The next morning, the sun rose without warmth.
Long Tian was already awake, his hands red from scrubbing spirit beast dung in the lower stalls. The stench clung to his skin, but he didn't flinch. Pain and rot had become familiar companions.
But today felt different.
There was a pull, like gravity turned inward. Something beneath his feet.
The stones were humming.
At first, he thought it was exhaustion. But when he paused near the abandoned ancestral cave behind the Spirit Hall—a place disciples were forbidden to enter—he felt it again.
A breath.
A whisper through the cracks.
Come...
His heartbeat quickened.
He turned to leave—he knew the punishment for trespassing.
But then he saw it: a faint trail of glowing petals, soft as breath, drifting from beneath the sealed cave door. No fragrance. No sound. Just the impossible presence of something alive—and ancient.
"Why does this feel like it's... calling me?"
His hand reached forward without thought.
The stone slab barring the cave—unchanged for a hundred years—shuddered.
A single crimson rune flickered to life across the surface.
Then, silence.
And the door… opened.
---
The Sealed Chamber
Inside, the air was thick—not with dust, but longing.
The walls were lined with carvings that danced like bodies in shadow. Eyes closed. Fingers tangled. Curves met flame. There were no swords. No scriptures. No cold teachings of purity.
Only touch, painted in divine art.
And at the center of it all, on a raised pedestal wrapped in chains of moonlight—
Lay a scroll bound in silk so red it pulsed like skin.
The Lust Sutra.
He didn't know what it was. But he felt it knew him.
The moment his fingers brushed the scroll, the world broke.
---
The Spirit Awakens
He was no longer in the chamber.
He stood in a sea of stars. A world without ground or ceiling. His body floated—naked, weightless, breathless.
And in front of him… she appeared.
A woman.
Not a projection. Not a ghost.
But a presence. A force.
She wore nothing but flowing flame that curled around her curves, moving like a lover's hand. Her hair streamed behind her back in an impossible wind, eyes the color of deepest red.
She looked at him, and for the first time in his life—
He felt seen.
"You… are late," she said. Her voice was silk dipped in fire. "But not too late."
"Who… are you?"
"I am the First Flame. The Memory of Pleasure. The spirit of this Sutra… and the last whisper of the path they buried in shame."
She drifted closer.
"And you… Long Tian… are the Lustful One ."
---