The wait before the final test was worse than the tests themselves.
There was nothing to do except watch others be called, watch them place their wrists on the inscribed metal disk, watch the fine needles pierce just enough skin to draw a tiny drop of blood, and watch the artifact react with flashes, lines, and vibrations that only the recruiters seemed to fully understand.
Sometimes they nodded.
Sometimes they wrote something down with indifference.
Sometimes they shook their heads with disappointed expressions.
Twice, a youth was set aside immediately with a grave gesture.
That alone was enough to change the mood in the square. It was no longer excitement. It was tension.
Too many eyes were fixed on that disk.
Too many small lives trying to tear a favorable sign from fate.
Lin Yuan remained silent at the edge of the line, back straight and arms crossed. He knew speaking would do no good. Neither would staring too closely at the others. At moments like that, people let the worst inside them spill out through their mouths.
It did not take long for him to prove himself right.
"Hey, orphan."
The voice came from his right.
Lin Yuan barely turned his head.
Three boys who had passed the first two tests were watching him with crooked smiles. They were not from the orphanage, but they were from the village and nearby hamlets. He had seen them before in the market, at fairs, and on the roads. He knew their type before he remembered their names.
One was the butcher's son and had always been more physically developed than most boys his age. Another was the nephew of a local tax collector and spoke as if his blood were worth more simply because he had eaten well all his life. The third had nothing remarkable about him except that he laughed louder whenever someone was humiliated.
"You didn't look bad in the physical test," said the butcher's son. "For someone who chops wood instead of studying with teachers, it was decent."
"Maybe he'll end up as a servant in the sect," added the tax collector's nephew with a low laugh. "If he's lucky, they might even let him sweep the courtyards."
The third smiled, showing large uneven teeth.
"Or carry water buckets."
Lin Yuan looked at them one by one.
"If you get in, let me know," he said calmly. "Then I'll know the Gray Cloud Sect accepts anything."
The tax collector's nephew went still for an instant.
Big-Teeth was the first to understand the insult and let out an offended bark.
"What did you say?"
Lin Yuan leaned a shoulder against a nearby wooden post, as if the argument mattered very little.
"That if you get in, then maybe I have a chance too."
The butcher's son stepped forward.
"You talk too much for someone without a family name."
Lin Yuan did not move.
"And you think too much about family names for someone who hasn't entered any sect yet."
The other two tensed. The air around them shifted slightly—not enough to catch the recruiters' attention, but enough to draw the eyes of nearby aspirants.
The tax collector's nephew lifted his chin.
"Some people are born knowing their place."
"Then I'm glad at least you're not confused about yours," Lin Yuan replied.
Several people nearby choked back laughter.
The boy's expression darkened.
"When the test is over, we'll see if you still talk like that."
Lin Yuan looked at him without changing expression.
"Fine."
More than the word itself, it was the tone that enraged the other boy. It was empty acceptance. Total lack of interest. As though the threat were not even worth the effort of a firm refusal.
At that moment, the sect's narrow-faced disciple raised his voice and called another name. The tension broke just enough to force the three boys to step away.
Before leaving, the butcher's son glanced at Lin Yuan's chest and pointed with his chin at the medallion faintly visible beneath his robe.
"Don't forget to bring your family treasure, orphan. Maybe you'll impress the elders with your scrap metal."
The three of them walked off laughing.
Lin Yuan did not answer.
But his fingers brushed the medallion through the cloth.
Cold.
As always.
Even so, the comment left him uneasy in a way that was hard to explain. Not because of the mockery. He was too used to that. It was because, ever since his conversation with the blacksmith the day before, the medallion had shifted places inside his mind.
It was no longer only a memory.
It was a question.
"You shouldn't start fights before the last test."
The voice came from behind him. Lin Yuan turned slightly.
Qiao Ren had returned after completing his own meridian evaluation. His face was pale and his hair clung to his forehead with sweat.
"I didn't fight," Lin Yuan said.
Qiao Ren made a face.
"With your mouth, you did."
That drew the shadow of a smile from Lin Yuan.
"How did it go?"
The boy lowered his eyes.
"I don't know. The disciple didn't say much. He just wrote something down and set me aside. I don't think that's a good sign."
Lin Yuan nodded slowly.
He did not lie with empty phrases like, "I'm sure you'll be fine." Nor did he feign optimism. Perhaps because of that, Qiao Ren let out his breath with less tension.
"You'll pass," he said at last.
"You don't know that."
"No. But you walk like you already decided you're not going to lose."
Lin Yuan looked at the inscribed disk, where another aspirant had just finished his test.
"Deciding something doesn't mean the world will obey."
Qiao Ren followed his gaze.
"It still helps."
A brief silence settled between them.
In the square, people held their breath whenever the artifact reacted more intensely. The recruiters continued to display the same practical indifference. They called names, pricked fingers, read results, wrote things down. One life, another life, another life.
Quick.
Cold.
As if fate could be sorted onto a wooden tablet.
A woman burst into tears when her son was dismissed. Another father clenched his fists in helpless rage. A tall boy walked out with his face burning with pride when one of the disciples nodded in satisfaction.
It all happened beneath the same sun and in the same dirt square, but for each person it was a different world.
Lin Yuan watched it and felt a bitter clarity.
The people of the village always spoke of cultivation as a blessing.
It was.
But it was also a gate.
And a gate, by nature, let some through and shut others out.
There was no mercy in that.
No justice either.
Only difference.
His thoughts went back to Drystone.
To the small houses.
To the smoke rising from the hearths.
To Old Mei counting grains before winter.
To the children in the orphanage fighting over the last piece of bread.
To the men in the fields, bent before they were forty.
To the women who aged twice as fast under labor and worry.
To the people who said things like, "This is our fate," simply because they had never seen a crack through which anything better could enter.
Without cultivation, life was a circle.
Work.
Fall ill.
Grow old.
Die.
And, if lucky, leave behind someone else to bear the same weight.
Lin Yuan did not want that circle.
Not because he despised those trapped inside it, but because he had already spent too many years feeling it close around him.
"Lin Yuan."
The name rang out from the center of the square.
It was the narrow-faced disciple.
It was his turn.
Qiao Ren gave him an awkward pat on the arm.
"Go."
Lin Yuan stepped forward.
The square seemed to narrow as he walked toward the metal disk. Each step raised a small cloud of dust. The murmur grew quieter, though it did not disappear entirely.
He felt several familiar gazes on him.
Qiao Ren's, tense.
The three boys who had provoked him, expectant.
The people from the orphanage who had come to watch from the edge of the square.
And something more.
The elder's gaze, heavier than before.
Lin Yuan held out his hand when instructed.
The impatient-faced disciple took one of his fingers without gentleness and pricked the tip with a fine needle. A drop of blood welled up at once.
The young man let it fall into a small groove in the disk.
The inscriptions on the surface lit faintly, like lines of red ash beneath old metal.
"Put your hand here," he ordered.
Lin Yuan obeyed.
The metal was icy.
For an instant, nothing happened.
Then he felt a strange tingling rise through his fingers, move up his wrist, and sink into his forearm like a thin current exploring his insides.
He barely frowned.
The disk vibrated.
One of the side needles moved.
Then another.
The disciple tilted his head. The elder stepped forward.
The vibration changed.
It became unstable.
A line of light began to move along one of the grooves in the disk and then stopped abruptly. Another tried to move, but faltered and retreated. A third flickered irregularly.
The narrow-faced disciple looked up.
This time there was emotion on his face.
It was not admiration.
It was surprise.
And something close to distaste.
The elder frowned.
"Remove your hand."
Lin Yuan obeyed.
He felt his heart beat a little faster, though his face did not change.
The elder tilted the disk slightly toward himself and observed the indicators. The disciple showed him the tablet where he had recorded the previous results. They exchanged a few words so low Lin Yuan could not hear them.
But he could see their expressions.
And he knew.
Not what, exactly.
But the tone of what was coming.
It was not good.
"Wait to the side," the elder said without looking at him directly.
Lin Yuan stepped aside.
Qiao Ren opened his mouth as if to ask something, but did not dare. The three boys who had mocked him earlier looked impatient to learn the result.
The test continued.
Two more aspirants.
Then three.
Then another four.
Lin Yuan remained still, hands behind his back and mind taut as a drawn cord.
It was not exactly fear that he felt.
It was an old pressure, a familiar one.
The sensation of standing on the edge of hearing a sentence pronounced.
When at last they were done with all the aspirants, the sect elder stepped forward with the tablet in his hand.
The square held its breath.
"The preliminary results will now be announced," he declared in a firm voice. "Those who are named will step forward. Those who are not will return to their homes and not interfere with the order of selection."
He began reading names.
Two boys from local families with acceptable spiritual perception.
A young woman from a neighboring hamlet with middling meridians.
A thin boy who had surprised them at the perception sphere.
Qiao Ren's name was not called.
The boy's shoulders slumped.
Neither was Lin Yuan's.
The elder finished the list.
There was joy on some faces, disappointment on many others.
And then, when the murmur was beginning to rise, the narrow-faced disciple leaned toward the elder and said something.
The elder lowered his eyes to the tablet once more.
Then he spoke.
"There is one additional case."
The square quieted again.
"Lin Yuan."
Lin Yuan stepped forward.
All eyes fixed on him.
The elder observed him in silence for two long breaths.
Then he said, with coldness as precise as a blade,
"Your spiritual perception exists. Your body is not weak. But your meridians..."
The entire square seemed to tighten.
All at once, Lin Yuan felt the air turn too dry.
"...are severely damaged."
There was no immediate reaction.
Only a strange, baffled silence.
The elder continued.
"Spiritual energy can barely circulate through your body in a stable manner. Even if we were to accept you as a servant or trial outer disciple, your chances of advancing along the path of cultivation would be nearly nonexistent."
Then the silence broke.
Murmurs.
Exclamations.
Quick whispers.
The three boys who had provoked him earlier were the first to smile.
Qiao Ren looked at him with a mixture of pity and confusion.
Lin Yuan remained motionless.
Only his fingers at his sides slowly clenched.
"In other words," the elder concluded, and this time his voice was loud enough for everyone to hear clearly, "though you were not born completely blind to qi, you were born without a path."
The words fell over the square like stones.
Without a path.
Lin Yuan felt something dry tear open inside him.
He said nothing.
He could not.
Because if he opened his mouth in that moment, he did not know whether a reply would come out or something much worse.
And then the laughter came.
First one.
Then another.
Then several.
Mockery, when it smells blood, always arrives faster than compassion.