The gates of Yinshade Valley groaned shut behind Bai Zixuan like the closing of a coffin lid.
Beyond them, silence reigned.
Once, this sect had stood proud among the mid-tier forces of the Mingze Realm known for its mastery over Yin-type cultivation, ghost-path techniques, and forbidden arts. But now, its courtyards were cracked, its training halls rotted, and spiritual veins dried into brittle dust.
Even the wind moved like it had forgotten how to breathe.
Zixuan walked slowly, eyes scanning everything. Ruined statues lay toppled in broken rows, and faded talismans fluttered limply from rusted archways. A cracked monument near the entrance bore a half-erased motto:
"In shadow, we endure. In silence, we thrive."
The perfect place for the unwanted.
From the upper tier of the sect's decaying square, the old gatekeeper hobbled forward. Up close, his presence was stronger than before. Not quite core formation, not quite weak somewhere in between. A broken cultivator who hadn't abandoned his Qi, but no longer served it either.
"You don't ask questions," he said, scratching at his long gray beard. "Most strays do."
Zixuan's voice was quiet. "Questions never gave answers I trusted."
The man let out a short, dry laugh. "Good. Trust is for fools, anyway. I'm Elder Shen. You'll call me Master Shen from now on, even though I'm not interested in teaching."
"Then why let me in?"
Elder Shen squinted one eye. "Because anyone who walks out of the Forbidden Spirit Forest barefoot deserves at least a damn bowl of soup."
He pointed at a broken path to the left, overgrown with pale moss.
"Dorms are that way. Take any room that isn't haunted. Or one that is if you're comfortable with screaming walls."
Inside the Valley
Zixuan explored.
The dorms were nothing more than stone caves carved into the valley wall, their wooden doors long since eaten away by rot. He chose the one farthest back its entrance was covered in tangled vine, and an old ward sealed the front with a warning.
"Here sleeps the failed. Disturb not."
Zixuan pushed the door open.
The ward snapped like thin ice under pressure. A gust of cold, stale air rushed out as if the room had been holding its breath.
Inside: one bed, one table, and a cracked mirror leaning against the wall.
And bones.
Human bones.
Zixuan knelt beside the remains, gently brushing dust from the faded robes. Yinshade robes, older design. A disciple, long forgotten. There were talismans stuffed into the collar wards meant to suppress possession. They had failed.
"Was it weakness, or betrayal?" he murmured.
The skull said nothing.
He didn't bury it. He simply bowed once, moved the bones gently to the side, and lay down on the stone bed. Cold. Quiet. Familiar.
That night, he didn't sleep.
Not because of ghosts. Because of memory.
Echoes of the Forest
He remembered the blackwood tree that watched him for years, its roots curled like fingers around secrets.
He remembered the tomb. Always breathing. Always waiting.
He remembered a voice that wasn't a voice neither male nor female, neither kind nor cruel. Just ancient. A presence that wrapped around his soul like shadowed silk.
"You were not meant to be erased."
"The Sky feared your mark."
"One day they will regret leaving you behind."
At dawn, he rose before the sun.
In the central courtyard, a few figures had gathered. Only a handful of disciples remained in Yinshade Valley none younger than twenty, all worn, thin, and hollow-eyed.
They watched him with equal parts suspicion and morbid curiosity.
"Is that the boy from the forest?"
"Looks like a ghost."
"I heard the Sky Mirror shattered when he was born"
Master Shen stood by a rusted bell tower, sipping tea.
"You all showed up," he muttered. "Didn't expect that."
He looked at Zixuan and gestured lazily. "Since you're new, I might as well explain: Yinshade has no official rankings anymore. No classes. No tests. You cultivate if you want. Or die if you don't. Makes no difference."
"Then why are they still here?" Zixuan asked.
Shen gave a tired shrug. "Some stay because they have nowhere else to go. Others because they think they'll find something here no one else will teach them."
He stared into his tea.
"And some stay because they're already dead inside."
First Test
That day, Zixuan went to the valley's open training field.
It was overgrown, cracked, and smelled faintly of blood.
He sat in the center, legs crossed, and began to meditate.
He reached inward, searching for his spiritual sea.
Most cultivators would feel the stir of Qi flow, the warmth of connection to heaven and earth. But Zixuan felt nothing.
Just a vast, cold silence. A hollow so deep it echoed.
Yet he was not afraid.
Instead, he focused deeper.
And in that abyss, something moved.
A flicker. Not light. Not Qi. Something older.
It was like reaching into a well and finding the bottom was looking back.
His back burned.
He gasped as the ancient rune once asleep flared to life. Black runes shimmered like living ink across his skin, pulsing with an unfamiliar rhythm.
Then, he heard it again:
"Born without fate, Bound to break it."
The silence inside him cracked.
Qi poured in but not from the world. It came from within. From the thing beneath his soul. Dark. Boundless.
The ground around him frosted over. Air turned thin.
And far above, in the outer skies of the Mingze Realm, the celestial threads briefly trembled as if something that should not exist had just awakened.
Unseen Eyes
Elsewhere, across the realm,
In a floating observatory wrapped in starlight, a woman in white robes gasped.
"The flow of fate it shifted."
Her assistant rushed forward. "What happened?"
She stared at the golden thread web in front of her. "A silence in the heavens has stirred. A place that was once empty just spoke."
Back in the Valley, Elder Shen looked toward the braining field.
He sipped his tea again, slower this time.
"I suppose," he muttered, "we've just welcomed something interesting."