Days became something you didn't count in Xuandao Sect.
You endured them.
Survived them.
They crawled by in grey dawns, freezing winds, and nights too dark to dream.
The courtyard never thawed completely.
Mud froze into jagged ridges that cut through thin sandals.
Frost traced cracked tiles in white spiderwebs.
Snow fell twice, only to melt into sludge by noon and refreeze by dusk.
Every morning, the cracked bell shrieked over the sect like a dying animal.
It rattled the walls.
Made icicles shiver and fall in deadly spears.
The disciples crawled out of the dorms when it rang.
Eyes hollow.
Lips cracked and bleeding.
Inside that barrack, it was worse.
Stank of damp straw and stale blood.
Murmurs floated in the dark:
"I can't do this anymore."
"Shut up. They'll hear you."
"I'll kill whoever I have to."
"Spirit stones… heated rooms…"
"I'm not dying here."
They sounded like animals, caged and starving.
Wei Lian wasn't among them.
He didn't need their fear.
Or their bargains.
He was outside before the bell.
Always.
At the creek.
Black water that ran so cold it burned.
Mist that crawled over rocks like something alive.
It bit at his feet, numbing them to the bone.
He washed blood from his hands in it every dawn.
Old cuts reopened in the freezing water.
New ones split just from clenching his fists.
He didn't flinch.
Pain was necessary.
Pain was honest.
By the time the others dragged themselves out, he was already there in the courtyard.
Standing alone.
Waiting.
Mu liked to let them suffer.
He'd stand at the front, arms folded, eyes as dead as the frost.
He waited until the last straggler stumbled in.
Until the wind cut through them and they were shivering, teeth chattering.
Then his voice would scrape the silence.
"Drills."
No one protested anymore.
They fell into stances like puppets whose strings had snapped.
Mud sucked at their feet.
Frost burned their fingers as they curled them into fists.
Wei Lian didn't hesitate.
Anchor.
He forced his Qi down.
Muscles tensed.
Sink.
It fought him.
Snarled in his veins.
He strangled it.
Channel.
It squirmed, tried to leak.
He beat it down.
Infuse.
He punched.
Air cracked.
Mud splashed.
Blood spattered.
He heard the others watching him.
"He's insane."
"He doesn't even feel it."
"He's going to kill us all in the trial."
He heard Jin Xiu's hiss once.
"Just let him die from overtraining."
Wei Lian didn't look at them.
Didn't answer.
He punched again.
Elder Mu walked among them.
Boots crunching frost.
Eyes missing nothing.
He stopped behind Han Zi.
"Your stance is garbage."
He slammed his staff into the boy's kneel
Han Zi screamed, collapsing.
Mu didn't blink.
He turned to Jin Xiu.
"Better. But you're leaking Qi at the elbow again."
Jin Xiu seethed.
Corrected it.
When Mu passed Wei Lian, he slowed.
Watched.
Wei Lian deliberately loosened his shoulder.
Let Qi slip at the wrist.
He punched.
Solid.
Flawed.
Mu sneered.
"Again."
Wei Lian obeyed.
Inside, he smiled.
Good.
Don't see me too clearly.
He didn't want Mu to see what he really was.
What he was becoming.
At night, the dorm was nearly silent.
Some cried quietly.
Others muttered prayers.
Some sharpened knives in the dark, eyes gleaming with thoughts of betrayal.
Wei Lian wasn't there to hear it.
He sat at the creek.
Mist wrapped around him like funeral shrouds.
He watched his breath fog and vanish.
Inside, the ember in his dantian glowed.
3rd layer.
Hot.
Obedient.
Hungry.
He felt the crack beneath it.
Wider now.
Waiting.
He practiced alone.
Air cracked with each punch.
Blood dripped into black water, turning the creek red for a moment before vanishing into the current.
He let the cold eat at him.
Steal feeling from fingers and toes.
Numb the old bruises.
Pain was honest.
Pain was proof he was alive.
When he collapsed, exhausted, he'd lie there in the mud.
Breathing.
Listening to the wind scream over the mountain.
Two weeks, Mu had said.
But the days were slipping away.
Each dawn, fewer disciples lined up.
Faces hollow.
Some didn't wake up at all.
Some simply ran in the night, leaving nothing but bloodstained mats behind.
Mu never cared.
"Less trash to feed."
Jin Xiu didn't talk anymore.
He just trained.
Punches sharp.
Breathing ragged.
Han Zi's eyes were sunken pits.
But he didn't leave.
Wei Lian watched them all without blinking.
He memorized their weaknesses.
He punched.
Again.
And again.
The air cracked.
Blood flew.
Pain became routine.
Anchor.
Sink.
Channel.
Infuse.
Mu watched from the shadows sometimes.
Silent.
Judging.
"You want to survive?"
"Hit like it."
And they did.
Or tried to.
By the tenth day, there were whispers:
"The trial's in four days."
"I'm not ready."
"They'll kill us."
"Three stones a month…"
"Heated rooms…"
Promises.
Threats.
Bait.
Wei Lian listened to it all.
And didn't care.
He trained.
By the twelfth day, Mu made them stand in the frost until their teeth chattered so hard they chipped.
"This isn't for you."
"This is for the Sect."
"They don't need all of you."
No one spoke back.
That night, Wei Lian sat at the creek until the moon was just a sliver behind black clouds.
He punched the air, slow and controlled.
Blood ran down his fingers.
Splashed silently into water that took everything.
He closed his eyes.
Inside, the ember burned.
The crack pulsed.
Waiting.
He let himself breathe.
Cold.
Slow.
Careful.
Because tomorrow wasn't for hope.
It was for surviving long enough to be the last one standing.