Crimson Sky Trading kept a shopfront near Redstone City's western gate.
Wang Tian led the way in. Wang Ben followed with the spirit stone pouch at his belt.
The reception room was decorated in the fashion of the domain capital, crimson silks and lacquered furniture. A young attendant in matching robes looked up as they entered.
"Wang Tian, of the Wang Clan." His father's voice carried easy authority. "We have a meeting with Master Qian regarding a materials purchase."
The attendant's posture straightened. "Of course. One moment, please."
Wang Ben let his eyes wander while they waited. A painting of the Crimson Bastion. A jade carving of the kingdom's crest. Everything in the room pointed toward the domain capital.
A prickling sensation at the back of his neck. The faint awareness of being watched. He turned toward the window, but the street below showed only normal morning traffic.
The attendant returned before he could examine the feeling further.
"Master Qian will see you now."
Qian Weishan was a middle-aged man with soft hands and sharp eyes. He addressed himself primarily to Wang Tian, acknowledging the elder cultivator with appropriate deference while largely ignoring Wang Ben. Wang Tian made the case: the Wang Clan needed shadow-drinking crystal for a formation project, they were prepared to pay above market rate, and the clan's reputation in formation arts spoke for itself.
Qian listened. Asked probing questions. And after two hours, declined.
"The contract is with the Crimson Bastion's defensive array commission," he explained. "Even if I wished to divert materials to a private buyer, the complications would be substantial."
"We're offering well above market rate," Wang Tian said.
"I'm sure you are." Qian's smile was thin. "But spirit stones aren't the only currency in our line of work."
They left with their spirit stones intact. Wang Tian's jaw was set but his composure held.
"That wasn't about price," his father said as they descended the stairs. "He's afraid of the Bastion. Whatever contract he has, someone powerful is behind it."
Wang Ben nodded. The System had noticed the same thing in Qian Weishan's careful refusal.
They walked back toward the compound together. Halfway there, the prickling sensation returned. Stronger this time.
Wang Ben slowed his pace, scanning the crowd without turning his head. The streets were busy with refugees and merchants, faces he didn't recognize. Nothing obviously wrong.
"What is it?" Wang Tian asked, noticing the change.
"Probably nothing." Wang Ben kept walking. The feeling stayed with him all the way to the compound gates, then vanished the moment they stepped inside.
...
He watched Wang Ben enter the Wang Clan compound, and hatred stirred in his chest.
Xue Feng pressed himself deeper into the shadow of a merchant's awning, keeping his face angled away from the street. The hood of his traveling cloak was pulled low, hiding the features that might still be recognized despite the months of change. Despite everything they had done to him.
Everything he had let them do.
The compound gates closed. Xue Feng's fingers curled at his sides, dark qi flickering briefly behind his eyes before he forced it down. Soon. But not like this. Not rushed. When he struck, Wang Ben would never see it coming.
He had learned patience since his escape. The cold caves, the rituals that reshaped his cultivation, the months of feeding hatred until it became the only thing keeping him alive.
Or he told himself that. Some mornings the hatred slipped sideways, became a blankness he couldn't locate, and he had to start the thought over. Find the anger. Hold it. Start again.
The Wang Clan. The name tasted like ash. They had taken everything, and someone had to answer for it.
Xue Feng's hands clenched inside his cloak, and he felt the wrongness in his veins pulse in response. The dark lines that traced beneath his skin, visible only if someone looked closely, were a constant reminder of what he had sacrificed. What he had become.
The demonic cultivation techniques they had given him were effective. His qi condensation had stabilized, even strengthened, despite the trauma of his escape and the months of desperate survival. But the cost... the cost was written in the slight pallor of his skin, how his eyes caught light differently now, the hunger that never quite faded.
They had promised him revenge. Power enough to destroy the one who had taken his family, his clan, his entire world.
He knew they were using him. He could feel it in the rituals, in the way they shaped his cultivation to serve their purposes. Let them think he was their creature. When the time came, when he had taken what he needed from them, these demonic cultivators would learn what it meant to have underestimated an heir of the Xue Clan.
He remembered the night he ran. Walking beside his grandfather toward gates they both knew would be sealed. The old man talking about survival, about the Bastion contacts who would help them. And Xue Feng had seen the alley. Had seen the drainage grate. Had made his choice without a word.
He hadn't looked back. Hadn't needed to. The sounds told him everything. Brief fighting, then silence.
He'd run north, toward the Blackwood, not knowing where else to go. That was where he'd found the remnants. Demonic cultivators who had fled the city after the war turned against them, scattered and regrouping along the forest's edge. He'd blended in easily enough. Demonic cultivators didn't trust each other anyway. He watched them scheme and fight amongst themselves with cold ridicule.
One of them had been different. Stronger than the rest by a margin that no one questioned. The others kept their distance without being told.
Xue Feng had approached him anyway. Called him master. Knelt without being asked.
The man had looked down at him without expression.
"Xue Feng," he'd said. "Heir of the Xue Clan. My family had connections across Redstone City and the domain capital. Merchants. Officials. People who owed us favors." He'd held the man's gaze. "I can be useful."
The demonic cultivator had studied him for a long time. Then nodded once.
What followed had been worse than anything the war had done to him.
The inscriptions came first. Dark lines worked into his skin through methods he tried not to remember. They fed on his hatred, drew it out, refined it into something his cultivation could use. The pain was constant. When it faded between sessions, that was worse.
His master had called them seals. Gifts, he said, that would give Xue Feng the strength his revenge required. But Xue Feng wasn't stupid. He could feel the binding woven into the inscriptions, the thread of control that let his master constrict or release the flow of power at will. A leash disguised as a weapon.
He accepted it anyway. Every burning session, every night spent shaking on a cave floor while the marks settled deeper into his meridians, he fed it all into the same fire. The Wang Clan. The name that had taken everything from him. By the time his master released him back toward Redstone City, the pain had become purpose.
He had been watching the Wang Clan for a week now. Studying the compound, the patrols, the people who came and went. Two targets had risen above the rest. Wang Ben himself, and the family around him.
The dark qi in his veins stirred.
...
Evening painted the Wang Clan compound in shades of amber and shadow.
Wang Ben sat in the main room, turning over the day's failures. Qian Weishan's refusal. The soul-affinity jade still unavailable. The deadline creeping closer.
"You're brooding again."
He looked up to find his mother watching him from the doorway, Wang Chen balanced on her hip. The baby was awake, bright eyes watching everything.
"Thinking. There's a difference."
"Is there?" Li Mei crossed to the low table where he sat, settling onto a cushion with practiced grace. Wang Chen immediately reached for the papers spread before Wang Ben, and his mother gently redirected those grasping hands. "Your father broods. I know the signs."
"Gathering the materials isn't going as planned."
"It rarely does." Li Mei's voice was quiet. "Your father spent years chasing materials that were supposed to be impossible to find. He always found a way."
"I don't have that kind of time."
"No. But you're not doing this alone."
Wang Tian appeared in the doorway, settling into his usual seat. The frustration from the failed negotiation still showed in the set of his mouth.
"I'll try a few other contacts," he said. "Qian Weishan isn't the only merchant in the city."
Wang Ben hesitated, then spoke. "There's something else. On the walk back today, I felt like someone was watching us."
Wang Tian's expression shifted. He'd been there. He'd noticed Wang Ben slow down.
"I didn't see anyone," Wang Ben said. "But the feeling didn't stop until we were inside the gates."
Li Mei said nothing, but her eyes found Wang Tian's. He reached across and took her hand.
"I'll speak with the patrol captain," he said.
Wang Chen chose that instant to grab a corner of Wang Ben's notes, crumpling the paper with delighted enthusiasm. Li Mei laughed, the worry easing from her face as she pried the notes free from tiny fists.
"Your brother disagrees with your design," she said, smoothing the crumpled page.
Wang Ben shook his head, smiling despite himself.
They sat together as the last light faded from the windows.
...
From a rooftop across the district, Xue Feng watched the windows of the Wang Clan compound go dark one by one.
He couldn't sneak in. He knew that. The compound walls were patrolled by qi condensation guards, and behind them sat cultivators who would crush him without effort. core formation elders. The Patriarch himself. Even with the seals burning in his skin, charging those gates would be suicide.
But they couldn't stay behind those walls forever.
The dark qi pulsed beneath his skin, and Xue Feng smiled.
He could wait.