There were no dramatic changes after that night.
No sanctions.
No reprimands.
No written prohibitions.
Yet within days, Xuanye noticed something far more effective than punishment.
Doors were quietly closing.
He no longer received discussion invitations.
Access to basic archive rooms was "temporarily restricted."
Requests for cultivation aids were delayed without explanation.
Not a single decision could be challenged.
Everything was proper.
Everything was reasonable.
Xuanye continued his routine as usual—cleaning qi storage rooms, attending basic training, returning to his small chamber at night.
Some disciples stopped greeting him.
Others lowered their voices when he passed.
Not out of fear.
But because he was no longer relevant.
One afternoon, he passed by the Eastern Hall.
The stone doors that were once open were now closed. Not sealed. Not guarded. Simply… no longer opened.
Xuanye paused briefly.
He remembered the cultivation pill in the elder's palm.
An offer withdrawn without words.
Then he walked on.
That night, in his small chamber, Xuanye sat cross-legged—without lighting the lamp.
He did not cultivate.
Nor did he sleep.
He simply listened.
The sect's qi pulse.
Footsteps of other disciples.
The wind slipping through cracks in the stone.
The world moved on, orderly and calm, as if he had never existed.
And for the first time, Xuanye understood the most efficient form of punishment.
Not pain.
Not death.
But gradual erasure.
He opened his thin notebook one last time for this arc.
He did not write a new sentence.
He only gave the page a title:
—A Closed Door.
Xuanye closed the book.
Outside, the night bell rang.
The sect fell asleep.
And a disciple named Xuanye
was quietly removed from the future prepared for him.