Dawn arrived in the Outer Sect not as a promise of light, but as a gray stain slowly spreading across the horizon, revealing the misery that night had mercifully concealed.
Inside Cabin 404, the air was unbreathable. It reeked of sour vinegar, cheap bleach, and the cold sweat of fear. Li had spent the last four hours on his knees, scrubbing the wooden floorboards until his fingers bled, desperate to erase every trace of Wang's blood.
Xie Luan sat cross-legged on his pallet, legs folded in a lotus position. His eyes were closed, his breathing a thread so faint it was nearly imperceptible.
He was not cultivating. In the Mortal Dust Plane, attempting to absorb ambient Qi at dawn was like trying to drink from a muddy puddle—the rising Yang energy was too heavily tainted by earthly impurities. Instead, he was calibrating his instrument.
Heart: sixty beats per minute. Stable.Lungs: seventy percent capacity; scar tissue still fresh.Meridians: a labyrinth of calcified blockages and fractures.This body is a collapsing ruin, standing only because the termites are holding hands.
He opened his eyes. They were dark pits that swallowed the weak morning light, devoid of brilliance, devoid of humanity.
"Li," he said.
The servant jumped as if struck with a hot iron. He dropped the filthy rag and smashed his head against the table leg in his rush to respond."Y–Yes, Master Xie! It's clean! I swear it's clean! There's not a single stain left!"
"Stop shaking," Xie Luan ordered softly, almost in a whisper. "Fear is useful when it keeps you alert, but lethal when it makes you look guilty. If anyone asks, you're grieving your friend's death. Not terrified. Grief is slow. Terror is fast. Move slowly."
"I–I'll try… I'll try…" Li rubbed his hands on his robe, trying to wipe away the sweat.
Then the world changed.
There was no warning sound. No approaching footsteps. The atmosphere inside the cabin simply solidified. The air pressure spiked violently, as if the ceiling had dropped a meter in an instant. Dust motes frozen in the shafts of light hung motionless. The birds outside fell silent in unison, obeying a primal instinct for survival.
For Li, it felt like an invisible hand clamping around his throat. He collapsed to his knees, gasping, eyes bulging.For Xie Luan, the sensation was familiar—and repulsive.
Spiritual Pressure, he analyzed with disdain, even as his physical body trembled involuntarily.Crude. Vulgar. Unstable. No control over the edges. A Foundation Establishment cultivator has arrived—and he wants even the ants to know his name.
Heavy footsteps sounded outside. They were not the footsteps of someone asking permission—they were the steps of someone who assumed ownership of the ground beneath them. The rotten wood of the porch groaned under a significant weight.
The cabin door did not open.
It exploded inward.
A gust of Qi-laden wind slammed into the room, ripping the door from its rusted hinges and hurling it against the opposite wall with a crash that made Li's teeth rattle.
Xie Luan did not hesitate. He slid off the pallet with slow, deliberate movements. He knelt on the floor, lowered his head, and exposed his neck, hiding the glacial light in his eyes behind a curtain of dirty black hair.
A figure entered the room, silhouetted against the gray morning light.
Elder Mo Zha was no ethereal immortal from legend. He was a thick, heavyset man in his fifties, with a belly straining against his belt. His skin was oily, perpetually slick with sweat, his face marked by indulgence in flesh and wine. He wore purple silk robes embroidered with gold thread—far too ostentatious for a mere Outer Sect Elder—and several storage pouches and jade ornaments clinked obscenely at his waist with every step.
The smell hit instantly: suffocating sandalwood, musky incense, and beneath it all, the stench of a predatory animal.
Mo Zha swept the cabin with his gaze. His small, glassy black eyes passed over Li as if he were broken furniture, then stopped on Xie Luan.
"So it's true," Mo said. His voice was deep, artificially amplified by Qi, thunderous in the confined space."The trash didn't break."
Xie Luan kept his forehead pressed to the backs of his hands. He felt the Elder's gaze crawl over his spine like a wet tongue."This humble disciple greets the Esteemed Elder Mo," he said, his voice trembling with just the right amount of terror—an act refined over millennia."Your presence illuminates our miserable dwelling."
Mo snorted, amused by the submission. He walked to the center of the room, his fine leather boots stepping precisely where Wang had died hours earlier, ignoring the vinegar stench.
"And Wang?" Mo asked casually, kicking a splinter from the shattered door."I gave him a simple task. Dispose of the trash. Yet here you are, breathing my air."
Li sobbed from the floor, unable to lift his head."E–Elder! It was terrible! Wang… Wang suffered a Qi deviation last night! He exploded! Master Xie—I mean, Xie Luan—barely survived the shock! Wang died because of his own ambition!"
Mo's eyes narrowed. An invisible wave of energy spread from his body.
Spiritual Sense.
Xie Luan felt the mental probe sweep over him—crude and invasive, like filthy fingers rummaging through pockets. The Elder detected the chaotic residual energy in the room—Wang's violent death—and the faint scent of blood masked by vinegar.
But he did not detect the thread.
The Sutra of the Red Theater operated on concepts from a Higher Plane. To Mo's rudimentary spiritual sense, it was invisible. Nonexistent.
"Qi deviation…" Mo muttered, relaxing. The explanation fit his prejudices: Outer Sect disciples were incompetent and greedy, always attempting techniques beyond their reach. He shrugged indifferently."What a waste of muscle. The sect can always recruit another idiot from a nearby village."
Mo stepped closer to Xie Luan. The pressure in the room intensified. Xie Luan felt his bones creak under the weight of the Elder's aura—a raw display of dominance meant to remind them their lives were worth less than dust on his boots.
"Lift your head," Mo ordered.
Xie Luan obeyed slowly, as if the motion cost him immense effort. His face was pale, nearly translucent in the morning light. His lips held a bluish tint. His disheveled black hair framed features that looked carved from cold jade. Despite the filth and rags, there was an unsettling beauty to him—a tragic fragility that stirred contradictory urges: to protect… or to break him and see if he bled.
Mo's eyes gleamed with a dark, wet light.
Lust.
Not a lover's lust, but the desire of a collector who had found a rare object at a flea market and was already calculating how to break it.
"Look at you," Mo whispered, licking his dry lips."Wang threw you into a ravine and you're still pretty. You're lucky, boy. Very lucky. The heavens hate you, but they gave you a face that can save your life… or damn it."
Mo reached out and grabbed Xie Luan's chin. His fingers were strong, hot, and sweaty. He squeezed hard, digging his nails into Xie Luan's flawless skin, forcing him to meet his gaze.
Xie Luan suppressed the visceral urge to bite the hand off. In the projection hall of his mind, he dissected Mo in brutal clarity: carotid severed, third cervical vertebra sliced with a steel thread, dantian extracted while still pulsing.
In reality, he let a tear of pure fear slide down his cheek and drip onto the Elder's fingers.
"E–Elder… please… I'm weak… I know nothing…"
"Shhh," Mo tightened his grip, fascinated by the tear."I know you're weak. That's what I like. Strong disciples are troublesome—they have ambition, pride, delusions of respect. You… you only have fear."
Mo released his chin and wiped his fingers on Xie Luan's robe, as if he'd touched something delicious but sticky.
"I was going to let Wang kill you because I thought you were damaged," Mo said, circling him like livestock at a market."But your meridians, though blocked and atrophied, are intact. Your Yin is pure—almost icy. You're an excellent vessel."
Xie Luan understood instantly.
Human Cauldron.
Mo didn't want a disciple. He wanted a biological battery—a body to filter his own impurities through parasitic dual cultivation. He wanted to drain Xie Luan's Jing, to break his bottleneck. A slow, humiliating death sentence.
"E–Elder…?" Xie Luan asked innocently, widening his eyes."Vessel?"
Mo grinned, revealing yellowed teeth stained with tea."I have a bottleneck. I need a push. Your constitution is… special. Perfect for balancing my excessive fire. You'll serve the sect. You'll serve your Elder. It's the greatest honor a rat like you could ever receive."
Mo leaned in, whispering into Xie Luan's ear, his breath hot and foul."You'll come to my pavilion. You'll kneel on my meditation mat… and give me everything you have until you're dry."
Xie Luan trembled violently, lowering his gaze to hide the abyss in his pupils."Y–Yes, Elder!" he cried brokenly."I'll go at once! Please don't hurt me!"
"No." Mo straightened, adjusting his belt with disdain."Look at you. You stink. Covered in mud, reeking of vinegar. Your ribs sound like gravel when you breathe. If I use you now, you'll break in two minutes—and I need you to last all night."
Mo raised his hand, displaying ten pudgy fingers adorned with gold rings.
"Ten days.You have ten days to heal, bathe, perfume yourself, and prepare mentally. Eat well. Rest. I want you in peak condition. Soft skin. Warm blood."
He pulled a small cloth pouch from his sleeve and tossed it to the floor. Coins clinked against the wood.
"Buy food. Buy medicine. Spare no expense. If in ten days you're not at my pavilion door—healthy, radiant, and submissive—I'll send someone from the Discipline Hall. And believe me… what Wang did to you will feel like a caress by comparison. Understood?"
"Y–Yes! Ten days!" Xie Luan sobbed, smashing his forehead into the floor."Thank you for your mercy, Elder!"
"Good." Mo gave him one last covetous look, lingering on the curve of his exposed neck."Don't disappoint me, Little Xie. You have a great future… as my toy."
The Elder left the cabin laughing to himself. His laughter echoed across the courtyard, mixing with the cawing of crows, fading as he returned toward the Inner Sect—taking the oppressive pressure with him.
Silence returned, heavy with a new kind of doom.
Li collapsed onto the floor, sobbing in hysterical relief, clutching his chest."He's gone! He gave us money!" Li cried."Master, we're saved! He just wants you as his servant! He spared your life!"
Xie Luan remained kneeling a moment longer, motionless. Slowly, he raised a hand and touched his chin where Mo's nails had left four red crescents burning into his pale skin.
His expression changed.
Like a glacier fracturing.
The terror vanished. Innocence evaporated. Fragility sharpened.
What remained was arctic cold—an indifference so profound the air itself seemed to drop in temperature.
He rose gracefully, ignoring the pain in his bones, and kicked the coin pouch aside.
"Idiot," Xie Luan said—not to Li, but to the empty air where Mo had stood."You've given me time. The greatest mistake of the mediocre is believing they control time."
Li stopped crying, confused."Master… you're not going? Serving an Elder is an honor… he'll protect us…"
Xie Luan turned slowly. Murderous light flashed in his eyes, silencing Li instantly.
"In ten days, I will go to his pavilion, Li," Xie Luan said softly, his voice like silk drawn over a blade."I will kneel. I will enter his bed. But I will not be his cauldron."
He looked at his own hands—weak, pale.
He needed poison.He needed weapons that did not rely on brute strength.He needed to turn that pig's lust into his noose.
The clock had started ticking.
Tick.Tock.
"Get up, Li. Take the money. We're going to the market."
Xie Luan smiled—and for the first time, the smile reached his eyes. Dark. Terrible.
"We have ten days to kill a god made of mud."