The auction hall was a testament to the Wei clan's prosperity—spirit lanterns that never dimmed, chairs carved from thousand-year ironwood, a raised platform where items were displayed under formation barriers that revealed their true essence.
Wei Shao sat in the back row, as befitted his diminished status. Around him, outer disciples whispered excitedly about various items. Inner disciples occupied the middle rows, their bound spirits visible as faint auras around their bodies. The front rows belonged to elders and core disciples—those who'd reached the Soul Condensation realm and beyond.
The auctioneer was Elder Qin, a sharp-eyed woman who'd made a fortune facilitating clan transactions. Her own cultivation had stagnated at Soul Condensation, but her eye for value was unmatched.
"Welcome, honored members of the Wei clan," she began. "Today we offer forty-nine items, ranging from cultivation pills to spirit binding contracts to technique manuals. Bidding will be conducted in spirit stones, with immediate payment required."
The early items moved quickly. A set of Soul Cleansing pills went for forty stones. A Lesser Water spirit in perfect condition sold for two hundred. Wei Shao watched Zhou Feng bid aggressively on the Spirit Accumulation pills, eventually winning them for sixty-eight stones—overpaying by at least fifteen.
Perfect.
As the auction progressed, Wei Shao observed the patterns. Who bid on what, how high they'd go, when they hesitated. Information was currency, and he was accumulating it for future use.
"Item forty-seven," Elder Qin announced, her voice notably lacking enthusiasm. "A Grief Shade, origin Weeping Vale. Severely corrupted, missing significant core essence. Starting bid: fifty spirit stones."
A formation barrier dissolved, revealing the Grief Shade.
It was beautiful in the way disasters were beautiful.
The spirit appeared as a humanoid figure made of translucent gray mist, constantly shifting, never quite solid. Where its face should have been, there was only a void that seemed to absorb light. Wisps of darker corruption threaded through it like veins of poison. Even contained, it radiated an aura of profound sorrow that made several disciples unconsciously recoil.
"Condition assessment from our spirit master indicates 60% structural integrity," Elder Qin continued. "Corruption level is high. Binding is possible but not recommended due to—"
"Five spirit stones," Wei Shao called out.
The hall went silent. Every head turned toward him.
Elder Qin's eyebrows rose. "Brother Wei, the starting bid is fifty stones, not five."
"I'm aware." Wei Shao stood, his voice carrying clearly. "I'm proposing a different transaction. The starting bid assumes someone actually wants this spirit. Looking around, I see no other bidders."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. It was true—no one wanted a corrupted spirit, especially not one as damaged as the Grief Shade.
"The auction rules are clear—" Elder Qin began.
"The auction rules also state that items failing to meet their starting bid after three calls are subject to clan disposal," Wei Shao interrupted smoothly. "Which means the clan will spend resources to properly destroy or seal this spirit. I'm offering to take it off the clan's hands for five stones. That's five stones of profit versus a resource expenditure."
Elder Wei, one of the clan's inner court elders, stood from the front row. "Young Wei Shao makes an interesting argument. However, the concern is not profit but safety. That spirit is dangerous."
"Dangerous to bind, yes," Wei Shao agreed. "Which is why I'm the ideal candidate. I've already failed my binding ceremony. My cultivation prospects are already ruined. If I fail to bind the Grief Shade and suffer backlash, the clan loses nothing. If I succeed, the clan gains a properly bound spirit removed from inventory."
He could see the calculation happening in Elder Wei's eyes. Wei Shao was already considered worthless—a failed heir relegated to archive duty. If he damaged himself further experimenting with a corrupted spirit, it cost the clan nothing. If he somehow succeeded, it was an unexpected benefit.
"You have five spirit stones?" Elder Wei asked.
"No," Wei Shao admitted. "But I'll work in the archives for six months without compensation. That's worth more than five stones in saved wages."
The elder's lips twitched—almost a smile. "Bold. Perhaps you inherited some of your father's business sense after all." He glanced at Elder Qin. "I approve the transaction."
Elder Qin looked skeptical but nodded. "Very well. Item forty-seven goes to Wei Shao for five spirit stones worth of labor credit. May the Heavens have mercy on your soul."
"The Heavens," Wei Shao said quietly, "have never shown mercy to anyone who didn't earn it."
The binding chamber was located in the clan's spirit hall—a reinforced room designed to contain backlash from failed binding attempts. The walls were inscribed with containment formations, and a medicinal array in the center could purge corruption if things went wrong.
Or so the orthodox cultivators believed.
Elder Qin brought the Grief Shade's containment vessel—a sphere of translucent crystal that pulsed with sealing formations. Inside, the spirit writhed slowly, like smoke in a bottle.
"You have one hour," she said. "If you haven't completed the binding by then, the automatic formations will activate and destroy the spirit. Standard safety protocol."
"Understood."
After she left, Wei Shao placed the containment vessel in the center of the medicinal array. Then he destroyed it.
His fist, wrapped in a strip of cloth torn from his robe, shattered the crystal. The Grief Shade exploded outward, immediately expanding to fill half the chamber. Its aura of sorrow intensified, pressing down like a physical weight.
Most cultivators at this point would panic. The spirit was free, unbound, and radiating corruption.
Wei Shao sat cross-legged and closed his eyes.
"I know what you are," he said softly. "You're not a natural spirit. You're an aggregate—born from the collective anguish of three hundred seventy-two deaths. Men, women, children. All slaughtered in a single night."
The Grief Shade's movements slowed, as if listening.
"The righteous cultivators think you're evil," Wei Shao continued. "But you're not evil. You're pain given form. You didn't choose to exist—you were created by cruelty and suffering. Now you're trapped, damaged, hunted."
He opened his eyes, looking directly at the void where the spirit's face should be.
"I understand. I've been trapped too. I've been damaged. I've suffered." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "And I've learned that survival requires becoming something the righteous world fears."
The Grief Shade drifted closer. Wei Shao didn't flinch.
"I offer you a choice. Let them destroy you here, or bind yourself to me. I won't lie—I'll use you. I'll push you into danger. I'll treat you as a tool." He smiled slightly. "But I'll also feed you. Grow you. Give you purpose beyond being a tragedy. And one day, when I'm strong enough, I'll find the cultivator who created you and make him pay."
This was the first principle of the Demonic Scripture of Broken Chains: corrupted spirits weren't mindless. They were traumatized. And trauma could be bargained with.
The Grief Shade hovered before him, its form rippling. Then, slowly, it began to condense. The mist drew inward, compressing from a room-filling presence to a human-sized form to something smaller, denser.
Wei Shao extended his right hand, palm up. "Then we have an accord."
The Grief Shade flowed forward, wrapping around his hand like a glove of cold smoke.
And then the real binding began.
Orthodox binding techniques required the cultivator to create a soul contract—a spiritual agreement that bound the spirit to serve. The spirit's power flowed through the contract into the cultivator's soul space, strengthening them while keeping the spirit contained.
The Demonic Scripture taught a different method.
Wei Shao didn't create a contract. Instead, he opened his soul space—that inner realm where a cultivator's essence resided—and invited the Grief Shade inside.
This is going to hurt, he thought distantly.
The corruption hit him like a wave of frozen knives.
Pain. Loss. Anguish. The deaths of three hundred seventy-two people flooded through him—he felt a mother's final scream as she shielded her child, a farmer's confusion as a blade took his life, a child's incomprehension as darkness claimed them.
Wei Shao had forgotten how intense this was. In his first life, he'd first attempted this technique at age sixty, with a soul hardened by decades of cultivation. Now, at seventeen, with a Mortal Shell realm soul space, the corruption was overwhelming.
His physical body convulsed. Blood ran from his nose, his ears. The containment formations in the chamber activated, sensing dangerous levels of spiritual disruption.
But Wei Shao didn't stop.
The second principle of the Demonic Scripture: corruption spread through resistance. If you fought it, tried to expel it, it would tear your soul apart. The solution was counter-intuitive—you had to accept it.
Not embrace it. Not welcome it. But accept it as part of yourself.
Wei Shao opened himself to the Grief Shade's pain, let it flow through his soul space like poison through water. He didn't try to purge it or contain it. He simply... acknowledged it.
Yes, this happened. Yes, it was cruel. Yes, it was unjust.
And yes, I'm using your pain for power.
I won't pretend to be noble about it.
The Grief Shade's essence began to settle, finding spaces within his soul where it could rest. Not binding, not contracting, but coexisting. The corruption was still there—Wei Shao could feel it, a cold presence in his spiritual foundation—but it was no longer attacking.
The Heaven's Ledger flickered into view:
WARNING: Corrupted Spirit Detected
Soul Contamination: 23%
Karmic Debt: +47
Recommendation: Seek Purification Immediately
Wei Shao dismissed it with a thought. The Ledger was designed for orthodox cultivators. It couldn't comprehend what he was doing.
A new notification appeared:
Contract Formed: Grief Shade (Broken)
Type: Demonic Co-existence
Soul Depth: +8 (Reduced due to corruption)
Special Effect: Sorrow Aura (Passive), Pain Reflection (Active), Essence Drain (Corrupted)
Eight soul depth. In a normal binding, even a damaged Lesser spirit would grant at least fifteen. But Wei Shao had expected this. Corruption reduced efficiency.
What the Ledger didn't show was the real benefit: the Grief Shade wasn't just bound to him. It was part of him now. Which meant as he grew stronger, it would grow stronger. And unlike orthodox contracts, which limited a spirit's growth to predetermined parameters, demonic co-existence allowed unlimited development.
The door burst open. Elder Qin rushed in, expecting to find a corpse.
Instead, she found Wei Shao standing in the center of the chamber, the Grief Shade coiled around his right arm like a living tattoo of gray mist.
"Impossible," she breathed. "You actually bound it?"
"I did." Wei Shao's voice was steady, though his body felt like it had been trampled by horses. "The binding is stable."
"Stable?" Elder Qin's spiritual sense washed over him, and her face went pale. "Your soul contamination is over twenty percent! You need purification immediately—"
"No." Wei Shao met her eyes. "The contamination is manageable. I know what I'm doing."
"You're a Mortal Shell cultivator who just bound a corrupted spirit! You don't know anything!"
Wei Shao said nothing. He couldn't explain that he'd done this dozens of times before, that he understood corruption better than most Transcendent realm cultivators. So instead, he simply stood there, bleeding slightly, the Grief Shade wrapped around his arm.
Elder Qin studied him for a long moment. Then she sighed. "Your father is going to kill me for allowing this."
"My father will be pleased if it works and unsurprised if I die from the backlash later," Wei Shao said. "Either way, the clan's liability is limited."
She couldn't argue with that logic.
Wei Shao returned to his quarters in the outer disciple area as dawn broke. His body ached, his soul space throbbed with residual corruption, and he could feel the Grief Shade nestled in his consciousness like a cold coal.
But he'd done it. The first step.
The Heaven's Ledger updated:
Wei Shao
Realm: Mortal Shell (Peak)
Soul Depth: 11/100
Contracts Bound: 1 (Corrupted)
Karmic Debt: 47
Title Gained: "Unorthodox Binder"
Peak Mortal Shell. The binding had pushed him to the edge of advancement. One more push, and he'd reach the Soul Awakening realm.
But he wouldn't rush it. The foundation had to be perfect, or everything would crumble later.
Wei Shao lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling. The Grief Shade's presence was uncomfortable—like wearing wet clothes that never quite dried. He'd have to get used to it.
Was it worth it? a small part of him asked. The part that still remembered being a naive seventeen-year-old who believed in righteousness.
Wei Shao raised his right arm, watching the gray mist flow across his skin in hypnotic patterns.
"You asked me to bind you," he whispered to the spirit. "Asked me to give you purpose beyond being a memorial to tragedy. I'm going to keep that promise."
The Grief Shade pulsed once—acknowledgment, perhaps. Or simply the movement of corruption through his meridians.
Either way, Wei Shao had crossed the first line. There would be many more.
Outside, the clan was waking. Soon, news would spread that the worthless Wei heir had bound a corrupted spirit. Some would mock him for his desperation. Others would be horrified at his recklessness.
A few—the clever ones—would begin to wonder if there was more to Wei Shao than met the eye.
Let them wonder.
Wei Shao closed his eyes and began to cultivate, circulating the Grief Shade's essence through his meridians using techniques that wouldn't be invented for another hundred years.
The game had begun.
And this time, he intended to win.