Lìngxi's stomach ached with a hollow, silent fury. Ten days. Ten days since the Zhèng Shì clan had cast him out, and ten days without a proper meal.
He sat by the lake's edge, staring at his own fractured reflection—a ghost with messy white hair and eyes the colour of a winter sky, now shadowed with a disgust that could have been for himself, or for the world that demanded so much and gave so little in return.
His throat was a parched, cracking thing. He still couldn't believe it. From a respected cultivator to this: a one-handed vagrant at twenty-three, with nothing to his name but the dragon sword, Bài Luō, resting across his knees. His legacy, his companion, his only remaining limb.
A vicious cramp twisted his gut, a pain so sharp it felt like dying. Instinct overrode caution. He gasped, cupping lake water in his single hand—the left one, the right was gone, severed at the wrist—and drank.
The relief lasted only a second.
His last shred of appetite curdled and vanished as a pale, rotten thing bobbed to the surface beside his reflection. A woman's head. Eyes wide and clouded in perpetual surprise. A mouth gaping, the tongue neatly removed.
He shut his eyes tight, turned away, and gagged, retching up the foul water and the bitter bile of his own empty stomach.
How could I forget? he cursed himself, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It was wartime. Nothing was pure. Not while the Méi Rén and Hàngwō sects tore the world apart, with the Zhèng Shì clan watching from their gilded balconies.
"I should have died before seeing such a day," he muttered into the grimy collar of his robe, his hair a silver veil over his shame.
The sounds reached him then, cutting through his self-pity.
"Charge!"
"Kill them!"
"No one leaves alive!"
"Cut her throat first!"
The earth itself trembled. Not from only the qì, but from the mundane, terrifying thunder of warhorses and a hundred booted feet. Birds exploded from the trees in a panic of feathers. The air grew thick with the metallic shriek of clashing swords and the desperate, dying cries of men.
He saw common folk—gànmín—being rounded up like cattle.
A man, fleeing blind, slammed into his shoulder before he could rise.
Lìngxi glared, his bad mood crystallising into something cold and sharp. He was already a potential corpse; fear was a luxury he couldn't afford.
"Why are you standing here?!" the man panted, eyes wild. "Run with your life!"
Lìngxi offered a bitter, twisted smile. "I need a life to run with. Which I don't have. You do. So go." He shoved the man towards the relative safety of the thick bushes.
The man stumbled, then froze, his eyes widening as he finally saw past the dirt and desperation. "You… you're Jiǎng Língxi. The… the demonic cultivator."
" So what?" Lìngxi's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Do I look like a yào to you? Go."
The man scanned him—the missing hand, the elegant sword, the chilling calm—and then fled.
Lìngxi turned his attention back to the slaughter. His gaze snagged on a flash of blue and silver. A woman, surrounded by Hàngwō sect fighters. They aimed for her throat.
But she was… a revelation. She moved like the blade they tried to kill her with, a whirlwind of lethal grace without ever drawing a weapon of her own. Her eyes, a piercing light golden, tracked every movement, predicted every strike.
"The daughter of Dàozǔ Méi Qìng," he murmured. "Mèi Yè. Quite fast."
She was his age. Beautiful. Fearsomely skilled. And, according to every rumour, stubbornly unmarried.
A plan, cold and calculating, unspooled in his mind. It wasn't about desire. It was about survival. His body was failing him, rotting from the inside out from a half-understood curse. He had a month, perhaps less, before his youth was gone, consumed by accelerated decay. He couldn't rot on the street. He needed shelter. Power. A cure.
And she was a door to all three.
He waited. He calculated distance, trajectory, the perfect moment of distraction. Then, a flick of his wrist sent a tiny stone skittering across the mud. It struck the back of a Hàngwō fighter's knee.
The man stumbled. His killing thrust, meant for Mèi Yè, went wide and wild—straight for her heart.
Her eyes flew wide, not with fear, but with pure, insulted disbelief.
Now.
Lìngxi moved. A single, fluid motion with Bài Luō. The Hàngwō soldier's sword was knocked spinning from his grip. Lìngxi stepped between them, close enough to feel the heat of her body, the frantic rhythm of her heart hammering against the silks of her robe.
"You…" she seethed, her teeth bared. "Weren't needed, you poor flirt."
Mèi Rén cultivators moved to cut him down, but as he'd gambled—she stopped them with a sharp gesture.
He knew her type. Prideful. Capable. And secretly, perversely, drawn to those who dared interfere in their battles, who offered salvation even when none was asked for.
He leaned back, just a fraction, a smirk playing on his lips. "Then why is your heart pounding against mine like a war drum, Lady Mèi Yè?" he murmured, voice smooth as oiled silk. "I can smell your panic."
She huffed, bringing the point of her own sword up to his throat. "Of course not. Don't try to be clever with me."
But he saw it. The slight tremor in her blade. The dilation of those cool golden-brown eyes. The recognition dawning in them. She knew who he was.
He chuckled, using a single finger to gently push the sword aside. "I apologise for the late greetings, miss." Behind him, Bài Luō danced on its own, a shimmering barrier deflecting attacks without ever striking a killing blow. A performance of restraint.
"I thought it only fitting," he continued, his tone conversational amidst the chaos, "to save you from the very clans that took my hand. Half of myself. At least you won't have to live out your final month watching your own youth wither. Though…" He cleared his throat. "It seems we are the same, by now."
She blinked. "You mean?"
"I'm a villain in the people's eyes. You are a 'demonic cultivator' in theirs. So of course. We are the same."
"You were a member of the Zhèng Shì," she said, as if reminding him of a fatal flaw.
"Oh yes," he sighed theatrically, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his one finger. "That's also right, miss. Then… I'll take my leave."
He turned and began to walk away, Bài Luō disengaging and floating to his side. The Méi Rén cultivators watched, dumbfounded.
"Eh! Wait up! I didn't give you permission to leave!" Her sword flew through the air towards his back.
He was faster. Bài Luō met it in a shower of sparks, sending it spiralling back to her waiting hand. He glanced over his shoulder.
"Missing me already?"
She glared, a look that promised creative violence. "Shut up! Boys, capture him!"
He put up a show of a fight—enough to seem dangerous, not enough to win. It was all part of the extraordinary, pathetic, brilliant plan.
Women are so easy to manipulate, he thought, a thread of grim pride weaving through his exhaustion.
Rough hands seized him. As they dragged him towards the Méi Rén camp, Mèi Yè fell into step beside him. She reached out, tangling her fingers in his dirty, silver-white hair, a gesture both possessive and contemplative.
"You have fine skills," she mumbled, a smirk touching her lips. "It would be a waste to kill you so soon."
Lìngxi said nothing.
He just let them lead him away from the lake, from the floating head, from the certain death of the open road.
His plan had worked.