The Eastern Pavilion smelled of pine needles and neglect. It sat on a rocky outcropping near the edge of the inner sect, far enough from the main training grounds to be quiet, and close enough to the sheer cliff drop to be inconvenient.
Wei Tian unlatched his wooden box. He placed it on the single table in the center of the room. The wood groaned under the movement.
A broom made a harsh, scratching sound against the stone floor outside. Scratch. Pause. Scratch. The rhythm was uneven. The person sweeping was paying absolutely no attention to the dirt.
Wei Tian opened the box. He took out a folded stack of white cloth. One spare robe. He set it on the bed.
He reached back into the box and began removing books.
Outside, the scratching stopped. Soft footsteps approached the paper-screen door. A shadow blocked the afternoon sun.
"Enter," Wei Tian said.
The door slid open. A young girl wearing the silver trim of a junior disciple stood there. She gripped a broom so tightly her knuckles were translucent. She stared at the floor, specifically at a spot two inches to the left of Wei Tian's cloth shoes.
"I am Xiao Mei," she said. The words tumbled out like rocks falling from a cart. "The Elder Council assigned me to manage the pavilion. Meals, sweeping, water."
Spying, reporting, looking for excuses for execution. Wei Tian did not say that. He stacked the third book on the table.
"Thank you, Xiao Mei," he said.
She blinked, finally looking up. She searched his face for sarcasm, for the usual arrogance of anyone associated with the Sect Master. He was just looking at the books.
"Do you require tea?" she asked. Her voice hitched on the last word.
"Hot water is fine. Don't waste good leaves."
She bowed a little too fast, practically throwing herself back out the door.
Wei Tian finished stacking. Twelve books. None of them looked important. The bindings were frayed, the leather dried out and flaking at the corners. He ran a thumb over the top spine. Dust came away on his skin.
He pulled the chair out, sat down, and cracked the top book open.
Ten minutes later, Xiao Mei returned with a ceramic tray. A chipped teapot and one cup. She set it on the edge of the table. Her eyes flicked toward the open book.
Her breath stopped. Just for a second.
Wei Tian didn't look up, but he registered the physical reaction. He knew what she was looking at.
Xiao Mei stared at the ink on the page. It wasn't standard empire calligraphy. It wasn't the ancient script used in high-tier cultivation manuals, either. The characters didn't sit flat on the parchment. They seemed to twist if she looked at them too long, like smoke curling off a dying fire.
A sharp, stabbing ache drove straight through the space between her eyes. She flinched, taking a hard step backward. Her hand knocked the edge of the tray. The teacup rattled.
Wei Tian casually placed his hand over the open page.
The ache in Xiao Mei's skull vanished instantly. She gasped, rubbing her temples.
"The script is a local dialect from a village in the far south," Wei Tian lied, his voice a flat, calm line. "It gives most people headaches if they aren't used to reading it."
"I..." Xiao Mei swallowed hard. "I've never seen script like that. It made my teeth hurt."
"Best not to look at it, then." Wei Tian removed his hand, picked up his tea, and took a slow sip. It was lukewarm. Perfect.
Xiao Mei bowed again and scrambled out of the room. She needed to report to Elder Shen Mu. She had to tell him the mortal husband brought books written in a language that felt like a physical blow to the head.
Wei Tian watched her run across the courtyard through the open door.
He looked down at the book. It was not a dialect from the south. It was a record of a civilization that had collapsed three eons ago, written in a phonetic language that required a third-layer soul foundation just to comprehend the vowels. A mortal looking at it would just see ink. A low-level cultivator like Xiao Mei, sensitive enough to feel qi but too weak to process it, would get a migraine.
He closed the book. He would have to read that one when she wasn't sweeping.
He established his routine over the next four hours. It was a rigorous, demanding schedule.
First, he read. Then, he ate the cold rice Xiao Mei left by the door. Then, he lay down on the narrow wooden bed.
The bed was hard. The pillow was stuffed with cheap buckwheat. It was the most comfortable thing he had slept on in a millennium.
He closed his eyes. He didn't sleep immediately. He let his awareness expand, just a fraction of a millimeter. He didn't use qi. He didn't use a soul technique. He simply stopped ignoring the noise.
The White Jade Sect was loud.
Three peaks away, an instructor was yelling at a disciple for a sloppy sword stance. In the kitchens, a cook dropped a brass pan and swore by the graves of his ancestors. Deep underground, the spirit vein thrummed with a heavy, bruised rhythm, bleeding ambient energy into the microscopic tear he had felt on the steps.
And in the high tower of the Elder Council, Shen Mu was speaking.
Wei Tian didn't want to hear it. But Shen Mu had a naturally carrying voice, and Wei Tian's hearing did not obey the physical laws of distance.
"A language that hurts your eyes? You are a Sage Layer cultivator, girl, not a peasant terrified of ink." Shen Mu's voice vibrated with disgust. "He is a mortal. He plays tricks to seem mysterious. Keep watching. The Iron Blood Sect's emissaries cross the border in three days. By the time Mo Zheng makes his demands, I want that scholar thrown off this mountain."
Wei Tian kept his eyes closed. The buckwheat pillow smelled faintly of dust.
He categorized the information.
Iron Blood Sect. Mo Zheng. Demands. Shen Mu plotting a quiet assassination or a loud expulsion.
Wei Tian ran the data through his singular, governing philosophy: The Threshold.
For countless lifetimes, he had managed the machinery of existence. He had stopped stars from dying and erased timelines that grew cancerous. He had learned one absolute truth: intervention breeds reliance. If you stop the rain, people forget how to build roofs.
He had come to this speck of dirt for quiet. He would only break that quiet if a threat crossed the Threshold.
Did Elder Shen Mu's plotting threaten his life? No. An assassination attempt by a Saint-realm cultivator against him was equivalent to a moth trying to assassinate a mountain.
Did it threaten the survival of the White Jade Sect entirely? Not yet. Politics was just noise. Swords clashing in tournaments was just noise.
Unless the noise was going to sever a throat or crack the realm, it was beneath the Threshold.
Wei Tian categorized Shen Mu's plotting as 'mildly annoying weather.' He turned over on his side. He went to sleep.
Dinner was plain tofu and boiled greens. Wei Tian ate every bite. The texture was terrible. He loved it.
When the sun dipped below the jagged spine of the Qinghe range, the temperature plummeted. The wind off the cliff carried the bitter bite of high-altitude frost.
Xiao Mei came to collect the tray. She lingered by the door.
"You shouldn't go outside tonight," she muttered, not looking at him. "The outer disciples... they know you're here. Some of them are angry. They think the Sect Master was insulted by the marriage. They might throw stones at the pavilion."
Wei Tian wiped his mouth with a cloth. "Are they accurate throwers?"
Xiao Mei blinked. "What?"
"If they throw stones, will they hit the windows, or just the walls?"
"I... I don't know."
"If they hit the walls, let them throw. It's good practice for their shoulders." Wei Tian handed her the tray. "Goodnight, Xiao Mei."
She stared at him, completely lost, then took the tray and fled.
Wei Tian waited until her footsteps faded down the stone path. He blew out the single oil lamp in the room.
He didn't walk out the front door. He stepped onto the window sill, a movement so fluid and devoid of physical effort it looked like a trick of the shadows. One step, and he was on the sloping tiled roof of the pavilion.
He sat down on the ridge. The wind whipped his thin white robe, snapping the fabric. He didn't shiver. The cold didn't register.
Below him, the White Jade Sect was a scattering of lanterns across the four peaks. To the east, the training grounds were empty. To the north, Bai Qian's central hall burned with steady, brilliant light. She was still awake. Working. Calculating.
Wei Tian looked up.
The sky above the lower realm was cluttered with stars. They were young stars, burning aggressive and fast.
He let the mask drop. Just for a moment, where no one could see.
The lazy slouch vanished from his spine. His shoulders settled. The absolute, unreadable stillness in his face deepened into something geological. His eyes stopped looking like the eyes of a tired scholar.
They looked ancient. They looked like the space between galaxies where light gave up trying to cross.
He watched a shooting star streak across the eastern horizon. He knew exactly which cosmic friction had caused it. He knew exactly when it would burn out.
"Three days until Mo Zheng," Wei Tian said to the empty air. His voice was no longer a flat, lazy drawl. It held the terrible weight of a falling monolith.
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out the worn, blue-covered book.
He didn't open it. He just rested his hand on the cover, feeling the dry leather.
"Let's see if they can keep it under the Threshold."