The limousine moved silently down the avenue, swallowing streetlights one by one. No one spoke.
Chen Yong sat on the edge of the seat, staring at the floor. His hands were clasped together. There was no arrogance in his posture anymore—only poorly digested tension.
Li Wei leaned against the window, breathing through his mouth, his body wrapped in improvised bandages.
When they reached the penthouse, the young master paused before entering."Thanks... for saving me," he murmured without lifting his gaze.
Li Wei looked at him for a second."Try not to need saving again," he said, and entered first.
In his room, Li Wei stripped off the ruined suit and collapsed onto the mattress. He didn't turn on the light. Didn't reach for medicine.
"Three cultivators... for a damn book," he whispered. "And that pot..."
He fell silent.
His side still burned, but something deeper disturbed him—something that hadn't settled inside him.
He closed his eyes.
And dropped.
When he opened them, he wasn't in the room.
He stood in a black space, with no ground or sky. Around him floated lights of all colors and sizes: red spheres like embers, blue ones like ice, green like liquid jade.
Some drifted slowly. Others vibrated as if alive.
In the center of the void floated a gray flame—still, but alive. It didn't burn. It pulsed.
Li Wei took a step, and the echo vanished.
"What is this...?" he muttered.
And deep in that silence... something heard him.
Li Wei didn't know where he was.
Only that it wasn't a dream.
The void pulsed like a distant heartbeat. The orbs floated in silence—blue like ice, green like poison, gold like memories... but the red ones vibrated differently. As if something inside them wanted to escape.
And in the center, the gray flame. It didn't burn. It didn't glow. It simply hung there, suspended. And its mere presence made his bones ache.
Li Wei stared at it and felt a chill that wasn't physical. Fear. Real fear. Primal.
He didn't know why.
He didn't want to approach the flame. So he turned toward the floating lights, confused, unsettled. He reached out to one of the red spheres, about the size of his fist.
He merely brushed it with his fingers.
And the world collapsed.
A piercing pain split his skull. His vision shook. Colors distorted. It felt like thousands of voices tried to invade his mind at once, tearing his consciousness from within.
"Agh...!"
He clutched his head with both hands. Fell to his knees. Blood poured thick and hot from his nose.
The scream was silent. The space had no echo.
The surrounding lights retreated in fear.
The red sphere vibrated one moment more, then darkened—leaving him trembling.
Then everything turned black.
His body fell into the void, unconscious.
The sky outside darkened slowly, as if night itself hesitated to fall over the city.
The penthouse lights activated in sequence, silently, following automated patterns that ignored the tension in the air.
Chen Yong checked the clock for the third time. It was almost eight.
Li Wei hadn't left his room since the night before.
He had decided to ignore him during the day, convinced the man was either asleep or avoiding him after the auction humiliation. But now, with dinner served and the hallways dead quiet, something unsettled him. An anxiety he couldn't name—guilt, fear, or simple nerves.
He stopped in front of Li Wei's door. The hallway light reflected off the wood, making it look heavier, more hostile. He knocked gently.
"Li Wei?"
Nothing.
He knocked again, harder.
"Li Wei! Are you in there?"
Absolute silence. No growl. No insult.
He swallowed hard. Hesitated... and pushed the door open.
The room was dim. The blinds blocked almost all outside light, except for a golden line that cut across the carpet. The air smelled of sweat, damp bandages, and dried blood.
Li Wei lay on the mattress, shirtless, torso roughly bandaged. The side bandage was soaked—but what froze Chen Yong was something else: a dry streak of blood ran from the guard's nose down to his neck. His breathing was shallow. His lips slightly parted. He looked like someone on the edge of collapse.
"Li Wei!" he cried, crossing the room in two steps.
He bent over and shook him awkwardly, unsure whether to move him.
"Wake up! Hey! Are you alive?"
Then, without warning, Li Wei's eyes opened.
Dark. Cold. Alert.
"Why are you bothering me...?" he muttered, voice low and grave, as if rising from a deep well. "I was sleeping."
Chen Yong stepped back immediately, stunned.
"Sleeping? You've got blood all over your face!"
Li Wei sat up slowly, unhurried, like someone waking from an uncomfortable nap. He touched his nose, noticed the dryness, and frowned.
"I've woken up in worse places," he growled.
"What happened to you?" Chen Yong asked, his usual arrogance gone.
"Nothing you need to understand," Li Wei replied, lowering his legs off the bed. "It was just a nightmare. Long. Heavy."
Chen Yong looked at him with a mix of fear and curiosity. He hesitated to ask more, but Li Wei's expression stopped him. He no longer looked like the man who had protected him at the auction. There was something else in his face, something unidentifiable... but it made him step back.
Li Wei stood up, swaying slightly. His body was covered in cold sweat. He grabbed a water bottle, drank it in one go, then fixed his eyes on the young master.
"If you enter my room without permission again, next time I'll make sure I'm awake."
He didn't say it like a threat. He said it like an inevitable truth.
Chen Yong said nothing. He simply nodded and left in silence.
Li Wei sat again, this time with a straight back and his gaze locked on an invisible point. The hum inside him—that dull echo—was still there.
And with it, the images.
He remembered the void. The black space where he floated. The colored lights. And above all, the gray flame.
But now, as he blinked in the dark, those visions weren't just vague memories. They were alive in his mind. Words, symbols, diagrams... appeared like mental tattoos in his consciousness. He knew they weren't his. He hadn't learned them. He hadn't read them.
And yet... he understood.
Fragments of an impossible language danced on his inner tongue. Phrases in languages he had never heard, filled with power, resonated like forgotten mantras. He saw pages of ancient books flash before his closed eyes, his fingers brushing letters burned into parchment he had never touched.
And the most disturbing part... were the techniques.
Not just images. Instructions. Rhythms. Seals. Diagrams.
He knew what they were. Cultivation techniques. Not for the body. Not for the soul. For Qi.
And they weren't basic.
One detailed how to weave the primary meridians, using sequential pressure to alter Qi flow without opening the Dantian. Another showed how to create a temporary vortex in the solar plexus, accelerating the purification of ambient Qi for a few valuable minutes without exhausting willpower. A third, more dangerous, technique described controlled collapse of secondary nodes to absorb Qi from fallen enemies through reverse breathing.
Among these fragments was something called the Law of Inner Flame. Not a technique, but a theory. A way of interpreting Qi as a living flame, capable of burning impurities not only from the body but from reality itself. Those who mastered it could refine their Qi to such an extent that even Foundation Realm cultivators would mistake them for someone far more advanced.
Li Wei had never read this.
Had never heard those words.
But he understood them.
As if someone had carved that knowledge into his soul. As if, by touching that broken vessel, he had inherited a library that did not belong to this world.
And now he understood what it meant.
He was at the end of his physical path. But his Qi—latent, neglected—was still at its lowest stage. And yet, with these techniques... he could open his meridians. Form his Dantian. Build a solid foundation.
He could cultivate.