The letter came at dawn.
Folded in black wax paper. No seal. No symbol. No sender.
It arrived on a low-ranking sect runner's back, a boy no older than fourteen, who didn't speak. His hands shook as he delivered it to Elder Han's desk.
Han read it.
Then drank.
That was the first sign something was wrong.
---
Sim Gwan was called to the main hall.
Not to the sparring yard. Not the bunkhouse.
The main hall.
It hadn't been swept in weeks. The banners were sun-faded. The jade incense bowl had a crack shaped like a crooked smile.
Han sat on the dais. Sober. Stone-faced.
"I didn't think you'd survive this long," he muttered.
"Thanks."
Han held out the letter.
Sim took it. Opened it.
There were only three lines:
> "You've caught the eye of someone you shouldn't have.
Meet at the base of Fire Needle Ridge. Midnight. Alone.
Or stay and be used."
There was no name. But something else fell out with the letter.
A hairpin.
Black wood. Silver edge. Tiny engraving of a spider on the tip.
Han leaned back, eyes haunted. "I've seen that symbol once. Years ago. In the valley after the Hao Sect burned."
Sim looked at the pin.
"What does it mean?"
Han didn't answer.
He drank.
And that was answer enough.
---
Sim left that night.
No one saw him go.
No one stopped him.
But Baek-Ha noticed his bed was cold at midnight. She stood outside, barefoot, holding a bowl of soup that had gone lukewarm.
She didn't chase him.
She just whispered, "Come back."
And poured the soup out in the dirt.
---
Fire Needle Ridge was a jagged scar on the land.
Red stone. Sparse trees. The wind blew in sharp cuts. It looked like the kind of place bandits buried regrets.
At the base was a shrine long abandoned. Moss-covered. Cracked tiger carvings. A single oil lamp lit near the steps.
And under it stood her.
She carried a red umbrella.
No rain fell. But she held it anyway.
Her robes were deep grey with streaks of wine red. Her face was half-covered by a silk veil. Her eyes were calm, but too calm. The kind that said: I've killed, and I remember each one.
"You came," she said, voice smooth like river stones.
"You called."
"I watched."
Sim tilted his head. "Since when?"
She stepped forward. "Since before you were Jin Mu."
Something froze in his chest.
She stopped three feet away. "You don't belong in this world."
He gritted his teeth. "Tell me something I don't know."
She pulled out a blade.
It was short. Thin. Ornate. Not for fighting for signaling.
She flipped it in her palm, then offered the hilt to him.
"Take this, and I'll show you what the others refuse to say."
"What's the price?"
She smiled behind the veil. "You'll know once you've paid it."
---
He took the blade.
And the wind changed.
---
She led him through a side path, through brambles and silent fog, up to a collapsed outpost with half its walls buried under moss.
Inside were bones.
Dozens.
Some fresh.
Some burned black.
"They tried to find it," she said. "The same thing you've stumbled into by accident."
Sim's voice was low. "What?"
She turned, eyes cold.
"The Veil Root Path. A cultivation method that eats pain, digests it, and turns it into strength. It's not a technique. It's a mutation. A deviation from the standard path of qi. Rare. Dangerous."
Sim's stomach dropped.
"You're saying… I've been doing this by instinct?"
"No. By design. Someone put this in you."
Silence.
Then she said it.
"You weren't reincarnated by chance."
The words were ice down his spine.
"You think someone… did this to me?"
"I know it."
She touched the veil.
Lowered it.
She was beautiful, but wrong.
Her cheek had a jagged line of scar tissue that shimmered faintly in the moonlight like it had once burned her from the inside.
"I walked the Veil Root Path," she said.
"And it killed me."
---
They sat near the bones.
Sim didn't speak. Didn't move.
She gave him a slip of parchment.
"Go to Daewon City. Find a man named Go Pil-Bae. You were told this already. Now I'm telling you again."
He took it.
She stood.
"You'll be hunted soon. Not by me. Not yet. But others will smell it. That thing inside you. The path."
He stood slowly. "What's your name?"
She paused.
"You won't remember it long."
And then she vanished into the fog.
---
Sim returned before dawn.
No one was awake.
No one saw the way his hands trembled.
He laid the blade she gave him under his cot.
Sat down.
Tried to meditate.
But the qi inside him was buzzing.
Sharp.
Unruly.
Too aware.
Like it knew something had changed.
Because it had.
---
[Cultivation Status: Peak Qi Gathering → Foundation Establishment – Early Stage: UNSTABLE]
---
At breakfast, Baek-Ha sat beside him without a word.
Then she handed him a note.
> "When you leave again
I'm coming with you."
He didn't argue.
He just nodded.
---