( The same day ; at night )
Not every night grants peace.
In such darkness, it is difficult to discern the night's intent.
Whether it arrives as a warning whispered too late…
or a blessing dressed in the garb of shadow.
Night did not merely fall upon the Hàngwō Forest—it conquered.
Moonlight dared not penetrate the canopy. The wind held its breath. The air itself was thick, syrupy with a silence that felt less like absence and more like a presence, waiting.
Before the sealed soul gates, Wùji stood his ground.
His robes were the dark violet of a fresh bruise. His breath was steady, his posture a blade of defiance. The massive gates hummed with a low, static charge, the talismans pasted across them fluttering in a breeze that did not exist.
The forest around him glared. He could feel it—a thousand unseen pupils fixed on the intruder, whispering curses on the still air.
"I will not run," he declared, his voice cutting the silence like a challenge thrown at the dark. "I am no coward."
No answer came.
But then—something elseanswered.
A voice. Not from the trees, but from beneath. It climbed through the earth, through the fog, sliding up the ladder of his spine with cold, spectral fingers.
The Tearstone Curse System. Half in death, half in dream. Calling.
A whisper leaked from the cracks in the stone gate, wet and intimate.
"Your heart is pounding so loudly, little disciple… is it singing a hymn for me?"
Wùji's knuckles whitened on his sword hilt. He did not step back. Pride was his only armor. He couldn't tell if this was his mind fracturing or if the seal itself was… speaking.
It chuckled. A sound like stagnant water draining through a ribcage.
"Hmph… You are crueler than I. To let me starve for a hundred years…"
A scrape from behind the gate—fast, vicious. Not a physical sound, but a tear in the quality of the air. Something had just moved through the suppression field.
Wùji froze. A yào? Impossible. The talismans should vaporize any corrupted spirit on contact.
The ground beneath him trembled. Not an earthquake. This was slower. Hungrier. Like a great beast shifting in its sleep.
"I despise insects…" the voice snarled, suddenly vicious. "Why do they feast on fresh meat while I rot in this tomb?"
Wùji swallowed, his throat sandpaper-dry. It's trying to manipulate me. To lure me into breaking the seal. It won't work.
He lifted his chin, a portrait of arrogance carved from fear.
The forest shifted.
A shadow detached itself from the deeper blackness behind him. Silent. Fluid.
Then—
Somethingglared at him from between the trees ahead.
White eyes. Hair like bleached seaweed, floating as if submerged. A mouth—a dried, gnarled maw, lined with shadows that promised not teeth, but void.
What in the name of the ancestors…? His mind raced. Yào? Mò? A soul that chewed through its coffin? Is this real, or has the fear birthed it?
He held his breath. Predators strike at the first flicker of panic.
One blink.
It was gone.
"What…?" The word left him in a punched-out breath. His violet eyes scanned the hollow dark. The silence now felt like a held fist.
One. Two. Three.
Nothing.
Then—
His heartslammed against his ribs. It was now perched in the branches to his right, upside down, limbs contorted like a broken spider. He saw it clearly now: a first-class cursed yào. The kind whispered about in missing-person reports.
He didn't think. Instinct and training fused. His sword left his hand in a silver arc, whistling through the air with lethal intent.
The yào let out a bat-like shriek of laughter—and vanished.
The sword slapped back into his waiting palm. His breath came in ragged gulps. A bitter, humiliating thought rose: Does Zhú fù hate me so much he'd feed me to this place? Has he truly cast me off?
He saw it then—the yào flowing like smoke through the sealed gate's barrier, as if the talismans were mere paper.
Logic shattered.
"Not so fast!"he barked, the command sharp with desperation.
If it tampered with the seals inside… if it woke anything… he would be more than dead. He would be the fool who doomed the realm, his name a cursed punchline for eternity.
Forbidden or not, he had no choice.
He plunged after it,crossing the threshold.
The interior was a tomb of exquisite, terrifying order. An abandoned shrine kept pristine by magic and dread. Spiritual puzzles snaked across every surface—walls, floor, vaulted ceiling. Rows upon rows of coffins, each swaddled in talismans and bound with dark rope, lined the grand hall.
He moved like a ghost himself, avoiding contact with anything. The air was cold and still, smelling of old incense and older stone.
He heard footsteps.
Bare feet on marble.Wet. Deliberate.
He turned, slow as settling frost.
There. A figure gliding between the far pillars. It matched every ancient description of the Tearstone Curse's avatar.
A black robe melting into shadow. Hair that floated like a nest of serpents. Skin the color of tarnished silver. And a shape—a hauntingly perfect, form of man that felt wrong, a blasphemy of something once beautiful.
His blood ran cold. He prayed for madness. Let this be a hallucination. Let my mind break before this is real.
"Don't think of it… don't name it…" he chanted through clenched teeth. His whisper echoed back at him, a traitor in the thick silence.
The figure vanished through one archway, only to reappear in another doorway across the hall. He stood paralyzed at the center of a vast, intricate floor pattern—five diamond gems, one green at the heart, four others orbiting it.
A rotten dragon fruit smashed at his feet from the darkness.
Insects—thick, glistening, squealing—erupted from the pulp and scattered.
A voice,harsh and ragged with fury, boomed from nowhere and everywhere.
"BRING MORE! THESE ARE ROTTEN!"
Wùji recoiled, bile bitter in his throat. His sword was up again, tip searching the shadows. Where was the yào? Was any of this real?
In the ringing silence, he ducked into the nearest side chamber.
Moonlight from high, round mirrors cast the room in a sickly glow.
At its center sat a coffin.
It was not like the others.This one was a monument to paranoia. Thousands of talismans papered its surface, layers upon layers
It was bound not with rope, but with chains of crimson thread, woven through with desiccated black roses.
Four pillars, carved into snarling snake heads with glowing ruby eyes, stood at each corner. The coffin rested on a massive, circuit-like pattern carved from a single slab of blood-red jade.
Dread, thick and instinctual, screamed in his skull: LEAVE. DO NOT LOOK.
But pride, that damned, stubborn pride, made him circle it. His eyes found a small, obsidian plaque.
He hesitated. To read it was to acknowledge. To invite.
He read it.
System Tearstone.
The words stole the air from his lungs. He was in the heart. The nucleus of all the world's fear.
A face materialized an inch from his own.
Half-rotted,mummified, grinning. The same loathsome insects teemed from its open mouth as it hissed:
"Found me?~"
Terror, pure and electric, convulsed through him.
He scrambled back—too fast. His head cracked against a stone pillar. The world spun. His palm slapped down on the cold jade pattern to steady himself.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Blood from his scalp wound fell onto the intricate carvings.
Where the blood touched, the pattern drank it. The red jade lit up from within, a crimson fire racing through the channels like a startled serpent.
Wùji stared, dumbstruck. A mistake. A catastrophic, irreparable mistake.
His blood shimmered silver for a heartbeat, then burned a violent, living red in the grooves of the pattern named Hóngyán—Red Rock. Red Stone. Crimson Heart.
The glow infected the entire design. The ruby eyes of the serpent pillars blazed like hellfire. The stone snakes seemed to twist, their gazes locking onto him with ancient, predatory recognition.
A hiss filled the air—the sound of the seal itself, breathing.
Tiny silver bells tied with red thread around the coffin began to chime. Not a melody. A pulse. The heartbeat of a waking nightmare.
Why? Why does it recognize my blood? Wùji thought.
Was the answer was too horrible that he couldn't face?. What had his clan hidden in his veins?
The coffin lid groaned. A shift of ancient wood, a sound that had not been heard for centuries.
Pure survival instinct overrode all thought. He lurched away from the circle, stumbling, falling, scrambling back onto his feet.
As soon as he broke contact, the light died. The hissing faded. The bells fell silent.
But the memory of it was seared into him. The knowledge.
He fled the room, then the temple, legs driving him through the forest in a blind sprint.
"No… no, no, no! Not by me! I didn't mean to!" The words were sobs ripped from his chest. He had to believe it. He was innocent. Even if his blood was the key or the curse itself.
He collapsed against a tree at the forest's edge, gasping, the cold bark against his back. He had to hide this. No one could ever know.
The forest seemed to laugh. An owl shrieked. Crows cackled in the high branches.
A hand—ice-cold, impossibly strong—closed over the center of his back, right over his pounding heart.
Wùji froze. Every muscle locked. His mind blanked into white noise.
Thoughts raced : Not here. Not behind me. Please—
Adrenaline broke the spell. He spun, sword half-drawn, a snarl on his lips—
—and met amask.
A grotesque, grinning, bone-white fsce staring into his soul.
His heart stopped. His eyes blew wide. His jaw went slack.
He jerked back, sword finally clearing its sheath, the blade gleaming with his own half-dried blood. His hands trembled violently, but he held the point steady.
It wasn't a yào. Not a guǐ.
Just a man in a monstrous mask.
"Relax. It's me." The mask was lifted, revealing Hàn Xī Lǐhán, his face split by a smirk that held too much amusement for this haunted hour.
Fear curdled into incandescent rage. "You—! Are you utterly insane?! What are you doing here?!" Wùji hissed, his voice a strained wire.
Lǐhán shrugged, the picture of nonchalance. "Sūjīn Kùmsūn was worried your pride would get you killed. Sent me to check on you."
Humiliation, hot and sour, flooded Wùji's veins. He was painfully aware of his ragged breath, his bleeding head, the terror still clinging to him. You couldn't have come before I walked into hell?
He looked away, fist tightening on the sword hilt. "I don't need a keeper. I am to–be Dàozǔ. Weakness is not an option."
Lǐhán's eyes, however, had lost their teasing glint. They scanned Wùji—the bloody scalp, the pallor, the wildness in his violet eyes.
He knelt, his voice dropping to a serious murmur. "What happened? This isn't a 'little wound.' You look like you've seen the end of the world."
Wùji covered the cut with his hand, feeling the sticky warmth. "A yào. The kind from the rumors. It's gone now." He glanced around, paranoid.
"Hey…" Lǐhán leaned closer, his voice barely a breath. "You're shaking. What did you really see in there?"
Wùji's glare was answer enough: How can you see through me so easily?
Silence hung between them, thick with unsaid terror.
Lǐhán gently pulled Wùji's hand away and began cleaning the wound with a strip of clean cloth. The sting made Wùji hiss, but the simple care softened the hard edge of his panic.
His gaze dropped, the fight draining out of him, replaced by a crushing exhaustion. His voice, when it came, was small. "…Is my punishment over?"
Lǐhán checked a silver pocket clock. The hour was long past. Dawn was still a distant idea.
"Yes. You've served your time."
"Running away so soon?" the ancient voice slithered through Wùji's mind alone.
He seized Lǐhán's arm, pulling him toward the clan grounds. "We need to go. Now. I'm… I'm not well."
Lǐhán didn't resist, but his eyes were watchful. As they hurried through the silent, sleeping compound, he kept his voice low and coaxing. "You know you can tell me. Whatever it is. I won't betray you."
Wùji hesitated, on the brink of confession.
Lǐhán added, a faint, familiar grin returning, "Unless it's absolutely necessary…"
The grin was a spark to tinder. Wùji's brief openness snapped shut. "Forget it. It was nothing." He lengthened his stride, the sound of their footsteps too loud in the sleeping hall as they walked away from the forest.
Lǐhán stopped, letting the distance grow for a second. He's hiding something catastrophic.
He jogged to catch up."Hey! Alright, I swear! No 'necessary' clause. Whatever it is, we handle it. Together."
Wùji stopped so abruptly Lǐhán bumped into his back.
"You swear it? On your lineage?"Wùji's eyes were deadly serious. "Because this is no joke. And you will not run. You will not faint."
"I swear," Lǐhán whispered, meeting his gaze without flinching.
They slipped into Wùji's room, locking the world out. In the safe dark, the story spilled out of Wùji in a frantic, hushed torrent—the voice, the yào, the coffin, the blood, the waking seal.
*
Lǐhán's face lost all its color.
"WHAT?! YOU ALMOST UNSEALED THE TEARSTONE SYSTEM?!"The words exploded from him in a strangled yelp.
Wùji lunged, clamping a hand over his mouth, dragging him close. "Do you want to announce it to the entire sect?!" he snarled directly into his ear.
"Mmfh! I promised!" Lǐhán mumbled against his palm, eyes wide with genuine shock.
He was shoved back. Before either could speak another disastrous word, the sound of deliberate, authoritative footsteps echoed down the outer corridor. Father?Or the night patrol Hàngwō brothers?
Panic flashed between them.
"Out. Now. The rest is for tomorrow,"Wùji hissed, physically pushing Lǐhán toward the door.
As the door clicked shut, Wùji leaned against it, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against the wood. He was alone again, with only the memory of glowing red jade and a whispering coffin for company.
In the hall, Lǐhán melted into the shadows.
"Need to hide. Need to hide. Need to hide."
The mantra beat in time with his heart as he moved—a specter avoiding moonlight,sticking to servant passages, becoming part of the architecture.
He was a ghost by practice.
Only when his own door closed behind him did he let the held breath shudder out of him.He leaned against the wood, listening.
The silence that answered was absolute.
And somehow,more terrifying than any sound.
***