The Duskbane Manor was quiet, though the morning sun streamed gently through its high windows.
For seven days, Erysimum had remained cloistered within her chambers. Her grandfather, Aldric Duskbane, had been unwavering in his command: she was not to step foot outside until she had fully recovered. Her uncle, Kaeleen Duskbane, had enforced that order with sharp eyes and a protective heart.
To them, she was still fragile, still broken. Their worry was suffocating but warm; it reminded her that they loved her, even if they misunderstood the truth.
The spring water in her hidden space had already healed her body, erasing every bruise, every cut. She was stronger now, her skin smooth and radiant. But she could not reveal this truth, not even to the two people she trusted most. To them, she was still the fragile, broken girl who had barely crawled back home alive.
So she stayed in her chambers, day after day
Kaeleen had brought her books to pass the time, and she devoured them. She learned of herbs, illnesses, and medicines, and poured over the dusty histories of the five kingdoms. Each night, she wrote notes until her fingers cramped. Knowledge was her secret cultivation, her silent weapon.
When the servants brought her food, she would smile faintly and thank them, before returning to her reading. She devoured every book she could find-from scrolls on herbs and medicine to histories of the five kingdoms. If she was to survive in this world, she needed knowledge, not just strength.
She studied long into the nights by candlelight, her fingers trailing over texts that detailed rare illnesses and medicinal concoctions. She memorized the strengths and weaknesses of herbs, learning which could heal wounds, which could poison, and which could temper the body.
She practiced writing formulas again and again, filling her notes with annotations.
Every so often, her eyes would drift to the closed door. Her grandfather's shadow would linger there in the evenings, quiet and watchful. Aelric too, sometimes, would check in with a small smile, pretending not to notice that she was already sitting straighter, already glowing with new vitality.
But by the seventh morning, the walls of her room felt like a cage.
She stood before the mirror, studying her reflection in the soft light. Her hair, long and black, spilled down her back like a dark river. Her skin glowed faintly, healed and radiant, her star mark resting on her finger as if it had always belonged there.
Her lips curved into the barest of smiles.
"They won't let me out until I heavens knows when," she murmured. "But I have no time to waste."
There was a rare herb she needed, one she had read of but never seen in her space. Without it, her recovery was incomplete. And in her hidden realm, porcelain bottles of pills waited, their contents unknown. She couldn't walk blind. She needed answers.
Today, she would get them.
⸻
Erysimum disguised herself with practiced precision.
She bound her hair and hid it beneath a plain cap. She shaded the edges of her jawline, added sharpness to her features, and cast faint shadows beneath her eyes. Her feminine softness blurred away until a wiry, sharp-eyed boy stared back from the mirror.
Ordinary. Forgettable. Perfect.
She slipped quietly through the manor halls, moving like a shadow past the drowsy servants. The guards at the gates barely noticed as she walked past them, her plain clothes blending into the morning bustle of the streets.
The capital was alive.
The sun had barely climbed to its zenith, but already merchants filled the air with noise. Carts rattled over cobblestones. The smell of fresh bread mixed with the sharper tang of herbs drying on racks. Shouts of vendors hawking wares tangled with the laughter of children darting between stalls.
For a moment, Erysimum slowed, absorbing it all. It was her first time seeing the city since she had awoken in this new life. Vibrant, noisy, chaotic, it felt nothing like her cage of a room.
But she had a goal. Her steps carried her to a tall building crowned with an ornate wooden plaque:
Moonshadow Apothecary.
The most renowned medical shop in the kingdom.
⸻
The moment she stepped inside, disdain hit her like a wave.
The clerk, a lanky youth with sunken cheeks, glanced up, saw her patched clothes and plain face, and sneered. "We don't have scraps for beggars. Out, before you dirty the floors."
Erysimum ignored him, her dark eyes scanning shelves lined with jars and bundles. Herbs she recognized. Herbs she had only read of. Even common roots here could strengthen her space if planted.
She reached out to inspect a jar, but the air suddenly split with a shrill cry.
"My hairpin!"
A noblewoman swept into the shop like a tempest, her silk gown embroidered with golden lotuses. Her voice cracked like a whip as she shrieked, "My golden phoenix hairpin is gone! Someone has stolen it!"
Her maids fluttered anxiously, their faces pale.
The clerk's eyes gleamed. With a malicious smirk, he rushed forward, seized Erysimum's arm, and dragged her before the woman.
"It was him!" he shouted. "I knew the moment he walked in, suspicious, shifty. A weakling with no cultivation, of course he'd steal to survive!"
The crowd stirred, voices rising like a tide.
Erysimum tilted her head, her calmness unnerving against the rising storm. "Oh? You claim I stole it?" Her voice was low, steady. "Then explain how could someone like me, with no cultivation at all, slip past her guards? She was in another section of the shop, surrounded. Surely someone as clever as you can solve this riddle."
The words cut like a blade, silencing whispers.
But the clerk sneered wider. "Still pretending? If you didn't steal it, then prove it!"
The noblewoman's eyes narrowed. "Enough. Guards, break his legs until he confesses!"
Her armored men surged forward, aura pressing down like a storm.
Erysimum's pulse spiked. Against them, she had no chance. Yet when the first guard lunged, her body moved.
Her hand caught his wrist. Her foot swept low.
Crash!
The guard hit the ground hard.
Gasps tore from the crowd.
Before she could think, her body flowed into another strike, then another,fluid, precise, merciless. The martial arts inheritance had awakened in her blood, guiding her as though she had trained all her life.
One by one, the guards fell.
The shop erupted in murmurs.
"A boy with no cultivation..."
"How... impossible!"
Erysimum stood tall, brushing the dust from her sleeve, lips curving faintly.
The noblewoman's shriek broke the silence.
"Insolent trash! I'll kill you myself!"
Her ring flared. With a roar, a massive tiger appeared, its stripes flickering with black flames, its golden eyes blazing. The beast's aura rolled through the shop like fire.
Erysimum froze. Against such a creature, she was nothing.
But before the woman could command it, a deep voice cut through the chaos.
"That's enough."
The crowd parted as a tall man emerged from the back. His robes were plain black, but his presence commanded silence.
"Shopkeeper Mo Yan," someone whispered reverently.
Mo Yan's gaze was cold, his voice steady. "Explain."
The clerk shoved Erysimum forward. "Shopkeeper Mo! This boy stole the lady's hairpin—"
Erysimum's eyes sharpened, her silence like a blade.
Mo Yan ignored her and walked straight to the noblewoman. Without hesitation, he reached into her sleeve and pulled out a golden phoenix hairpin that was hidden.
The room stilled.
The noblewoman's face drained of color. She stammered, cheeks blazing with shame, before fleeing the shop, her maids and guards scrambling behind her.
She had thought her hair pin was stolen but in reality she had misplaced it.
Erysimum exhaled softly, rolling her eyes. What a pointless spectacle. She turned, ready to vanish into the morning crowds.
But Mo Yan's voice stopped her.
"Wait."
Her steps stilled.
Mo Yan studied her intently, his eyes lingering on her face with something unreadable. "Forgive the insult. My master instructed me to intervene if anything happened here."
Master? Her brows furrowed. Someone had been watching her?
Mo Yan's tone softened. "Tell me, what business brought you here?"
For a moment, silence stretched. Then Erysimum slipped her hand into her sleeve and drew out three porcelain bottles. The faint fragrance of medicine spread, rich and potent, making several customers nearby glance over in surprise.
Her voice was calm, deliberate, each word carrying weight.
"I want these appraised."