If there was a prestigious place to be invisible, it was the outer courtyards of the Verdant Sky Sect at dawn.
Jin Rou stood with a broom whose bristles were older than his future and watched mist climb over the flagstones. In the middle distance, a ring of inner-sect disciples practiced with swords that hummed quietly like mosquitoes.
That sounded impressive, but in truth it meant he swept courtyards and carried laundry while others trained in sword arts and alchemy.
Jin Rou dragged his broom across the outer courtyard, pushing leaves into a tired little pile that the wind kept unmaking. He wore the gray of an outer disciple, but his belt had no token for pill rations or duel merits. Only a loop of twine held a ring of laundry tags.
"Rou! Don't scratch the stone. If the Elder sees a line, we'll be scrubbing with our tongues." The laundry steward, Auntie Lin, pointed her ladle at him from the kitchen steps. "After the sweep, carry the junior robes to the wash-house. And don't trip this time."
"I never trip," Jin Rou said. Then he tripped on his own broom.
A few senior outer disciples laughed as they passed. "Hey, Floor-Saint," one of them called. "If sweeping were a cultivation path, you'd already be immortal."
"If sweeping were a cultivation path, you'd still be late to class," Jin Rou muttered, but only when they were out of earshot.
He gathered the leaves for the third time. His hands were raw from lye. His dantian felt like an empty bowl. He'd come to the sect with a childhood dream and a thin bag of millet, and the sect had taken the millet.
The bell rang, one deep note for the morning lessons. Jin Rou set the broom aside, jogged to the kitchen steps, and shouldered a wicker frame piled with laundry. Robes in neat stacks, each with the wooden tag of its owner. He'd tied them three times so they wouldn't slide.
"Careful on the slope," Auntie Lin warned. "Stones are slick. If you drop those, I'll use you as a mop."
"Yes, Auntie."
He started up the side path that cut behind the alchemy hall. It was narrow, shaded by the hall's tiled eaves. On a good day, the steam from simmering cauldrons rose in sweet herbal plumes. Today it came in sour burps that made his eyes sting.
He told himself not to think about his age, which was already older than many inner disciples. Not to think about how his qi never moved the way the manuals described. Not to think about the way the intake elders had frowned at his meridian test and said, "Work hard at chores; diligence is a virtue."
He told himself not to trip.
He put his foot on the next slick stone.
He tripped.
The wicker frame lurched. Robes slid like a loosed waterfall. Jin Rou gasped and grabbed at fabric—caught one sleeve—fell anyway. He went sideways into the wall, banged his elbow, and then the whole world became falling cloth.
Silk slapped his face. Cotton flopped over his head. A sash wrapped around his ankle and yanked. He flailed, stepped on a knot of slippers, and rolled to the bottom of the short slope, landing in a pile of laundry like a dumpling in shredded cabbage.
Silence. Then the distant hiss of a cauldron.
"Rou!" Auntie Lin's voice knifed around the corner. "If those touch mud, I will—"
"I'm fine!" he croaked, though no one had asked.
He sat up, red-faced, peeling a junior's robe off his head. The sleeves had collected dust. A corner of a white inner shirt had smudged against the stone. If Auntie Lin saw, he'd be scrubbing until winter.
He blew hair out of his eyes and reached for the last robe.
Something flickered.
Not light exactly. More like a feeling of light, just behind his eyes. The air hummed. The hairs on his arms stood up.
A screen appeared in the air in front of him.
A hovering pane of translucent gold with neat characters that were neither brushstroke nor chisel.
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Ding.Unique Fate Detected.Binding… Binding…Success.Congratulations, host: You are the Sole Inheritor of the Dao of Rejection.
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Jin Rou stared. He looked down. The screen moved with his gaze. He looked up. The screen stayed in front of his face. He waved a sleeve at it. It wobbled, then settled.
"Uh," he said.
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System Online.Primary Law: Rejection ↔ Cultivation Conversion.Rule 1: A sincere confession must be issued by the host.Rule 2: A rejection must be received by the host.Rule 3: Cowardice leads to qi deviation.
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"Cowardice—what?" Jin Rou hissed, glancing around. The path was empty. A shadow moved in the alchemy hall window and then left. He hunched over the laundry pile, trying to make the screen look like just… steam.
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Tutorial Engaged.You confess. You are rejected. Your qi grows.The Dao is simple. The heart is not.Mission 1 will unlock upon completion of Tutorial Step A: Trip while carrying laundry.
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Jin Rou blinked. He raised a hand, very slowly, to his elbow, which throbbed.
"I already tripped."
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Step A: Completed.Well done, host. Gravity remains undefeated.Mission 1 Unlocked.
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Another line faded in below.
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Mission 1: Confess to the Kitchen Maid.Target: Lin's niece — "Mei."Time Limit: 2 hours.Reward: +1 Rejection Seed, +Small Qi Surge, +Humiliation Resistance (Minor).Penalty for Failure: Qi turbulence (itchy ears), social death (perceived).
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"I don't even know her name—" Jin Rou stopped. The screen had said it. Mei. Auntie Lin's niece who worked mornings. The quiet girl who handed out porridge without making eye contact.
His heart thudded hard enough to rattle his teeth.
"Confess what? Like… 'I like your ladle work'?" He rubbed his elbow. "This is a prank."
He tried to will the screen away. It stayed. He tried to think cancel. It brightened.
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Note: Sincerity matters. The Dao is not impressed by ladle commentary.Confession must be romantic in nature, intention true, words audible.You will be rejected. That is correct and good.
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"Correct and—" He lowered his voice. "Good? Are you insane?"
From the kitchen path, Auntie Lin's footsteps approached. Jin Rou sprang up, stuffed an armful of robes into the wicker frame, and tried to look like a diligent idiot instead of an idiot with a divine hallucination.
Auntie Lin rounded the corner, saw the scattered robes, and stopped. Her eyes narrowed. "Jin Rou."
"It's fine!" he said too fast. "No mud touched the silk. Look." He held up a sleeve. There was a faint dust line. He angled it away. "Mostly."
She put two knuckles against her temple, sighed through her nose, then helped him gather the clothing. "Hold the frame steady," she muttered. "You carry it like it's made of fireworks."
"Yes, Auntie."
They stacked the laundry again. The screen waited at the edge of his vision, not fading, not blinking.
"Also," she said, "my niece Mei will be working the front this morning. If you're going to cause trouble, do it out of sight."
His stomach tried to leave his body through his throat. "Trouble? Me? I'm a broom with legs."
"Hm." Auntie Lin finished tucking a sash into place, then thumped the side of the frame. "Go. And don't trip."
He climbed the slope like a man stalking a tiger. Every step careful. Every muscle tense. The laundry creaked. The screen bobbed along, very helpful.
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Tip: Breathing is still recommended.
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"Can you go away?"
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No.
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He made it to the wash-house without another fall. The wash-house girls clucked and sighed at the dust, but he handed over the tags and bowed like a man at his own funeral. The worst glares came from a girl with two buns over her ears; she didn't say anything, but her eyes did a lot of work.
He left the wash-house with his empty frame and took the long way back to the kitchen, trying to plan how to avoid it. He could hide behind the fish pond. He could fake a faint. He could climb into a laundry vat and drown.
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Rule 3 reminder: Cowardice → qi deviation.Host body shows prior history of avoidance.Conclusion: You will be fine. Probably.
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"Probably?" Jin Rou whispered.
He reached the corner of the kitchen courtyard and stopped short. Morning steam rose like banners. Disciples lined up with bowls, clacking chopsticks, sniffling as the scent of congee and scallions ghosted over them. At the ladling trough stood Auntie Lin, shouting orders, and next to her—Mei.
She was about his age, maybe a little younger. Plain clothes. Sleeves tied back with a cord. A small scar above one eyebrow that moved when she focused. She looked like someone who had already been awake for hours. When a junior tried to skip the line, she tapped his wrist with the ladle without looking up. He yelped and retreated.
Jin Rou's hands went damp.
"Two hours," he muttered to the screen. "I have two hours."
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Correct.Timer: 1:41:22.(A small hourglass icon appeared, which was somehow worse.)
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"So if I confess and she throws the bowl at me—"
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Excellent outcome.Rejection clarity often correlates with projectile velocity.
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He stared. The screen glowed, sincere.
A junior disciple moved out of the line and spotted him. "Floor-Saint! You coming to eat or to sweep the steam?"
Jin Rou forced his legs forward. He took a place in the line. The line inched. The hourglass ticked. He rehearsed, in his head, sentences that did not sound like the last words of a man about to be buried alive.
Mei, I… No. Too sudden.
I have admired your ladling for— No. The Dao just told him not to talk about utensils.
You are very… No. Too creepy.
He reached the front. Auntie Lin ladled congee into his bowl without mercy. "No spills," she warned. Then: "And no leaning across the counter to..."
"Auntie!" Mei hissed.
"What? Boys are boys. They think the ladle is a love token."
Mei's ears went pink. She kept serving, eyes down.
Jin Rou's mouth opened. No sound came out. He held the bowl like it was holy relic. His tongue felt like raw wood.
If you don't speak, he thought, you will end up old and gray in this courtyard and the screen will still be here, telling you to confess to someone's grandmother at her seventieth birthday.
He set the bowl carefully on the counter to the side, so he wouldn't dump it on his own chest when his hands shook. He cleared his throat.
"Mei," he said softly.
Her eyes flicked up. They were very ordinary eyes. Human. Tired, focused, puzzled that someone had said her name.
"Yes?" she said.
Jin Rou's heart battered his ribs. His face burned. He could feel every pair of ears in the three people behind him tilt forward, like wolves sensing weakness.
He swallowed. He was a broom with legs. He was also a man, even if a small one. He looked at Mei and said, too fast, "I like you."
The world did not end.
It paused.
Auntie Lin's ladle stopped mid-air. Congee dripped in a slow, obscene thread.
Mei blinked. The little scar above her eyebrow twitched. She considered him for one flat beat of a pulse, then another. Then she laughed. Not cruelly—more like a small gasp of surprise bursting into a giggle she couldn't stop.
"Oh," she said. "No."
It was gentle. It was also a rejection. It hit him like a slap.
The screen flared.
Rejection Acquired.Converting…Qi Surge +Rejection Seed +1Humiliation Resistance (Minor) Unlocked.
Power moved through him like warm water poured into a cracked bowl. He had read about qi flowing. He had never felt it. Now it threaded through his meridians with a prickly softness, as if someone were stitching something back together inside him with light.
His knees wobbled. He grabbed the edge of the counter to stay upright. His ears rang. He realized, distantly, that he was grinning like an idiot. He tried to fix his face. It wouldn't fix.
Behind him, the three juniors gasped. One whispered, "He's doing it. He's doing the Dao in public."
Auntie Lin recovered first. She thumped his bowl toward him. "Eat," she snapped, but there was a trace of wary respect that hadn't been there before. Or he imagined it. He hoped he imagined it.
Mei, cheeks pink, shifted her weight and went back to ladling. "Next," she said, and her voice was steady again.
Jin Rou took his bowl and stumbled to the side. He sat on the low wall with trembling legs and blew on his congee until his breath returned. The heat on his face cooled to a dull glow. He didn't die. He didn't explode. He did not become handsome.
He took a spoonful of congee. It tasted like victory and embarrassment.
The screen drifted into focus again, smug.
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Mission 1 Complete.New State: Qi Root (Faint).Stat: Humiliation Resistance (Minor) — when rejected, reduce internal collapse by 10%.Tip: Repetition strengthens pathways.
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"Repetition?" he whispered around his spoon. "How many times do I have to..."
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Mission 2 Unlocked.Title: Confess Again, Idiot.Target: Same.Time Limit: before sunset.Reward: +Qi Surge, +Humiliation Resistance (Minor+)Penalty: See prior.Note: The Dao admires persistence. Mei does not. These truths can coexist.
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Jin Rou stared at the new line of text until the steam from his bowl fogged it. He wiped the air with his sleeve on instinct, which did nothing except make him look like a man wiping invisible words.
Across the courtyard, two seniors who'd laughed earlier were whispering. One tilted his head toward Jin Rou with a measuring look, as if trying to decide whether to bow or to avoid eye contact forever. A trio of juniors peered around a pillar like sparrows. One copied the way he blew on his congee and nodded as if this were a technique.
He set the bowl down and leaned his head back against the warm stone. His elbow throbbed. His ears itched, just lightly, as if reminding him that cowardice had a price.
"I am going to die," he told the stone. "Of soup."
He closed his eyes. For a moment, the courtyard noises softened into a blur: clack of chopsticks, scrape of sandals, Auntie Lin's voice listing chores, the bong of a distant training bell. He felt the thin thread of qi moving inside him, tentative but real.
He opened his eyes. The world looked the same. His bowl was still only half full. The screen still hovered, bright and polite.
"Fine," he said under his breath.
He picked up his bowl. He ate. He watched the hourglass tick down to nothing he wanted to face, and he tried to plan what to say to the same girl who had just laughed at him.
He thought: Don't be poetic. Don't be creepy. Don't be a coward.
He thought: If I can survive laundry, I can survive this.
He thought: Please don't throw a ladle.
On cue, Auntie Lin shouted, "Jin Rou! After you eat, the floors!"
He raised his bowl toward her like a toast he had no right to make. "On my way."
He finished the congee. He stood. The qi inside him fluttered like a nervous bird trying to decide whether to stay in a small cage or fly into a storm.
He set his bowl on the return shelf, gripped the broom like a spear he didn't know how to use, and went back to the courtyard stones, where leaves waited to unmake themselves.
The screen bobbed along at his shoulder, content and terrible.
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Reminder: Mission 2 pending.Confidence: irrelevant. Sincerity: required. Hearts are not cauldrons. Do not boil. Speak. Receive 'No.' Cultivate.
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Jin Rou swept. The broom whispered across the ground. He breathed. He tried to make room in his chest for both the fear and the new warmth. The juniors watched him from a distance like he was a firework that might go off again.
For the first time since he'd entered the sect, he felt something like a path—not a good path, not a smart path, but a path no one else could take for him.
He laughed, once, too softly for anyone to hear. It sounded a little wild.
"Dao of Rejection," he said to the broom. "Of course."
The broom, being wise, said nothing.