to do it with your mouth shut.
The cultivator raised her head. She didn't look like a goddess now; she looked like someone who had just woken up from a shipwreck. She looked at her own hands, then at Aethel, and finally at the bowl of stew that still weakly steamed.
"You did not vanish," she whispered. Her voice no longer had that perfect harmony. "In that place... everyone vanishes. Light stretches until it ceases to be light."
Aethel shrugged, trying to regain his mask of an indifferent peasant.
"It was just a dizzy spell," he said, though he knew he wasn't fooling anyone. "The air in this valley is heavy sometimes. Drink some water and you'll feel better."
The woman took the bowl of water he offered. Her hands brushed Aethel's, and this time, it was her who didn't pull away. She stared at the contact, understanding that what was before her wasn't a lucky mortal, but an anomaly that the laws of heaven had not foreseen.
"I have lived a long time," she said, her voice regaining a gravity that made the air in the cabin feel denser. "It is curious that it is the first time I find such a strange heavenly treasure. You have no idea what you carry inside you, do you?"
Aethel went cold. His hands, which moments before held the bowl firmly, tensed.
Do I know? I know I have to sow in three days if I want a harvest. I know my grandfather is under a willow. But there's something else I know, something I swore I'd forgotten. Memories of the novels I read in my other life returned to me like an icy torrent. In those stories, anything associated with a "heavenly treasure" was synonymous with refinement. Whether you were a plant, a beast, or a man, if you had something valuable in your soul, you ended up turned into a pill for the consumption of someone stronger.
Aethel tried to calm himself, repeating inside that he was just a peasant, a nobody in a forgotten valley. But the word "treasure" kept echoing. He glanced at the fire still crackling in the hearth and, for a moment, he didn't see burning wood, but his own body being consumed in a giant bronze cauldron under the indifferent gaze of this woman.
Is this my moment in this world? Have I spent four years breaking my back in the dirt just to end up as an ingredient for an elixir? She looks at me as if I were a jewel, not a human being. My "quiet peasant" life hasn't just died; it's been sentenced.
"I am not a treasure," Aethel managed to say, and though his heart kept beating at its slow, eternal pace, his words had the edge of desperation. "I am just a man trying to make it through winter. If you're looking for power, you've got the wrong door. There's nothing here worth taking."
The cultivator watched him in silence. She didn't say yes, but she didn't say no either. She simply let the silence take over the cabin as the smoke from the cold stew vanished into the gloom.
Seconds passed until the woman spoke.
The woman let out a brief laugh, a sound like silver bells breaking the heavy air of the cabin. It was such a human reaction that Aethel was caught off guard, his hand still gripping the edge of the table.
"Haha, don't look at me like that," she said, leaning back slightly in the old wooden chair. "I'm not going to devour you. You don't even have anything in your body that I could use."
Aethel blinked, confused.
Nothing? Is she mocking me? She just called me a "heavenly treasure" and now she says I have nothing. In novels, this is usually the part where the villain lies to you before knocking you out. But her gaze... it isn't that of a butcher looking at cattle. It's more like an astronomer looking at a planet that shouldn't be there.
"You called me a treasure," Aethel countered, trying not to let his voice sound as relieved as his stomach felt. "In my... in the stories I've heard, treasures are kept in chests or melted down."
"You are a treasure because of what you are, not because of what you have," she explained, regaining her serenity, observing him with a depth that seemed to ignore his flesh and see directly into the anomaly of his soul. "Your body is that of a mortal. Your blood is thick, yes, and your heart beats to the rhythm of stones, but you have no Qi. You have no spiritual roots I can tear out, nor a golden core I can steal. You are like a candy without a filling; if I devoured you, I wouldn't even feel it," she said in a half-joking tone.
Aethel let out a long sigh he didn't know he was holding. He sat back down, feeling his legs regain some strength.
Fine. I'm not a pill. At least not one she can cook. That's something. But she's still here, sitting in my kitchen after dragging me into a nightmare vision. If she doesn't want to eat me, what does she want? And why does she keep looking at me like I'm the answer to a question no one has asked?
"Then, if I'm not useful for your cultivation," Aethel said, regaining some of his peasant brusqueness, "I suppose you no longer have a reason to stay. As I said, the village has better beds and better dinners."
The cultivator did not stand up. Instead, she stretched out a hand and touched the rough surface of the wooden table, tracing the grain with elegance.
"The universe is a place of causes and effects, Aethel. The fact that I, who have avoided the mortal world for centuries, ended up at your door seeking 'simplicity' just as your nature began to awaken... that is no coincidence. It is a resonance."
She looked at him intently, and this time Aethel didn't feel the void, but a silent invitation.
"I am not going to refine you," she concluded, pausing as her eyes narrowed, shining with a silver light that seemed to peel back the layers of reality. "You know? Even though you have nothing in your body that could be useful to me, the aura of your soul is quite peculiar."
Aethel tensed again. It wasn't the fear of being devoured, but the sensation of absolute nakedness.
"Your aura... it's not just that it's dense," she continued, leaning slightly closer to him, as if trying to decipher a blurred hieroglyph. "It's warped. Like a puzzle piece forced into a place where it doesn't belong. There is a dissonance in you, Aethel. You do not vibrate at the same frequency as the rest of the souls in this world. It is as if you are an intruder in the fabric of fate."
My blood ran cold. "An intruder." She wasn't seeing the black hole; she was seeing the scar of my transmigration. To her, my soul must look like an oil slick in a pool of clear water. It's not that I'm "bad"; it's that I'm not from here. If she keeps pulling that thread, she'll reach my memories of Earth, and I don't know what's worse: being turned into a pill or a goddess discovering my soul belongs to a world where magic is just fiction.
"This kind of situation is quite rare," she continued, with a note of fascination in her voice. "For a mortal to have such a signature, it is because he is a Fallen One. A cultivator who reached a state of separation from the world before falling from grace, managing to survive in a state that only shows a wisp of his former self."
Aethel felt the air return to his lungs, and though the tension didn't vanish entirely, an idea brightened in his mind.
A Fallen One? So that's what she thinks. She thinks I'm some kind of ancient god who crashed to earth and lost his powers, leaving only this "deformity" in the soul. It's perfect. If she thinks I'm a spiritual war veteran who's been crippled, she'll stop looking for stranger origins. It's not the truth, but in this crazy world, a lie that fits is better than a truth no one can believe.
"I don't remember any of that," Aethel said, lowering his voice and feigning a bitterness that was easy to summon. "I only remember the hunger of this body and the labor of this valley. If I ever was something more, the mud saw to burying it a long time ago."
The cultivator nodded, as if his words confirmed her theory. In her mind, the fact that Aethel didn't remember his "divine past" was a natural consequence of the trauma of the Fall.
"Forgetting is the soul's last defense against total loss," she said, finally standing up. Her figure, bathed in the moonlight coming through the window, seemed more real now that they shared a "secret." "But your soul has not forgotten how to be heavy, Aethel. You are an intruder because you no longer belong to the common cycle of life and death. You are an echo of something that should have vanished, but refuses to let go of this world."
She walked to the door, but not to leave—rather to contemplate the valley submerged in shadows.
"I will not devour you," she repeated, looking at him over her shoulder. "It would be a waste of time to try and refine a Fallen One. But I will stay. I want to see what happens when an echo decides to shout again."
Fantastic. I've gone from being a kitchen ingredient to a research project. "An echo that shouts." I just want the ox not to get sick and the turnip harvest to be enough. Ever since she said I didn't even have a spiritual root in my body, I realized I wouldn't even be able to cultivate the most basic energy. I know I can't kick her out. Not after she's decided I'm a high-level mystery. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. A very long day.
Aethel stood up and began clearing the wooden bowls with mechanical movements. His heart kept beating with that slow, heavy thud: Thump... Thump... A rhythm that, to the cultivator, was proof of his ancient glory, but to Aethel, was simply the reminder that he was still alive in a world where nothing was what it seemed.