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Chapter 19 — Whispers in the Dark
At first, I thought I'd gotten away with it.
No one had followed me home.
No one had knocked on my door demanding answers.
The city moved as it always had — the same merchants yelling, the same gossip drifting through the streets.
But Floating Cloud was like a pond.
Even the smallest stone sent ripples.
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The Rumor
It started as a whisper at the herbal shop.
"Did you hear? Someone stopped the Xiao brats in the east market alley. Knocked them down without leaving a mark."
By afternoon, the story had grown teeth.
"A masked warrior," one man muttered to his friend, voice low. "Silent as a ghost. Not a scratch on him."
By nightfall, the tale had reached the tea houses.
"They say it was a spirit," a drunk slurred. "Punishing those who pick on the weak."
I sat in the corner of one crowded inn, hood low, listening to my own legend grow in the mouths of strangers.
A phantom.
A ghost.
An unseen blade in the dark.
And every version of the story made me feel colder inside.
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The Problem
Attention was dangerous.
I'd worked too hard to stay invisible, to keep my head down while the world moved around me.
Now people were looking over their shoulders, glancing into the shadows, whispering about a savior or a demon — depending on who you asked.
And worse, the Xiao Clan would eventually hear the rumors.
They'd start watching.
Start hunting.
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The System's Warning
That night, as I sat in my room turning the wooden sword over in my hands, the System chimed in.
> [Advisory: Increased Risk Detected]
[Recommendation: Reduce real-world interventions until suspicion subsides]
I clenched my jaw.
It wasn't wrong.
But it felt wrong to do nothing.
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A Quiet Adjustment
So I compromised.
I kept practicing at Old Man Ji's, but only at odd hours when no one would notice.
I moved through the city with more care, taking alternate paths, watching for shadows that lingered too long.
And I stopped intervening.
No more phantom strikes in dark alleys.
No more quiet rescues.
At least, not for now.
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The Weight of Restraint
It was harder than I thought it would be.
Every time I saw a hand raised in cruelty or heard the sharp edge of fear in someone's voice, my muscles itched to move, to act.
But discipline wasn't just about control in battle.
It was about patience.
And patience, I reminded myself, was survival.
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Resolve
Floating Cloud City could keep its stories, its ghosts and phantoms.
Let them whisper.
Let the legend fade on its own.
Because when the real storm came — when the plot finally began to unfold — I wouldn't just be a shadow they barely remembered.
I'd be ready to step into the light.
And they wouldn't see me coming.
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