Pain came back first.
Not all at once no mercy like that but in pieces. A dull throb behind Zhou Wei's eyes. A burning line down his ribs. The wet, sticky sensation beneath his back that told him he was still bleeding.
He sucked in a breath and immediately regretted it.
Air scraped down his throat like broken glass. His chest seized, muscles spasming as he rolled onto his side and retched. Nothing came up but bile and a thin, coppery taste that coated his tongue.
He lay there afterward, shaking, forehead pressed to cold stone.
Cold.
That was the second thing he noticed. Not the sharp bite of winter air, but a deep, clinging chill that seeped through skin and bone alike. The stone beneath him was damp. His sleeve stuck when he tried to move his arm, fabric tugging unpleasantly against half-dried blood.
Zhou Wei forced his eyes open.
Darkness pressed in from every direction, thick and heavy. This wasn't the shallow cave mouth he'd fallen through. The air here didn't move. It smelled old—stagnant water, rot, and something else beneath it, faint but sharp, like rust left too long in the rain.
The forbidden caves.
The thought surfaced slowly, sluggish as molasses. Clear Stream Sect's punishment grounds. No one came down here unless they were being disposed of… or unless someone wanted them forgotten.
A sound echoed faintly above.
Footsteps.
Zhou Wei's heart jolted. Panic cut through the haze, sharp enough to hurt. Elder Zhang.
He tried to push himself up.
His arms trembled uselessly, elbows buckling as pain flared white-hot through his side. He bit down hard on his lip to keep from screaming, the taste of blood flooding his mouth.
"Move," he whispered hoarsely. "Move -"
His body refused.
Another sound drifted down from above. Not footsteps this time, but something subtler the scrape of stone, the faint clink of metal. Lantern glass, maybe. Zhang was taking his time.
Of course he was.
Zhou Wei dragged in another breath, shallow and fast. His vision swam. If he stayed here, he would die. Not quickly. Zhang wouldn't grant him that kindness.
The thought settled in his gut like a stone.
So he crawled.
His palms slid against the cave floor, skin peeling where stone bit into it. Each movement sent fire through his ribs, his back, his legs everything hurt, but pain meant he was still alive. He focused on that, on the rough scrape of rock, on the sound of his own ragged breathing.
The darkness ahead felt… wrong.
It wasn't just empty. It had weight, like a pressure against his skull. The farther he dragged himself, the more his ears rang, a low hum just at the edge of hearing.
Then he saw it.
A faint green glow pulsed at the far end of the chamber.
Not bright. Not welcoming. Just enough to stand out against the black, like a bruise under skin. It flickered irregularly, swelling and dimming as if breathing.
Zhou Wei froze.
Something cold coiled in his stomach, instinct screaming at him to turn back. Demonic artifacts were whispered about in the sect cursed objects that drove men mad, twisted their flesh, devoured their souls.
But then another sound echoed from above.
Closer now.
Zhou Wei clenched his teeth.
"Damn it," he muttered, voice barely more than air.
He crawled toward the light.
Each movement felt heavier than the last, as though the cave itself resisted him. The hum in his ears grew louder, resolving into something almost like… whispers. Not words. Just the suggestion of them, brushing against his thoughts and slipping away before he could grasp them.
The glow came from a stone wall veined with cracks. Set into it was a piece of jade, half-swallowed by rock, its surface cloudy and uneven. Black threads ran through it like veins, pulsing faintly in time with the light.
Up close, it wasn't beautiful.
It felt old. Wrong. Alive in a way that made Zhou Wei's skin crawl.
His hand hovered inches away.
Memories surged unbidden Elder Zhang's calm voice, the girl's tear-streaked face, the way righteousness had wrapped itself around cruelty like a cloak. The sect sermons about purity. Obedience. Sacrifice.
All lies.
Zhou Wei's fingers closed around the jade.
Cold slammed into him.
It wasn't a sensation so much as an invasion. The chill tore up his arm, burrowed into his chest, and exploded outward, flooding his body with something sharp and alien. He screamed, the sound ripped raw from his throat as his back arched violently.
His meridians ignited.
Not gently, the way instructors described spiritual energy flowing for the first time. This was brutal. Crude. Something forced its way through channels never meant to hold it, ripping them wider, burning as it went.
Zhou Wei convulsed, nails digging into stone, blood smearing beneath his fingers.
Images crashed into his mind.
Women kneeling in candlelit rooms. Silk robes slipping from shoulders. Lips parting around whispered words yes, please, I choose this. Shame and desire tangled together, feeding something vast and hungry.
Power surged with each vision, thick and intoxicating.
"Noo!" Zhou Wei gasped. "Stopp!"
The jade flared brighter.
A voice brushed against his consciousness, ancient and amused, like a smile without a face.
They must choose.
The pain shifted.
It didn't lessen but it focused, sharpening into something bearable only because it made sense. Zhou Wei felt knowledge settle into him, not taught but impressed, etched directly into bone and blood.
Willing choice.
First fall.
Virtue as fuel.
He understood without understanding how he knew.
His body seized one final time, then went limp.
The jade cracked.
A thin line split its surface, spreading rapidly until the entire piece fractured and crumbled to dust in Zhou Wei's hand. The green glow guttered and died, plunging the cave back into darkness.
Silence rushed in.
Zhou Wei lay gasping, chest heaving as if he'd been dragged from deep water. His heart hammered painfully against his ribs. Sweat soaked his clothes, cold against his skin.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
He was alive.
The realization felt unreal, fragile as glass. He waited for pain to surge again, for death to claim him after all.
It didn't.
Instead, something else stirred.
Warmth pooled low in his abdomen, thick and slow, spreading outward with each breath. It wasn't comforting. It was heavy. Hungry.
And layered over it was something stranger.
Awareness.
Zhou Wei frowned weakly, senses stretching without his permission. Beyond the cave walls, above layers of stone and earth, he felt… something.
A flicker.
Fear. Desire. Panic.
It wasn't his.
His breath caught.
"Someone…" he whispered.
The sensation sharpened, resolving into direction and intensity. A familiar emotional texture brushed against him soft, fragile, trembling.
Mei Lin.
Zhou Wei's eyes widened in the dark.
He didn't know how he knew. He just did. Her fear was a tight knot, threaded through with something warmer, something that made his skin prickle.
Desire.
The realization sent a shiver through him not entirely from cold.
Footsteps echoed again above, closer now. Elder Zhang's presence pressed down like a weight, sharp and ugly, his hypocrisy blazing so brightly Zhou Wei almost gagged.
Hatred flared.
Zhou Wei clenched his fists, feeling the unfamiliar strength coiled inside him respond. It wasn't enough to fight Zhang not yet but it was something.
Something dangerous.
He pushed himself up slowly, wincing as pain lanced through his side but it was duller now, muted, as if his body had already begun to change.
The cave no longer felt empty.
It felt like it was watching him.
Zhou Wei swallowed, steadying his breath.
"So this is it," he murmured, voice rough but steadying. "This is what you left behind."
Above him, Elder Zhang stepped into the chamber, lantern light spilling down the slope.
Zhou Wei slipped deeper into the shadows, heart pounding—not with panic this time, but with a cold, focused resolve.
He wasn't prey anymore.
And Elder Zhang had no idea what he'd just created.