The pillar of gold vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared.
That, somehow, made it worse.
One moment it speared into the sky from somewhere inside the old western grounds of Qinghe University, splitting cloud and darkness alike with enough ancient pressure to rattle windows along the whole district.
The next, it was gone.
No lingering blaze. No continuous eruption. Only darkness, low clouds, and the heavy silence that follows when a sleeping giant opens one eye and then closes it again.
The city held its breath.
A second later, mortal noise came rushing back all at once—car horns, distant shouting, the crackle of electrical lines reacting to the surge, people calling out from sidewalks and balconies. Screens lit up across the street as phones were raised. Somewhere nearby, someone yelled about a transformer explosion.
Chen Mo was already moving.
"Back to campus."
The lead woman grabbed her injured subordinate and nodded sharply to the third. "Contain the area if you can. No public footage. No leaks."
The younger hunter stared at her. "Contain the area? That light went into the sky."
"Then do your best anyway!"
Interesting. So even among hidden factions, panic translated cleanly.
Li Xian stepped into the street.
The shadow cat flowed beside her like spilled ink, silent and elegant and far too conspicuous for mortal eyes if anyone had been paying proper attention. Strangely, no one seemed to notice it. Some suppression instinct or lingering spiritual concealment clung to the beast naturally.
Useful.
Chen Mo caught up with her in three strides. "Don't run ahead."
"You keep saying things that suggest authority where there is none."
"I'm not arguing with you in the middle of this."
"You already are."
He looked as though he regretted every choice that had led him to this night.
They crossed back through the east gate of Qinghe University just as the first campus alarms started going off not hidden-world alarms, but ordinary ones. Emergency lights flashed weakly on the nearest academic building. A security vehicle rolled somewhere near the central square. Students poured out of dormitories and lecture halls in confused clusters, looking around and pointing west.
The entire university had felt it.
Not understood it, perhaps.
But felt it.
Li Xian looked up.
For the first time since her rebirth, she saw the hidden world beginning to overlap visibly with the modern one. Thin threads of golden light ran through the air above the western campus, almost invisible unless one knew how to look. Ancient seal script flickered in and out over rooftops like the ghost of a formation too old to care whether mortals saw it.
No wonder the pulse had been growing stronger.
The buried egg was no longer merely cracking.
It was calling outward.
And now every hidden cultivator in range would answer.
As if summoned by the thought, presences began appearing one after another along the edges of the campus. On rooftops. In the shadows beneath trees. Behind the library dome. Near the old stone lecture halls.
Some concealed themselves better than others. A few would have escaped an ordinary cultivator's notice entirely. But Li Xian had once walked battlefields where ten thousand experts tried to hide killing intent at once. Compared to that, this was a children's gathering.
Chen Mo felt them too. "Damn it."
"Friends of yours?" Li Xian asked.
"No."
"That makes you more tolerable than expected."
He gave her a look. "This is not the time."
"It is always the time."
Despite everything, the edge of his mouth twitched once before flattening again. Progress.
They reached the western path.
The old grounds beyond were no longer quiet. Security barriers had been set up by ordinary campus staff trying to keep students away from the unstable section, but the mortal measures looked absurd against what lay over them now. The rusted fence around the old courtyard glowed faintly from within. Hairline cracks of gold ran through the wet ground. The broken seal around the well had fully awakened, ancient characters rising in drifting layers above it like fireflies made of script.
And at the center of the courtyard
Above the well
Floated a giant egg.
It was no longer hidden.
No longer folded beneath space and stone.
It had risen just enough to reveal itself to the world above, suspended half out of the broken seal as if it were being born through the earth itself.
The shell was dark stone veined with living gold. Thick chains, blackened with age and old fire, still wrapped around its middle and lower half, anchoring it to whatever lay below. One broad crack ran from top to side. Golden light spilled through it in soft, breathing pulses.
Around the courtyard stood hidden cultivators from at least five different factions, all keeping their distance.
Some wore modern clothes like Chen Mo and the hunters.
Others had leaned too hard into old habit, their tailored coats and gloves failing to disguise sect-bred posture and martial bearing. One middle-aged woman in a red scarf held a spirit compass in both hands. A pair of men in business suits whispered over a folded formation cloth. Two younger cultivators near the ivy wall were clearly from the same clan, their matching rings glowing faintly.
No one entered the courtyard.
No one touched the egg.
That, more than anything else, told Li Xian the situation was serious.
The lead hunter woman from the tea house arrived moments later with her men and stopped dead at the sight.
One of the suited men saw Chen Mo and called quietly, "You weren't exaggerating."
Chen Mo ignored him.
Li Xian stepped toward the barrier.
Immediately, a ripple moved through the gathered hidden cultivators.
Attention shifted.
Eyes landed on her.
One of the younger clan heirs frowned. "Who is she?"
The woman with the spirit compass looked up sharply and then went pale. Not because she recognized Li Xian's face, but because the compass in her hands had started spinning violently.
Interesting.
Good.
Let them be uncomfortable.
Then the egg pulsed once.
The golden crack widened by the width of a fingernail.
The entire courtyard filled with heat.
Not scorching, not yet, but warm enough to turn rainwater into steam where it touched the old stones. A low sound followed, one that no mortal ear would have properly heard a muffled cry, high and fierce and full of bound rage.
The spirit compass shattered in the red-scarfed woman's hands.
Several hidden cultivators stepped back on instinct.
One of the clan heirs whispered, "It's hatching."
"No," Li Xian said softly.
Every head turned toward her.
She did not look away from the chained egg.
"It's remembering."
Silence followed.
Then, from somewhere above the library roof, a new presence descended.
Heavy.
Controlled.
Older than the others.
A man in a long dark coat landed lightly atop the rusted fence and looked down at the awakened courtyard with unreadable eyes. White streaked his temples, though he did not appear elderly. Three formation rings glowed faintly around one wrist before vanishing back under his sleeve.
Authority.
Real authority.
The gathered hidden cultivators shifted subtly at his appearance.
Someone murmured, "Qinghe Association."
So this was one of the city's official hidden-world overseers. Good. Every buried nest eventually drew the bureaucrats.
His gaze moved once across the gathered factions, then settled on Chen Mo, then on Li Xian.
He paused there.
The smallest pause.
But enough.
"You," he said.
The single word was directed at her.
Li Xian looked up.
"Yes?"
"Step away from the seal."
"No."
A few people in the crowd visibly lost patience.
The man on the fence did not. "This is no longer an individual matter."
Li Xian's expression remained cool. "It never was."
Before the exchange could continue, the egg cracked again.
This time the sound rang across the courtyard like a blade drawn from stone.
A chain snapped.
Just one.
But one was enough.
The black metal recoiled like a struck serpent, and a burst of pure golden flame shot up into the night.
Every hidden cultivator moved back in a rush.
Every single one
Except Li Xian.
The fire did not hit her.
It curved.
Like a living thing.
Like recognition.
Like blood answering blood.
The golden flame circled once around her body, burning without heat, and then settled briefly at her shoulder in the shape of a tiny wing before dissolving into light.
No one in the courtyard breathed.
Chen Mo looked at her.
The association official on the fence looked at her.
The hidden factions looked at her.
And from within the giant egg suspended above the well, a small clear cry rang out at last.
A hatchling's cry.
Ancient.
Proud.
And unmistakably alive.
Li Xian slowly lifted her gaze to the cracked shell.
The hidden world had looked back.
And now it knew exactly where to find her.