The dawn mist still clung to the mountainside when Wang Lin opened his eyes.
He hadn't slept.
Not since the crawler fled into the floor beneath Pavilion Seventeen. Not since he felt the way its formless terror shivered beneath his bloodline pulse.
The egg now floated quietly in his personal spiritual inventory, pulsing like a second heart — silent, but watchful.
Outside, the clouds rolled slowly past the cliffs. Light filtered down, dim and cold, just enough to make the courtyard shimmer. Wang Lin stood at the threshold of his meditation chamber, robe sleeves shifting in the breeze.
He could feel it — faint tremors across the sect. Not tremors in the ground, but in attention. A pressure from those trying too hard not to look like they were watching.
"They're still tracking you.
Trying to look casual about it, but even casual leaves footprints."
"They sent something that couldn't speak," Wang Lin murmured. "Which means now they'll send someone who can."
He didn't have to wait long.
A knock came.
Three taps.
Not rushed. Not panicked. But too soft for a messenger. Too hesitant for an elder. And too familiar.
He opened the door.
A girl stood there, her outer sect robe clinging to her form in the breeze, a scroll held tightly in her hand. Her braid was the same. Her face thinner. But Wang Lin remembered her.
Yue Chan.
She didn't look surprised to see him alive.
She looked like she'd been dreading this moment for weeks.
"You shouldn't be seen with me," Wang Lin said flatly.
"That's not why I came."
"Then you've forgotten how to stay safe."
She held out the scroll. "I came to warn you."
He didn't take it.
"I don't want your pity," he said coldly.
"It's not pity," she said, and this time her voice had strength. "It's guilt. And survival."
She pushed the scroll into his hand.
He unfolded it slowly, watching her the entire time.
Only one name was written on the parchment.
Elder Wun Tian.
Wang Lin's eyes narrowed.
"Is that supposed to frighten me?"
"It should," she whispered. "He's the one who sent the crawler. I heard them talking in the restricted archives. I work with one of his aides — he doesn't know I listened. But he'll know soon."
Wang Lin rolled the scroll back up.
"What do they want?"
Yue Chan shook her head.
"They're not sure yet. That's what's worse. They think you're… a reflection of something they buried. Something ancient. The egg—whatever it is—they believe it doesn't belong in mortal hands."
"They're not wrong. But they're also too late."
Wang Lin's eyes flicked slightly upward. Yue Chan didn't notice.
"They don't understand what it is," she continued. "But they've started opening records that haven't been touched in centuries. They're scared."
"They should be."
She paused.
"You've changed," she said.
He stared at her, expression unreadable.
"I broke. Then I sharpened the pieces."
"You're calmer than you were yesterday.
But the weight of what you're carrying is finally making others sweat."
Wang Lin stepped back into the pavilion and let the door stay open.
Yue Chan hesitated at the threshold.
"I'm not here to beg forgiveness," she said. "I just… I don't know what I would've done if I hadn't come."
"Then don't do anything else," he said. "Not unless you're prepared to lose everything."
She gave a slow nod, swallowed, and stepped back from the doorway.
"I won't come again."
"Then leave while you still can."
She turned and left without another word.
He closed the door.
In the quiet of the meditation chamber, Wang Lin held the scroll in one hand and summoned the egg into his other.
The shell glowed faintly in the dim light, not blue… but almost white now. A breath of warmth radiated from within, soft and steady. There was no fear. No hesitation.
"It reacted to the name.
When you read it. Just for a second — its energy pulsed and changed frequency."
"It recognizes Wun Tian?"
"No. It recognizes what Wun Tian once touched."
Wang Lin sat down cross-legged on the cold stone floor, both the scroll and the egg between his hands.
"I need to be ready."
"You already are. You just don't know what for yet."
"What about her?" he asked quietly. "Yue Chan."
"She spoke because she feared what silence would cost.
But she'll suffer either way."
He didn't answer.
Just stared at the egg's surface as it flickered once.
Almost like it blinked.
Almost like it heard.
"Soon, we'll have to choose where to stand. Above the sect… or beyond it."
Wang Lin leaned back against the wall.
"The higher we climb," he whispered, "the harder we'll be to reach."
"And the louder the sky will scream when you fall."
He smiled faintly.
"I don't fall anymore."