The smell came before anything else.
Soft. Sweet. Decaying.
Like old flowers left too long on a shrine.
Wei Xie followed it.
It wasn't part of the plan.
But plans, like people, were useful only when they knew when to bend.
---
The sect's outer gardens were usually filled with fragrance. Fragrant plum blossoms, narcissus in winter, or the hanging yellow bells that Elder Yun once used for memory incense.
This was none of them.
The scent lured him through a back corridor he'd never walked before, into an older wing of the servant quarters. Unused. Abandoned.
The door was half-rotted.
His fingers brushed the handle. It opened with a low moan.
Inside: dust, cobwebs, broken wooden screens.
And on the center of the floor—
A lotus. Black as ink. Blooming.
---
He did not enter immediately.
Wei Xie crouched low, watching from the threshold.
There were no roots. No soil. The flower grew out of cracked stone. No light, no water. Impossible.
He'd seen a flower like this once.
In a dream.
No—before that.
In the home of the man who'd killed his mother.
Back when he was six.
The lotus had sat in a ceramic dish filled with red water. A symbol, the man had said. A lesson.
"We rise from filth," he remembered.
"We bloom in blood."
Wei Xie stepped inside.
The air shivered. Not cold. But *wrong*.
Like the moment before a lie is spoken.
He approached the flower. Bent down. Did not touch.
A whisper tickled the edge of his mind.
**"You've already chosen."**
He stood.
"I never had a choice," he replied aloud.
The lotus pulsed once.
Then wilted into ash.
A wind blew through the broken window. The ash scattered across the floor and disappeared into the cracks.
Wei Xie stayed for a moment longer.
Listening.
But nothing answered.
Nothing needed to.
Whatever this was—it had begun long ago.
---
When he returned to the courtyard, a note waited beneath his sleeping mat.
No seal. No ink.
Just a single character burned into silk:
**"Come."**
He didn't sleep that night.
He only waited for the sun to rise.
And with it, the next turn of the wheel.
---
At dawn, the mist did not lift.
The mountain sat beneath a blanket of gray, and the Azure Cloud Sect moved as if underwater.
Quiet. Slow. Weighted.
Wei Xie walked among the outer disciples with the grace of someone invisible.
Not ignored. Not dismissed.
*Unseen.*
He'd spent years crafting this kind of presence.
One that faded into corners. One that never left ripples.
But today, the pond was already disturbed.
He felt it.
A hum beneath the silence. Like threads being pulled from far above.
He reached the central plaza just as the elders arrived.
Elder Qin Yue stood like a blade carved from moonlight. Still. Radiant. Remote.
But beside her stood a man in crimson.
Foreign.
Not sect.
His robes were embroidered with runes in dark thread—twisting symbols that shifted if you stared too long.
Around his neck, a chain of bone talismans clinked softly in the wind.
A blood cultivator.
Wei Xie's spine stiffened.
Blood sects were rarely welcomed in open daylight. Their presence meant permission—or desperation.
He adjusted his pace. Slowed his breath.
The crowd of disciples parted and gathered, whispers like insects in the corners.
Over the next hour, names were called.
Ten outer disciples.
Chosen, the elders said, for a joint-training expedition.
A test. An opportunity.
Wei Xie's name was not among them.
But as the final name was spoken, the man in crimson looked at him.
Not long.
Just a glance.
But in it—
Recognition.
As if he'd been waiting.
Wei Xie did not return the look.
He bowed his head.
And in doing so, delivered his own message:
*I see you too.*
---
The next days passed like whispered rumors.
A servant found dead near the cold spring, eyes wide, body untouched.
An elder's alchemy lab went up in green fire at midnight.
The insects vanished from the mountain paths.
Wei Xie watched it all.
He did not act. Not yet.
But his mind mapped every incident. Every crack in the wall.
And every shadow that didn't belong.
---
One night, just past the third bell, he returned to his quarters and found another note.
This time, it bore a mark: a black lotus etched in dried blood.
And the words:
**"Next moon. The old bell tower."**
He burned it without hesitation.
Then sat in the dark and smiled.
His game was growing.
And he was not the only player.
But he would be the last one standing.
---