Rain tapped softly on the wooden roof of the hut, slow and steady. Somewhere in the trees, wind rustled the pine needles, but even that sound was hushed — muffled by the fog rolling off the mountain. No light pierced it. The whole world outside felt suspended, like a held breath.
Inside, the only warmth came from a small brazier in the corner, its flames an unnatural shade of blue. No smoke. No heat, really. Just light.
Qiren sat cross-legged on a thin mat, shoulders hunched, robes still damp from the ritual. The cuffs were gone, but faint marks still circled his wrists — like bruises that hadn't fully decided to fade.
He hadn't spoken in hours. Neither had the old man.
Mo Xuan sat across from him. Older than old. Hair the color of ash, robes plain and threadbare. But he carried himself with a kind of stillness that made Qiren nervous. Not the calm of peace — the calm of someone who'd already survived what he shouldn't have.
At last, the silence broke.
"Say it," Mo Xuan said. His voice was soft, but there was no gentleness in it. "What did they tell you?"
Qiren blinked. "That I'm Threadless. No Mandate. No affinity. No path."
"And what does that mean to you?"
Qiren hesitated. The words felt like stones in his mouth.
"That I don't belong," he said. "That there's… nothing for me."
"No power?" Mo Xuan asked.
Qiren shook his head. "No future."
The old man snorted — not quite amused, not quite angry. He stood up and walked to the far wall, where a narrow shelf held a few strange tools. From it, he pulled a long piece of bone, polished smooth, with runes carved so deep they looked like they'd bled into the marrow.
He knelt and scratched a circle into the floor.
"You studied the Seven Mandates?" he asked.
Qiren nodded. "Everyone does. Flame, Flow, Stone, Wind, Dream, Root, and Veil."
"Seven ways to shape the world," Mo Xuan muttered. "Seven threads. Seven rules."
He drew lines from the edge of the circle to its center — one for each.
"Flame burns," he said, tapping one. "It destroys, transforms, devours. It's will turned outward."
Another tap. "Flow remembers. Water, connection, memory. Bloodlines and bonds."
He moved around the circle: Stone for body, Wind for movement, Dream for spirit, Root for life, Veil for death.
"All the paths you've been taught — every pillar, every method — they all loop back to these."
He stood again, resting the bone stick against the wall.
"And all of it," he said, "is a lie."
Qiren stared at him. "What?"
Mo Xuan turned toward the brazier. "A story. A convenient one. You think cultivation is about reaching balance? About aligning your spirit with the heavens?"
Qiren opened his mouth, then shut it.
"Isn't it?" he finally asked.
Mo Xuan smiled — not kindly. "That's what they want you to believe. The heavens don't want balance. They want obedience. And the sects? They want order. Control. The Mandates are just cages made to look like doors."
He pointed at Qiren.
"You didn't fail the river. You refused it."
"I didn't—" Qiren began, but the words caught.
Mo Xuan stepped closer, knelt again by the circle. Tapped the center.
"The threads bind most people. Shape them. Change them. But not all."
He looked up. "Some things don't weave. They burn."
Qiren stared at the empty center of the circle.
"There's a legend," Mo Xuan said. "Of an Eighth. Not a thread. Not a Mandate. Something that doesn't flow with the rest — something that shatters the loom instead of following it."
Qiren whispered, "The Eighth Thread…"
But Mo Xuan didn't confirm it. He just said, "Tell me what you felt. When the river sealed you."
Qiren thought back. The cold. The dark. The weight in his chest.
"Nothing," he said. "Then… pressure. Not on me. Inside. Like something under my skin was pushing out."
Mo Xuan's expression didn't change, but something in him seemed to still. His voice lowered.
"Not from the river above. Not your own spirit within. Beneath."
He turned to the brazier. Reached into the flame.
It dimmed — not like fire dying, but like something being pulled from it.
"Normal cultivators pull qi from the river," Mo Xuan said. "They draw power from the sky, the land, the threads. They follow the path. You don't."
He held up his hand. The flame in the brazier trembled.
"You don't pull. You take. You don't flow. You consume."
Qiren flinched. "That sounds—"
"Dangerous?" Mo Xuan cut in. "It is. That's why they fear it. That's why they erased it."
Qiren's throat was dry. "So what now?"
Mo Xuan stared at him, long and hard.
"You learn. Quietly. Slowly. You do not show this. Not unless you must. You don't burn unless cornered."
He leaned in.
"And you never trust the river again."
Qiren's voice barely rose above the firelight. "You're speaking from experience."
Mo Xuan's eyes flickered. Just for a second. And then he looked away.
"I trusted it once," he said. "And I lost everything."
The wind outside had picked up. It howled faintly between the wooden slats.
Inside, the brazier's light cast long, blue shadows across the floor.
Qiren looked back at the circle. Seven lines. One center. That center was empty.
But something inside him no longer was.