Xīng Hé sat upright on the edge of the pristine bed, the phantom agony of her awakening still echoing in her bones.
The words of her attendants spun in her mind like leaves caught in a whirlwind. Eminence. Assigned to watch you. Natural awakener. Each phrase was a bar on a new, more terrifying cage.
"His Eminence said he'd send someone to receive you tomorrow," Gu Minghui the man who was with Yao earlier had said before departing.
An Eminence. A Transcendent.
She knew from her family's hidden texts what that word truly meant. One of the Rulers of this world—beings so powerful that their very existence warped reality around them—had taken a personal interest in her. The thought should have been flattering. It was terrifying.
The war, the draft, the testing—her suspicions solidified into a cold, hard certainty. This was all for the benefit of a few impossibly powerful beings. From what she knew, this beings do not do something that doesn't benefits them. If that's true then, The children were not being trained to protect the world. They were being forged for the benefits of those at the top
She looked around the room, truly seeing it for the first time now that the haze of pain had receded.
It was larger than her entire wing back at her family's estate. The ceiling soared overhead, painted with scenes of clouds and distant mountains. The furniture was carved from wood so dark it seemed to drink in the light. The windows—tall, arched things framed in silver—overlooked a vast, manicured courtyard with buildings she couldn't even identify. Pavilions. Towers. Gardens that stretched toward a horizon that somehow felt wrong, as if the sky itself was a painted ceiling.
This wasn't a room.
It was a self-contained manor. A city within a city, it shouldn't be possible except-
This is a pocket space, she realized, the understanding settling into her stomach like a stone dropped into still water. This a rulers realm.
Yao Xian had mentioned, almost as an afterthought, that her guidance sessions could be held here in the manor. And her friend—Qin Hongyu, the red-haired girl she had grown up with—was being allowed to visit.
They were giving her small comforts to make the larger prison more palatable. A softer cage was still a cage.
Her stomach growled, a vulgar, mortal sound in the opulent silence. She was starving. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten—before the testing, certainly. Before her world had collapsed.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood.
It crashed through her body—sharp, blinding, relentless. Her vision swam. Her arms buckled. She collapsed back onto the bed, gasping, tears springing unbidden to her eyes.
The healing, she realized through the haze of agony. It wasn't complete.
Yao Xian had eased the pain earlier—shared it, somehow, drawn it into herself. But she hadn't removed it. The underlying damage remained, kept at a level where Xīng Hé could function but couldn't act independently.
They're limiting me.
The realization was cold, clinical, cutting through the pain like a blade.
Making me dependent on them. If I want relief, I need the healer. If I need the healer, I need to cooperate. And the longer I'm in pain, the more they can read my emotions, my reactions, my thoughts.
It was elegant, in a terrible way. A leash disguised as care.
She straightened slowly, testing her weight on both legs. The pain was there, a constant companion, but it was bearable. Manageable. She had survived worse during the testing. She would survive this.
Most things were out of her control now. The Transcendent who owned this realm, the war she didn't understand, the power she had never asked for—all of it was beyond her reach. But that didn't mean she was beyond helpless.
She reached for the bell on the bedside table and rang it with a sharp, clear chime.
She reached for the bell on the bedside table. Her fingers brushed its surface, and she heard the distant chime of summoning.
A servant would bring food. She would eat. She would rest. Tomorrow, she would face whatever the Eminence had planned for her.
But exhaustion was faster than service.
Her eyes drifted closed before the food arrived, her body surrendering to the demands of recovery. She slept—deeply, helplessly—while somewhere in the manor, servants moved through halls she hadn't seen, carrying a meal she wouldn't taste.
Back at the pavilion of black stone, the second guidance session was about to begin.
The children sat in nervous silence, their bodies still and tense, like rabbits who had heard a hawk's cry. The lesson from yesterday—understand your representation, find your truth—hung over them like an impossible assignment. How were they supposed to translate something they didn't even understand?
Chén Yè watched them from his corner, his back against the cold wall, his mind dissecting the lesson from the previous day.
He thought of the dark room. The infinite lights. The impossible, uncatchable dance of a million wings.
What truth is my soul trying to tell me?
He didn't know. The question gnawed at him like a rat at rope.
He saw Bai Zixian across the room, sitting alone as usual, his posture perfect despite the hard bench. The noble boy caught his eye and offered a slight smile—the same knowing, calculating expression he had worn yesterday. A silent acknowledgment between two minds that recognized each other.
Chén Yè looked away.
Elder Pei Leng walked into the room, and the air grew heavy.
The children straightened instinctively, their spines snapping upright as if pulled by strings. The Elder's presence was a physical thing, a pressure that settled over them like a blanket of stone.
Before the Elder could speak, Bai Zixian stood.
He raised a hand, his movements calm and deliberate, as if asking permission from a teacher rather than addressing a being who could crush him with a thought.
"Master Pei Leng," he said, his voice smooth and reasonable, carrying across the silent hall. "Forgive my interruption. On behalf of those of us who feel... unmotivated, perhaps hearing stories from other divine existences about their own experiences—about how they came to understand their representations—would provide us with a clearer direction."
A murmur of agreement rippled through the children. They had all been thinking it. He was simply the only one brave—or foolish—enough to give voice to their collective desperation.
Bai Zixian continued, his confidence unwavering. "Could you also tell us how many stages there are in total, so we may better understand the path ahead?"
A dangerous silence fell.
Elder Pei Leng's face, which had been neutral, slowly twisted into an expression of profound, cold irritation. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. The shadows seemed to deepen.
"Do you think you are something special?" he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
Bai Zixian's smile faltered for the first time.
"Do you think you have the right to make demands of me?"
Elder Pei Leng didn't move from the front of the room. He didn't raise his hand. He simply lifted a single finger.
Bai Zixian was yanked into the air as if by an invisible rope, his body jerking like a marionette whose strings had been seized by a cruel puppeteer. For one frozen moment, he hung there, suspended, his eyes wide with shock.
Then he was slammed—with sickening, bone-crunching force—against the far wall.
The crack of impact echoed through the hall like a thunderclap. Stone fractured. Dust rained down. And then came the wet, choking sound of a body that had been broken.
Bai Zixian slid to the floor, a crumpled heap of fine robes and shattered pride. Blood oozed from his nose and ears, painting dark rivulets down his pale face. His breathing was shallow, ragged, wrong.
The children gasped, a wave of pure, primal terror washing over them. Several cried out. One girl began to sob.
Elder Pei Leng surveyed them with cold, implacable eyes.
"Do not ever think you are special," he snarled, his voice a low growl that seemed to come from everywhere at once. "Everyone in this realm—from the maids to the guards at the gate—is a divine existence. Every single one of them could kill you without effort. Without consequence."
He stepped forward, and the children flinched back as one.
"You are at the bottom," Elder Pei Leng continued. "The lowest rung of a very tall ladder. Until you climb it—until you prove your worth, demonstrate your value, earn the right to be treated as something other than disposable—you move like tomorrow is not promised."
He paused.
"Because it is not."
He rose, finally, his movements unhurried. His robes settled around him without a single wrinkle, as if violence were beneath his notice.
"This is your first error," he said. "So I will let it pass. The next one will be your last."
He walked toward the door.
"Dismissed."
He turned and strode out of the room, his footsteps echoing in the stillness, leaving behind a tableau of terrified children and the sound of Bai Zixian's pained, shallow breathing.
Chén Yè stood frozen, his heart pounding in his chest.
He had had the same idea. The exact same thought—to ask for more information, to demand guidance, to push against the walls of their ignorance. He had been about to raise his own hand.
Bai Zixian had simply asked first.
And in doing so, had taken the punishment meant for anyone foolish enough to forget their place.
This is the best way to learn, he thought, the realization cold and clinical. Watch others make the fatal mistakes. Let them test the boundaries. Let them bleed for the knowledge.
He saw a few children cautiously move toward the injured noble. A girl with a kind face was already kneeling beside him, trying to stem the blood with the sleeve of her robe. Others hovered nearby, uncertain, afraid to help but unable to look away.
Chén Yè considered joining them.
Just for a moment.
But then his strategic mind took over, smothering the flicker of sympathy before it could grow.
Bai Zixian had drawn the ire of an Elder. To be seen as his acquaintance, his ally, his accomplice—that was a mark. A target painted on your back. The guards would remember. The Elder would remember.
Survival meant distance. Survival meant invisibility.
Chén Yè stood up, his face a blank mask, and walked out of the pavilion.
He headed for his solitary black cube, leaving the broken boy to his fate.
Behind him, the sound of quiet sobbing faded into the perpetual twilight.
End of Chapter 9