The masters' library smelled of dust and frozen time. Sunlight filtered through latticed windows, casting golden bars across the stacked scrolls. For Li Jin, this place became both his classroom and his prison.
He unrolled the first scroll. The ink was faded, the bamboo strips fragile. It was written by a man named Fang Jian, a disciple who had received the Mark three hundred years prior. His calligraphy was elegant at first, full of confidence.
"The Mountain has chosen me," Fang Jian wrote. "I feel the power of the White Tiger within me. It is a blessing. I will become the greatest guardian this school has ever known."
Li Jin read on. Over the course of the scrolls, the style changed. The strokes grew more aggressive, more erratic. Confidence curdled into arrogance.
"The others are slow, weak. They encumber themselves with useless rituals. The Tiger teaches me a more direct path. Strength is the only truth. I beat them in training today. Not just beat them. I broke them. They fear me. Good."
The last entry was nearly illegible. Ink blots and characters scratched in a frenzy.
"It will not let me sleep. The hunger... Its hunger is mine. I see enemies everywhere. The voice tells me to purge the school. To devour them all. I am not Fang Jian anymore. I am the Claw. I am the Hunger."
The scroll ended there. A note in another hand, that of a former Grand Master, had been added at the bottom. "Found in the hermitage. It took six masters to subdue him. His grave is unmarked."
Li Jin rolled the scroll shut, his heart heavy. He had just read the last will and testament of a man who had drowned in his own power. It wasn't just a warning. It was a roadmap to damnation. And the path felt terrifyingly familiar. The arrogance, the desire to prove his worth, the anger... he had felt all of it.
He moved to the next scroll. A woman named Sun Yue, a century after Fang Jian. Her approach was different. She had not embraced the Tiger's strength. She had fought it.
"I reject this presence within me," she wrote. "It is a corruption. Every day, I meditate to expel it, to purify my meridians. I fast to weaken it. I inflict penances upon myself to break my body and my spirit."
Her writings were a war journal. A war against herself. For years, she seemed to be holding on. But the strain was palpable in every word.
"I am tired. So tired. It never weakens. It waits. It feeds on my exhaustion. Sometimes, I hear it laughing in my dreams. It shows me what I could do, if only I would yield for a moment. Protect those I love. Punish those who threaten the Empire."
The final entry was written in a trembling hand.
"A village has been attacked by bandits. The masters deemed intervention too risky. But I know I can save them. The Tiger promises me I can. Is it a sin to use an evil for the sake of a good?"
The Grand Master's note was terse. "She saved the village. She slaughtered every last bandit. And then she could not stop. She turned on the very villagers she had come to protect. We found her weeping amidst the carnage. She took her own life before we could reach her."
A cold dread washed over Li Jin. This was the subtlest trap. To use the beast's strength for a righteous cause. The road to hell, paved with good intentions.
Day after day, he read the stories of his predecessors. They were all different. A scholar, a soldier, a poet. But their end was always the same. They tried to master the Tiger, or to destroy it. They treated it as an enemy to be defeated or a tool to be used. And every time, they lost.
When he wasn't reading, he was meditating. Seated in the middle of the silent library, he would hold the wooden disc to his chest and close his eyes. He no longer sought emptiness. He sought his center.
At first, it was difficult. The Tiger was always there, a murmuring presence in the back of his mind. It threw images at him—of his failures, of Xiao Lie's taunts, of the fear in Wang An's eyes. It tried to hook him with anger, shame, desire.
But Li Jin no longer took the bait. Thanks to the scrolls, he recognized the lures. When a wave of anger rose in him, he didn't fight it. He observed it. Ah, he would think, this is anger. This is what Fang Jian felt. He would let it pass, like a cloud in the sky.
He learned to detach. He became an observer of his own emotions. The Tiger was not him. The Tiger used what was already in him. The distinction was crucial.
A week passed. Master Chen brought him his meals in silence. He received no other visitors. One evening, as he meditated, he sensed a presence at the library entrance. It was Wang An. He didn't dare enter, but just stood there on the threshold, a silent show of support. Li Jin felt a wave of gratitude, but he also recognized the danger. Attachment was another doorway for the Tiger. He didn't move, gave no sign. After a long moment, Wang An left.
That night, the Tiger changed its tactics. It used neither anger nor fear. It used sorrow.
He is your only friend, the voice whispered in his mind. And you push him away. You will end up alone. It is what they want. To isolate you until you go mad.
A deep, bitter sadness washed over Li Jin. The loneliness was a physical weight. He remembered his family in his distant village. He had promised them he would become an honorable man. Instead, he was a monster in a cage.
Silent tears streamed down his cheeks. He did not fight them. He accepted them. He accepted the pain, the loneliness. It was a part of him, too. He did not let it define him, or consume him. He held it at a distance, observing it with a painful clarity. This is grief. Sun Yue felt this, too, before she broke.
He focused on the wooden disc. The gentle warmth spread through him, not to erase the sadness, but to keep him from drowning in it. He was the rock. The grief was the tide. The tide would eventually recede.
The next day, the Grand Master came to see him. He found Li Jin reading the last scroll.
"You are finished," the old man observed.
"Yes, Grand Master."
"And what have you learned?"
Li Jin considered this for a moment, choosing his words carefully. "I have learned that they all fought the wrong enemy. They thought the Tiger was their adversary. But the real enemy was themselves. Their desires, their fears, their pride."
The Grand Master gave a slow nod. A gleam of approval, almost imperceptible, shone in his eyes. "You have understood the first half of the lesson. It is not enough to recognize your weaknesses. You must now learn to find your strength. Not the Tiger's strength. Your own."
He beckoned for Li Jin to follow. They left the library and climbed to the upper training grounds, wind-swept rock platforms reserved for the masters.
"Your meditation has taught you to be a rock," the Grand Master said, stopping at the edge of a precipice. "But a rock is passive. Immovable. A rock can be shattered. You must now learn to be like water."
Li Jin did not understand.
"Water is soft, yet it wears away the hardest stone," the old man explained. "Water has no shape of its own; it takes the shape of its container. It can be a gentle mist, a calm river, or a devastating tsunami. But it is always water. It does not fight strength. It absorbs it, flows around it, redirects it."
He turned to Li Jin. "The Tiger is a rigid force. It is a fire that knows only one direction: forward. It is powerful, but it is predictable. Your human strength lies in your ability to adapt. In your flexibility."
He handed him a wooden practice sword. "You will attack me. Do not use the Tiger's strength. Do not draw on your anger. Use only what you have learned as a disciple. Use your own energy. Your own breath. Show me what Li Jin is."
Li Jin hesitated. Attack the Grand Master? The thought was unthinkable.
"Do not be afraid," the old man said with the faintest of smiles. "I am a bit sturdier than a rock."
Li Jin took a deep breath. He tried to clear his mind, but this time, it wasn't to hide from the Tiger. It was to find his own balance. He felt the faint, familiar current of his own Qi, the energy he had cultivated for a year. It was a fragile stream compared to the Tiger's torrent, but it was his.
He fell into stance, the basic form of the Long Fist. He raised the wooden sword and launched a simple, direct attack.
The Grand Master barely moved. He took a single side-step, a movement so fluid he seemed to glide over the ground. Li Jin's sword cut through empty air. In that split second, the old man had used Li Jin's own momentum to unbalance him. He felt a light pressure on his back. The Grand Master's finger. If he had held a blade, Li Jin would be dead.
"You are rigid," the master said. "You think in terms of attack and defense. You create opposition. That is the Tiger's way of thinking. Again. But this time, do not attack me. Dance with me."
Li Jin did not understand, but he obeyed. He attacked again. And again. Each time, the Grand Master evaded him with unnerving ease, using the least amount of motion possible, redirecting him, causing him to stumble over his own momentum. It was not a fight. It was a lesson in humility.
After an hour, Li Jin was exhausted, drenched in sweat. He had not once touched the old man. He stopped, gasping for breath.
"Do you see?" said the Grand Master, who was not even winded. "You are trying to win. That is your mistake. There is nothing to be won. There is only a flow to be joined. The water does not seek to defeat the rock. It simply flows around it."
He settled back into a ready stance. "Again."
Li Jin began again. But this time, something had changed. He stopped thinking about hitting his opponent. He focused on the movement itself. On the feel of the wind. On the Grand Master's breath. He began to anticipate not his actions, but his intent.
He wasn't dancing yet. But for the first time, he could hear the music.