Stone Creek Village wore a shroud of morning mist that clung to the rooftops. Lin Xuan woke up early in the morning, the comfortable energy qi resonance in his meridian once again prompting him to practice before the day began. Before he even got out, he heard a voice through the pickets.
"You dance strangely for a cripple — that is what the villagers call you."
Lin Xuan turned sharply. Under the ancient persimmon tree was the cloaked figure from last night. Their face was steeped in shadow under the hood, but the way they carried themselves even from a distance spoke of a silent kind of dangerousness.
"Who are you?" Lin Xuan asked, his tone was flat.
The figure stepped forward. "A traveling… talent scout." They exposed the face of a woman in her late twenties with black hair held by a rather plain silver clasp, and eyes that glowed like refined black glass. She was travel-worn, but her carriage spat of cultivation — poised, aligned to each inch around her.
"Yun Ruo," she replied. "I am an Azure Spirit Sect disciple."
And Lin Xuan's memory did the rest. Azure Spirit was a middle ground sect, famous for grooming adept body refiners and formation masters. The one-horse towns, for the most part, never caught their eyes twice.
"I watched your game yesterday," Yun Ruo continued. "Your technique was… interesting. You learned a form that you had no time to learn—cribbed it from someone." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "I find that curious."
Lin Xuan could not help but get nervous, without showing the slightest traces in his face. "And?"
"AND I have a recommendation spot for you. One candidate. As long as you pass the trial to join the sect, you will leave obscurity forever." She pulled a token engraved with the Azure Spirit emblem from her robe and tossed it to him. "We leave in two days. Decide by then."
Then she began to leave but stopped. "Others in this village, however, will have other ideas about the matter — but be warned. Some will try to stop you."
She took one last look at him before disappearing down the threshold with a silent entrance and exit.
A second midday, news of Yun Ruo only by name has gone ten miles. So the change in air was evident to Lin Xuan — those that had ignored him altogether were now looking his way, others were giving gazes of jealousy, and some gave the glare of fear. But in their midst, that of Luo Feng was the fiercest glare.
He stood there in the twilit square with his two coatings, whispering to a trio of older youths — hunters, accomplished netters, and snarers. Lin Xuan could tell from the sound that trouble was brewing.
[System Notification: Threat Assessment – High Likelihood of Aggressive Act Within Next 48-Hours]
System, still that usual indifferent tone.
Lin Xuan trained by the creek until the moon was high in that night. Each day, he could perceive a much faster adaptation to the Qi cycle in his body, his breathing technique was getting more fluid and natural. But when he went back to his hut, the door was ajar. His blankets had been thrown aside, and the place on the floorboard where he kept his jade slip was gone. One piece of material was on the bed — a fragment ripped from the jerkin of one of the hunters.
Luo Feng.
The following morning, half the village went to the riverbank before the sun had peered over the horizon.
"There!" someone shouted. "You know, Old Man Wu's fishing boat!"
A fisherman found it drifting in the shallows, its hull slashed down one side, nets snarled amongst the reeds. Then standing right out in the water, Luo Feng held the jade slip up high with one hand.
"This," he bellowed, "is evidence that Lin Xuan is a thief! I caught him sneaking into Old Man Wu's hut to steal a cultivation manual, and when I confronted him, he dropped this!"
Gasps rippled through the crowd. All eyes instantly looked in that direction, some doubtful, while others felt excited right away, and waiting to see what kind of scandal it was going to be.
Luo Feng's grin widened. "Xuan, if you are innocent, walk into the river and get it for me. Or are you just scared you'll fall and remind the corpse about all that is left of us not only helped bury him, but are also safely contained within his skull."
Lin Xuan came over, the crowd looked like they still wanted to talk but they made way. He kept his eyes fixed on Luo Feng yet already his mind ticked over, looking at the flow of the water, where reeds were placed, and a barely visible gleam of rope under ruffled water.
A net. Weighted. Waiting.
[System Prompt: Threat Pattern Detected – Adaptive Countermeasure Install?]
Do you want to get: Flowing Reed Step?
Lin Xuan's lips curved faintly. "Yes."
That piece of knowledge clicked into place — a footwork strategy used on unstable and mutable ground. He stepped into the water.
Luo Feng's smirk faltered. The dragging caused the weighted net to shoot upward from the deep.