For a hundred winters, Qingyun Mountain had seen no visitors.
There, where the fog hung thick like a motionless ocean and the wind cut like a sharpened blade, a single man had cultivated his body and spirit. No sect. No living master. No name recorded in the world.
His name was Liang Chen.
That morning, when he opened his eyes, the air shivered ever so slightly. It was not an explosion, nor a thunderclap; something more subtle. The leaves bent. The snow slid slowly down the rocks. The flow of his internal qi had reached a stability described only in ancient texts… and unseen by any living soul.
Liang Chen rose to his feet.
His body was strong, but not exaggerated. Every muscle was where it should be, like a finely forged sword: unadorned, precise. His clothing was simple, worn by time and wind, patched repeatedly with monastic patience. Across his back hung a leather satchel: dried herbs, silver needles, and an old handwritten medical manual.
"The cultivation is complete," he murmured.
No joy in his voice. Only certainty.
According to the rhythm of his breathing and the cycles of heaven, the world had changed. Empires fell. Dynasties decayed. Mortals forgot. It was time to descend.
Liang Chen took the first step from the clearing… and the second led him to a path he did not remember. The third, to a polished stone road. The fourth, to a sound he had never heard.
A metallic roar tore through the valley.
Liang Chen tensed, legs flexed, prepared for combat. Around the bend, a beast of steel emerged, moving without legs, expelling smoke, advancing at an absurd speed.
The vehicle passed him.
It did not stop.
Inside, a man spoke into a small shining device, laughing.
Liang Chen stood frozen for several seconds.
"A mechanical formation?" he whispered. "No… no spiritual flow."
He continued onward.
With each step, the world grew stranger. Towers of glass reflecting the sky like giant mirrors. Luminous boxes with shifting symbols. Crowds walking without looking, without sensing danger, with no respect for natural hierarchy.
No one bowed.No one stepped back.No one looked twice.
As Liang Chen descended into a world he no longer recognized, Elena prepared for her own descent… into a territory equally strange and calculated, but built of crystal and black fabrics.
The corporate dinner was not what Elena had imagined.
The restaurant occupied the top floor of a discreet and obscenely expensive hotel. Dark wood. Tables spaced with calculated distance. A view of the campus that turned the university into a scale model, something that could be possessed with a glance.
Elena entered with firm steps. Impeccable suit. Straight back. Black stockings carrying an authority that needed no demonstration. In her mind, she anticipated a long table: executives, rehearsed smiles, invisible hierarchies. The wolves.
But there was only one.
Adrián sat by the window, alone, a glass of wine already poured. Upon seeing her, he smiled. Not a smile of conquest, but of confirmation.
"Wasn't this a corporate dinner?" Elena asked, pausing halfway, skeptical.
"It is," he replied calmly. "You and I are entrepreneurs, aren't we? Then this fulfills all requirements."
She let out a brief, incredulous laugh. "You're teasing me."
"Constantly."
Elena hesitated only a second before sitting opposite him. Reluctantly, she told herself. Adrián lifted his eyes just enough to note the crossing of her legs. The black stockings. He said nothing. Just smiled a little more.
The night advanced with measured sips and precise conversation. They did not speak of feelings. They spoke of systems, incentives, how people confused morality with structure. Adrián listened when Elena spoke. That, to her, was more unsettling than any physical gesture.
The rest unfolded without words.
Morning came without ceremony.
The black stockings lay scattered across the suite floor like an idea abandoned midway. Light filtered through curtains too expensive to be fully open.
Elena opened her eyes with immediate certainty: something was wrong.
First: the silence was too perfect.Second: the sheet was not hers.Third: a black stocking hung from the back of a chair, as if someone had tried to hang it and given up halfway through.
"Perfect," she murmured.
Next to her, the space was empty. Curiously, that calmed her more than it should have.
She rose slowly. Her body responded without pain, but with an uneasy memory, like recalling a phrase you shouldn't have spoken in an important meeting.
From the window came the sound of a coffee machine.
"Of course," she said to herself. "Coffee. Naturally."
Adrián was turned away, white shirt, sleeves rolled, looking at the campus as if evaluating a hostile acquisition. In one hand, a cup. In the other, his phone.
"Good morning, Doctor," he said without turning. "The coffee is Colombian. Don't trust it too much. It lies about its smoothness."
Elena cleared her throat.
"Do you always speak like this in the morning?" she asked, looking for her nonexistent robe.
"Only when I'm right."
She stood with carefully assembled dignity and picked up one of the stockings from the floor. She held it for a second, as if it were forensic evidence.
"This isn't what it looks like," she said.
Adrián turned then. He regarded her with an almost offensive calm.
"I wasn't thinking anything in particular," he replied. "But thank you for clarifying."
Silence.
She frowned. "Don't tease me."
"Never," he smiled. "Last night… was surprisingly orderly, for you."
Elena looked scandalized. "Excuse me?"
"You didn't shout ethical slogans. Didn't quote Weber. Not once did you mention social justice," he sipped coffee. "I was slightly disappointed."
She snorted before she could stop herself. "You're insufferable."
"And yet, here we are," he replied naturally.
That disarmed her more than any insinuation could.
Elena sat on the edge of the bed, crossing her legs automatically. Only then did she notice she was still wrapped in the sheet.
"I didn't come here for this," she said, more to convince herself than accuse him.
"No one does," Adrián said. "One stumbles."
She opened her mouth to reply, but his phone vibrated.
Adrián looked at it.
"Oliver called three times last night."
Elena blinked. Reality fell on her like a wet coat.
"Did something happen?"
The question slipped out without defense. No title. No distance.
Adrián studied her a second longer than necessary before answering.
"He has a problem at his organic café. A man named Liang Chen. He's treating students with roots and needles at the door."
Elena closed her eyes. "That's illegal."
"I know. So does the police."
"Then…"
"Oliver paid the bail," Adrián said. "The last two thousand euros he had left."
She ran a hand over her face. "He doesn't learn."
"No," he nodded. "But he's consistent. That makes him dangerous to himself."
Adrián placed the phone on the nightstand. Did not approach. Did not touch her.
"Now he has debt, an improvised martyr, and a heroic narrative," he continued. "An explosive cocktail."
Elena looked down. Saw the stockings. Saw the sheet. Saw her hands.
"And what do you expect me to do?" she asked.
No irony. No challenge.
Only honest fatigue.
Adrián tilted his head.
"Help me draft the expulsion order," he said. "With impeccable language. Ethically irrefutable. Administratively clean."
Silence.
Elena took a deep breath.
"This is an abuse of power."
"Absolutely," he admitted. "But not today. Today is logistics."
She raised her eyes. "Do you always separate things like this?"
"Only the important ones."
Elena stood. Walked to the window. Looked at the campus.
"I need a shower," she said.
"Of course."
"And coffee."
"Already done."
"And my stockings," she added, pointing at the floor.
Adrián glanced down and then smiled.
"Too late. Now they're mine… my trophy."
She looked over her shoulder, tired, defeated, dangerously comfortable.
"You're insufferable. Don't get used to it."
"I won't," he replied. "I prefer you do it."
Elena shook her head.
But she didn't argue.
And once again, that was enough.