Through the eyes of Zhuge Su Yeon
The muffled roar of the arena still vibrated under my feet as I rose.There was no rush in the gesture, yet I did not stay for the next wave of applause and commentary.
I was tired. That much was fact.Not in body—meditation and cultivation kept that sharp—but in eyes.Eyes that, since dawn, had been fed too many fights worth too little.Predictable fists, predictable blades, predictable outcomes.Even the surprises obeyed a lazy script I could have written from memory.
But that wasn't the only reason I left the pavilion at the height of the uproar.
While all leaned forward to hear Patriarch Han's next speech, my attention was already elsewhere. Or rather, on someone else.Fate always enjoys toying with protagonists, but for my misfortune, it seemed to think my family needed two.
Zhuge Yui Lan.
My little sister, Yu Jin's twin.For thirty days, she had played perfectly the role of dutiful disciple: cultivating in her room, attending spiritual medicine lessons with a few elders, avoiding the courtyards where tournament rumors fermented.
To others, she was the picture of discipline and seclusion.
To me... it was nothing more than an excellent performance.
I never withdrew my spiritual perception from her.Not from the caprice of an overprotective brother, but out of precaution.
After all, how could anyone expect a reincarnated one—someone who had lived through countless threads of fate and crossed who-knows-how-many ages in this world—to sit quietly for so long?
The answer is simple: you don't.You just observe. And wait.
And today, the moment came.
Amid the arena's noise, just before the last fight, I felt it.A subtle thread in my perception quivered like the string of a zither plucked without warning.
It wasn't the casual movement of a disciple fetching clothes or tea.It was purposeful: steps without hesitation, rhythm unfit for a stroll.
Yui Lan was in motion.
She stopped discreetly at the edge of a western market street. She wasn't looking at stalls or passersby; her focus was locked on a point beyond the city gates.
I followed her gaze.
Two men were entering the city.The first walked with ordinary posture, steady steps, dressed like any artisan from a poor quarter. The second... limped. His left arm leaned on his companion's shoulder, his breath short, his clothes wrinkled like cloth forgotten in the rain.
It wasn't fresh blood staining his sleeve, but something older—the stiffness of the fabric revealed the wound had hours on it.
Together they stumbled toward a small clan tucked into one of the city's deserted side streets.Too quiet.So insignificant that, even with all my habit of mapping risks and routes, I had never spared it a thought.
Minutes after the two vanished behind its gate, Yui Lan made her move.
There was no rush in her walk.No assassin's tension, no spy's exaggerated caution.She crossed the entrance as though visiting a childhood friend: posture straight, smile light, steps that did not ask permission—they assumed it had already been granted.
My perception followed her until something brushed against it.A barrier.
Nothing notable for me—with my martial body, I could have crossed it like wind through cobweb—but enough to signal that this clan's entrance was not as unguarded as it appeared.
Yui Lan's path continued unimpeded.No one stopped her in the first few meters.Then, as if air had condensed into flesh and cloth, they appeared.
A group of men dressed in black, faces half-covered with rough scarves, each holding short daggers.
Their cultivation was low.And my little sister, silent as always, had quietly risen to the ninth level of Body Refinement without a whisper.Any one of them alone would last less than a breath against her.
For a moment, I thought I'd glimpse her martial skill.
But no.
The fight I expected never came.Instead, there were words.Seconds later, the tension in their shoulders dissolved like mist.
The men—moments earlier potential attackers—became hosts.They sheathed their daggers as carefully as one returning utensils to a cupboard, and gestured for her to follow.
And she did.With the same natural ease with which she had entered, she passed through the inner courtyards of the small clan, disappearing beyond the second gate, guided like an honored guest.
I leaned back, though unmoving.The "visit" had only begun.
The narrow inner corridor of the small clan was quiet, built as if so every footstep could be heard in each room.My perception pierced walls like blades through rice paper, following Yui Lan.
They led her to a room at the back.
There lay the limping man.
Resting on a simple bed, covered by coarse cotton sheets, his left arm pressed over his abdomen, his head slightly turned toward the door.
At first glance, he looked only like a weary youth. Then Yui Lan approached.
His face was a mask.Not an ordinary one, but a piece of craftsmanship so refined that even spiritual perception mistook its false lines for real skin. It mimicked pores, subtle marks of expression, even a faint trace of fatigue under the eyes.A disguise meant to fool careless cultivators.
Yui Lan did not hesitate.With her fingertips, she pressed a hidden point at the edge of his cheek. The material yielded, revealing an almost invisible seam.She removed the mask as if pulling a handkerchief from a pocket—simple, unhurried, as though she had known from the start it was there.
The others in the room—three men and one woman in plain dark attire—widened their eyes. Hands twitched toward weapons.But two or three words from Yui Lan were enough to loosen their grip, leaving blades sheathed.Short words, precise.
The face revealed beneath was not hardened by battle.Delicate features, almost sculpted, as if too much time had been spent perfecting each curve.His skin was clear, not pale but like sun-warmed porcelain.His eyebrows were long and finely shaped, giving his gaze a calm air, while his slightly curved lashes betrayed something almost ethereal.His lips were thin, yet firm.
He looked no older than twenty-three...But I didn't bother estimating his true age.Something else weighed heavier.
Even weakened by injury, his cultivation throbbed like a muffled drum beneath layers of cloth: eighth level of Spiritual Refinement.Power high enough to crush this entire city in a single day, if he wished.Of course... assuming I did not interfere.
And it was precisely that silent possibility that kept my interest fixed on him.
The silence in the room shifted when Yui Lan drew medical instruments from her case.
The mask rested on a side table.His delicate features now exposed, yet marred by something more than wounds: a pallor not born of blood loss, but of something slower, more insidious.
She pulled back the blanket covering his torso.Opened his coarse shirt without haste.And I saw—even at a distance, through my perception—the stains.
Patches of skin darkened with irregular purplish tones, as though the flesh itself had absorbed poisonous ink. Not open wounds, but necrotic zones—pores tight, texture hardened.Poisoning.
The pattern was not unfamiliar to me, yet more intricate than common venoms used by village cultivators. This was composite, crafted to erode Qi flow slowly, crippling natural recovery.
Yui Lan showed no surprise.She simply set her hands upon the first poisoned spot, fingers firm yet relaxed, and began.
Her technique was silent.A fine thread of medical Qi flowed from her fingers, entering the flesh like a breeze through silk. The darkened tissue reacted—not with visible pain, but with a faint tremor, as if the body itself recognized an intruder being dislodged.
Bit by bit, she separated the poisoned tissue.Not cutting, not tearing—lifting it like moss from damp stone, until the corrupted patch yielded entirely.What remained beneath was lighter, fragile, like freshly carved porcelain, still vulnerable to touch.
With each removal, Yui Lan pressed her fingers in short sequences, channeling pure Qi to stimulate regeneration.It was a steady, warm current, almost hypnotic.Even from afar, I could sense how it seeped in, aligning fibers, restoring circulation before sealing the skin.
The process repeated three times.First at his shoulder, then at his right ribs, finally along the side of his neck, where the poison reached the base of his jaw.
With each step, the youth's breathing steadied.His chest, once straining with uneven effort, now moved with calmer rhythm.Muscles loosened.His Qi, once like a river clogged with debris, began to flow again—slow, but free.
When she withdrew her hands and gathered her Qi, the silence in the room deepened.The man's body no longer seemed on the verge of collapse.Then, slowly, his eyelids quivered.
His eyes opened.There was no startle, no sudden speech—only the simple act of drawing a full breath, as though it were the first true air he had tasted in days.