The sky above Shandong City bled into a gradient of pale orange and deep violet as the sun sank. The wind was unseasonably cool, brushing along the narrow streets like an invisible hand testing for weaknesses.
Lau Rhen's shadow stretched long against the cracked pavement as he made his way home, the faint hum of the day still clinging to the air — voices, laughter, the distant clatter of bowls from street vendors. None of it reached him.
His mind was still in the storage room from earlier that day, replaying every fragment of the conversation he had overheard. The names, the subtle pauses, the odd weight behind the words Watcher. He had memorized the patterns of their breathing when certain topics came up, the twitch in the fingers of the so-called fourth clan elder, the tightening in the jaw of the girl in the foundation establishment stage.
It was all… too precise to be a coincidence.
Even the way they had stood in a loose circle — with their backs partially toward the deep shadowed corner — seemed calculated, as if they knew something else was in the room.
And it wasn't him.
When Lau Rhen reached the apartment building, the thin metal door groaned as he pushed it open. The light from the corridor's flickering bulb reflected faintly off the dusty tile floor, casting uneven shadows up the walls.
His parents were home. He could hear the faint murmur of the television in the living room, but no laughter, no warmth.
"Rhen?" his father's voice carried from the couch.
"Mm." He didn't stop moving, just tossed his bag lightly on the small shoe rack by the wall.
His mother emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a faded towel. Her gaze lingered on him for a moment, searching his face as if she could divine some hidden truth there.
"Are you… really okay?" she asked quietly. "After everything. After us—" She glanced toward his father, then away. "We know we've been… distant lately."
Lau Rhen met her eyes briefly. "I'm fine."
It was the truth, in a way. Fine enough to calculate the breathing rate of an enemy during battle. Fine enough to mask the slight irregularity in his qi flow so no one in school suspected he had been using off-world techniques in the middle of the night. Fine enough to keep his voice perfectly level even when lying.
His father gave a short, awkward chuckle, like he wanted to believe it. "If you say so."
Lau Rhen simply nodded and disappeared into his room, locking the door behind him.
The dim space was his real sanctuary. The desk was bare except for a single ink brush, a stack of blank talisman paper, and a faintly glowing orb the size of a clenched fist — a fragment of crystallized qi he had extracted from an off-world beast two nights ago.
He sat cross-legged on the floor and began arranging the tools for a consciousness transfer.
It wasn't a complicated formation by his standards — twelve anchor points drawn with a fine brush dipped in liquefied spirit ink, their positions calculated to the millimeter so the flow would be both efficient and resistant to interference.
Once everything was ready, he pressed his palm against the crystallized qi and closed his eyes.
The air thickened. His heartbeat slowed, then seemed to echo from far away.
The world tilted.
When his vision cleared, the Off-World stretched around him like a vast, alien tapestry. He was standing on a barren ridge, the wind heavy with metallic dust. In the far distance, the peaks of the Sect's territory rose like the spines of a colossal beast sleeping beneath the earth.
It was here that the patterns of power were clearer — the way qi moved not as an abstract concept but as a tangible current, bending and swirling through the air like luminous threads.
Lau Rhen's steps carried him toward the sect, but he didn't enter. Instead, he skirted the outer wards, observing the shifting ripple of their protective formations.
The elders' signatures were faint but detectable, interwoven with the sect's barrier in a way that told him the Sect trusted their authority more than they trusted the wall of spirit stones beneath their feet.
He noted it all. He always noted everything.
A flicker in the corner of his vision drew his attention.
The ridge sloped into a narrow valley, and there — moving with unsettling stillness — was a Watcher.
Its faceless head tilted slightly, the pale, sinewy body shifting in a way that suggested it was aware of him.
Lau Rhen didn't move. He simply slowed his breathing, drawing his presence inwards until he was little more than a shadow in the qi flow.
The Watcher didn't approach.
It simply stood there, head still tilted, as if… waiting.
That was confirmation enough for Lau Rhen. They were not predators in the traditional sense. They weren't hunting. They were observing.
And someone was using their eyes.
The night deepened around him in the Off-World.
He withdrew quietly, returning to his physical body in his room. The transition was smooth — no lingering nausea, no disorientation — just the faint metallic taste in his mouth that told him he'd been too close to an unknown aura.
He sat there in the dim light for a long moment, fingers resting lightly on the edge of the desk.
Somewhere, someone had just seen him.
And if he was correct… they were already curious.
***
Far from the City, beyond the boundary where mortal maps ceased to be accurate, there was a cliff of black stone overlooking an endless sea of cloud.
The man in white robes stood there as if he had been part of the landscape for centuries. His hair, a dark cascade streaked faintly with silver, swayed gently in the high-altitude wind. The air here was thin, the qi rich enough to condense into faint motes that clung to his sleeves.
His eyes, however, were not on the horizon.
They were fixed on a sphere of liquid shadow floating before him, its surface trembling faintly like disturbed water. Within the darkness, shapes moved — the warped perspective of the Watcher's gaze.
A barren ridge. The edge of a valley. And the boy.
The man's voice was low, a blend of curiosity and calculation. "So… this is the one."
From somewhere behind him, another voice answered — older, heavier, as if the speaker had not spoken to another soul in decades.
"He hides well for his age. Even the Watchers can barely hold his outline."
"That is no simple concealment technique," the man in white said, his eyes narrowing slightly. "It's a compression of qi signature… intentional. Trained. And not within this realm's standard methods."
There was a pause. The older voice carried a hint of skepticism. "You think he is… one of them?"
"I think," the man in white replied, "that whoever taught him is not of the Sect. Or any sect bound to this plane."
Meanwhile, Lau Rhen sat at his desk, his fingertips lightly tapping the wooden surface in an unhurried rhythm.
His mind, however, was moving like a storm.
If the Watcher was there, that meant the elders' quiet meeting in the storage room wasn't meant to be hidden from everything. They had left the corners unguarded… on purpose. Either to lure something in, or to give that something a reason to watch.
Which meant Lau Rhen's presence might not have been the accident he thought it was.
A faint knock came at his door.
"Rhen? Are you still awake?"
It was his neighbor from across the hall — Xiao Xiao. She had been visiting his mother earlier in the week to deliver fresh buns from her aunt's bakery.
Her voice carried the same warmth as before, but there was a trace of hesitation now.
"Mm," he answered. "Come in."
The door opened slightly, and she stepped inside, holding a small porcelain cup. The faint steam curling from it carried the scent of chrysanthemum tea.
"My aunt said you've been looking tired lately. She told me to give you this before you start looking like the old man downstairs."
Lau Rhen allowed the corner of his mouth to twitch — not quite a smile, but the closest he came to one. "Thank her for me."
She studied him for a moment, her gaze lingering on his eyes. "You know, most people blink when someone stares at them."
"I'm not most people."
"I noticed." She set the tea down on the desk, but instead of leaving, she stepped closer, lowering her voice. "Be careful, Lau Rhen. There's been… talk."
"What kind of talk?"
"The kind that spreads when elders don't want people to know something, but still let it slip in places it shouldn't." She glanced toward the window as if the shadows outside might be listening. "They say the Watchers are moving again."
His gaze sharpened. "Again?"
"You don't know?" she asked, surprise flickering across her face. "The last time they appeared, the sects closed half the outer paths for nearly a year. And the disappearances…"
She trailed off, as if she had already said too much.
Lau Rhen didn't press her. Instead, he picked up the tea, feeling its heat seep into his fingers. "Thank you for the warning."
For a heartbeat, she hesitated. Then she turned and left, the faint sound of her steps fading down the corridor.
Far above, on the cliff of black stone, the man in white continued to watch.
Through the Watcher's distorted vision, he had seen the girl, too. Her presence was incidental — ordinary qi flow, unrefined perception — yet there had been a moment when Lau Rhen's attention had softened.
"A weakness?" the older voice asked from the shadows.
The man in white shook his head. "No. But perhaps… a reminder. Even those born with the mind of a blade must decide what they are willing to cut."
The Watcher's gaze rippled and began to fade, its connection drawing thin.
The man in white let it go. The boy would not leave Shandong city just yet. But when he did…
That would be the moment to act.