The Courtyard of Silent Herbs smelled of damp earth, crushed leaves, and camphor. Morning light filtered through the leaves of the large peach tree at the center of the garden, illuminating the thin smoke rising from a bronze cauldron.
Master Yáo, an elderly woman with silver hair held by a spiritual wooden pin, observed the work of two older disciples. The woman, who had lived for thousands of years and witnessed the founding of the clan itself, kept her hands hidden in her wide sleeves, her posture relaxed yet attentive.
One of the disciples hesitated before pouring a handful of reddish powder into the cauldron. The moment the powder fell, the liquid hissed, taking on a muddy tone and the smell of burned root.
Master Yáo sighed, slowly shaking her head.
"Three stalks of Fire Flower, Xīn, not five," the elder corrected, her voice carrying an exhausted patience. "The excessive heat just burned the essence of the water. You have already passed your second decade of studies and still keep getting the base proportions wrong."
The other disciple gathered the spoiled herbs with a grimace, while Xīn lowered her head.
"Little Yǔ never got that combination wrong," Master Yáo continued, a nostalgic and proud smile appearing on her wrinkled face. "She has a weaker cultivation and is much younger, yet the first time she touched this cauldron she already knew the exact weight of every leaf. She needed only ten years to understand what took me a millennium to master."
Xīn crossed her arms and pouted, her childish frustration breaking the sect's etiquette.
"It's not fair to compare us to Junior Sister Yǔ, Master!" she complained. "Everyone knows she'll surpass even you soon!"
Master Yáo widened her eyes, raising a hand in a threatening gesture.
"Who said you can compare me to her?" she scolded, feigning indignation. "You insolent girls! Come back here and clean that cauldron right now!"
The two burst into laughter. They dropped the cloths and ran across the stone courtyard, dodging the flower beds as they fled the scolding, the sound of their laughter echoing through the garden.
Master Yáo began to "chase" the disciples, but stopped halfway.
A servant from the outer courtyard approached with quick steps, stopping at the edge of the veranda in a deep bow.
"Master Yáo," the servant announced in a low voice. "Young Master Qīng Yì requests an audience."
The elder's smile vanished.
She sighed, turning her face toward the entrance.
"Ah, that brat who never tires of bothering little Yǔ," she muttered, her voice now dry and stripped of humor. "Let him in."
The servant bowed once more and withdrew quickly.
Qīng Yì entered the courtyard shortly after. The Young Master of the 3rd Transcendent Stage, who normally walked through the capital with his chest puffed out, stopped five steps from the veranda with his shoulders slumped and his eyes on his own boots.
The air in the courtyard was absurdly heavy. There were no suppression matrices activated; it was simply the physical presence of Master Yáo, who had sat back down on the wooden bench and was slowly and steadily grinding dried leaves in a stone mortar.
Qīng Yì swallowed hard, feeling cold sweat run down the back of his neck.
"Great Elder—" he began, forcing his voice to come out firm. "Three days have already passed. No one enters or leaves the Autumn Wind Pavilion. Yǔ has locked herself in with… unknown guests. The council's rules demand prudence, and the rumors say she may be under duress. As her friend, I have come to request your blessing to intervene."
The stone pestle did not stop striking the mortar. The old woman did not answer.
The seconds dragged on. The pressure in Qīng Yì's chest increased and his breathing grew short as he struggled to remain standing.
When she finally stopped the pestle and raised her face, Qīng Yì felt his own Dantian shrink. Under those ancient and cutting eyes, he felt naked. Every thought seemed to drain onto the floor.
"Young hero Qīng Yì," the elder's voice sounded dry and drawn out. "It would be more prudent for you to stop meddling where you should not."
The Young Master's face burned. He opened his mouth to justify himself, but was cut off immediately.
"My disciple's interests are none of your concern. And her guests, even less so." The old woman returned her gaze to the crushed herbs. "You are a nuisance. Your concern for the clan is nothing more than your vanity bleeding."
Qīng Yì clenched his jaw. The humiliation burned in his ears, but fear kept him from retorting.
"Instead of wasting my time with your delusions," the elder continued with deep weariness, "go show some appreciation for the woman who compensates for your incompetence every single day. Do you think I don't see that she is the one carrying the weight of your faction while you play at leading?"
Qīng Yì's eyes widened.
"Now get out of my courtyard!" she barked in a loud, firm voice.
He did not dare question further. Qīng Yì gave a rigid bow. He turned his back and walked quickly out of the isolation area.
The moment he crossed the gates and the old woman's pressure vanished, the fear evaporated, replaced by a bitter rage. His ego, unable to accept his own smallness, convinced him in that same instant that the old woman was simply too blind with age to see the real danger Qīng Yǔ was in.
He needed someone who would obey. Someone who would not question.
------
Lín Jié's chamber smelled of spent wax and fresh ink.
She stamped the last supply report of the day, maintaining a straight posture and a serene expression in the late-afternoon silence. The sound of the quill scraping across the parchment was the only noise in the room.
The heavy wooden door was flung open with a crash, slamming against the wall.
Qīng Yì stormed into the chamber. The young hero's hair was slightly disheveled, his breathing heavy, and his eyes carried a feverish gleam of anxiety.
Lín Jié did not flinch. She set the stamp down slowly, assessing his mental state with a single glance: the visit to the Herbs Courtyard had not gone well.
"Jié, mobilize our faction's guards right now," Qīng Yì ordered, marching to the desk and planting both hands on the wood, leaning forward. "I received information that the isolation matrices of the Autumn Wind Pavilion are unstable. That outsider must have sabotaged the formations. We are going to invade."
Lín Jié did not even blink. She pulled a record book from the pile to her left, opened it to a marked page, and turned the text toward him.
"The pavilion's matrices are operating in perfect harmony, Young Master," the secretary answered, her voice low, polished, and ruthlessly rational. "I myself inspected the Qi flow of the security seals less than an hour ago. There is no instability whatsoever."
Qīng Yì tightened his jaw. His knuckles turned white against the desk as he watched his first excuse crumble.
"Then the supplies!" he raised his tone, his voice cracking as paranoia replaced logic. "They have been locked in for three days! The spiritual food and the spring water must have run out."
Lin Jie lowered the book and looked at him seriously.
"You need to focus, Young Master," she explained with the calm of someone teaching a child. "You are not making any sense babbling such nonsense… Cultivators at your level do not need supplies for months or years. Only mortals like me depend on food to survive."
Qīng Yì took a step back, as if he had been struck. He stared at the secretary, but his mind refused to accept the situation.
"Stop insisting, Young Master," Lín Jié finished, crossing her hands over her lap. Her dark, analytical eyes locked onto the man's sweaty face. "There is no sabotage. Fairy Qīng Yǔ is in voluntary isolation."
"You don't understand!" Qīng Yì slammed his closed fist on the desk, making the inkwell jump and spray black drops across the clean reports. "Old Yáo is senile and blind, and you only care about reports! Yǔ is pure. She would never spend three days locked away with a stranger if she weren't under coercion! I am going to break those doors down. Alone, if I have to."
Lín Jié looked at the ink stains ruining the work of her afternoon. The past week had been… frustrating. Devastating.
The secretary could no longer see the romantic hero she had once admired; she saw only a man walking blindfolded toward an abyss.
"If you break the celestial seals without an order from the Council, you will commit a grave imperial offense," Lín Jié warned. Her voice lost every trace of deference, sounding as cold as a funeral notice. "The Council will confiscate everything under this faction. You will be stripped of the title of Young Master before dawn. And I will have no power to clean up that mess."
"I don't care about any of that!" he spat, turning his back abruptly. His hand was already clamped tightly around the hilt of the sword at his waist. "All that matters to me is her."
Qīng Yì marched out with heavy steps, leaving the door wide open.
Lín Jié remained alone in the dimness, staring at the emptiness of the quarters with her chest aching.
Ahhh. I really have no place in his heart…
With a short, inaudible sigh, the secretary took a clean cloth and began wiping the spilled ink from the desk.
When the wood was clean, she pulled a blank parchment, dipped the quill in the ink, and began drafting, with impeccable calligraphy, the formal succession protocols of the faction.
The young hero was already dead; he simply had not realized it yet.