The air on the docks was a cold, wet cloth pressed against his face.
Fog slithered between the stacks of crates, swallowing the anemic light of the few swaying lanterns.
Li Xian moved through the pre-dawn gloom, his Yunhai token granting him access to the sealed-off wharf where his family's ledgers were bundled for seizure. He was here to verify the inventory before the Guild took possession.
The first warning was the silence.
The usual night sounds of the river had vanished. It was replaced by a suspiciously calm and silent eerie.
A flicker of movement in the fog resembles th glint of lantern light on oiled steel. It was heavenly.
He smelled the bloodlust before he saw the blade.
It was a professional hit.
He dodged, not with the practiced grace of a cultivator, but with the desperate, twitchy reaction of a cornered animal.
Whush.
The knife hissed past his ear, close enough to feel the cold wake of its passage. He stumbled back on slick planks, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Two figures emerged from the fog, their faces wrapped in black cloth. One was silent, his movements economical and deadly.
The other was antsy, his grip on his blade too tight.
"You're a hard boy to find alone," the antsy one grunted.
Li Xian kept his breathing steady, forcing a mocking tone. "And you people don't even walk quietly. Did Steward Zhao pay you by the hour or per silence?"
He chuckled.
He saw the flash of anger in the man's eyes.
That's good. Anger makes a man sloppy.
He backpedaled, his eyes scanning the environment, logging every crate, every coil of rope, every shadow.
Feigning a stumble, he lured them forward, then darted sideways into a narrow gap between two towering stacks of cargo.
A perfect funnel.
They followed him in, their blades held ready.
They were forced into a single way because of the narrow space.
"Nowhere to run, little master," the chatty one sneered.
Li Xian yanked a thick mooring rope hanging from a nearby crane.
A heavy iron hook swung down like a pendulum, forcing the lead assassin to duck.
As he did, Li Xian kicked a small, sturdy crate into his path, making him stumble.
The second man tried to push past, and Li Xian threw the contents of a small clay pot at the deck in front of him.
It was a lantern oil.
The man's foot slipped. He went down with a curse, with his partner now blocked by his own` rolling body.
It was a chaotic, ugly series of moves, born of desperation and not skill. It created a single, precious opening.
Li Xian did not know martial arts yet.
He lunged for the fallen man, the one who talked too much.
He didn't try to disarm him. He slammed a crate down on the man's wrist, pinning his weapon hand to the deck.
A pained grunt. Before the assassin could recover, Li Xian looped a loose rope around his neck and cinched it tight to a nearby piling.
The man was trapped, half-choked, his weapon arm useless.
The silent assassin hesitated at the entrance to the alley, seeing his partner instantly neutralized.
Li Xian ignored him, focusing on his captive. He didn't torture. He negotiated with the blade of his own menace.
"Answer my questions," Li Xian said, his voice a low, cold whisper. "You leave with all your fingers. Lie to me, and I'll start taking them as payment."
The man spat a bloody tooth onto the planks. "You're not worth this much trouble."
Which meant he absolutely was.
Li Xian leaned in close, his checklist ready.
"Who paid you?"
"A handler. I don't know his name." A lie.
"Where do you collect your payment?"
Silence.
"Who benefits from my death? I need a name. Not a steward. I want the name of the man who gives the steward his orders."
The assassin's eyes flickered with fear. "You're courting death."
"I've been courting death all week. It's getting boring."
Li Xian pressed a knee onto the man's pinned wrist, earning a sharp gasp of pain.
"The. name."
"Disciple... Disciple Han," the man choked out.
The name of a River Gate Sect outer disciple. The fear in the assassin's voice when he spoke it was real.
That confirmed the hierarchy.
"Disciple Feng sent you, then," Li Xian said, feeding him a false detail.
"No, not Feng!" the man corrected instantly. "Han hates him. This was... an internal matter."
He had just confirmed he knew the Sect's inner politics.
He was telling the truth.
Li Xian searched the man's pockets. He found a few coins and a small, crudely carved wooden charm.
As his fingers closed around it, the Dao Matrix surged, a wave of desperate, slobbering hunger.
The charm was old. It was a relic.
Not now, Glutton, he thought, his own pulse screaming with a different kind of excitement.
He pocketed it, his expression unreadable.
He also found a small, folded piece of paper.
A pawn ticket from a local alchemist's stall.
His eyes caught a second, smaller stamp in the corner of the ticket, almost hidden.
It was a Yunhai Guild auction code, matching the salvage lot from the list He Yunfei had given him.
It was then that the silent assassin had vanished back into the fog.
A professional recognizes a failed operation.
Li Xian looked down at his captive. He could kill him. He could cripple him.
Instead, he took the man's knife and neatly sliced the tendons in his right hand.
A scream, quickly muffled.
"Go back to Disciple Han," Li Xian whispered. "Tell him the disposable son sends his regards. And that he now has a witness."
He left the man bleeding and sobbing, then kicked over a stack of barrels, making the scene look like a dock accident gone wrong. A receipt for Zhao's network.
He returned to the western courtyard as the sun began to rise, hiding the gash on his arm.
Yu Yan was waiting. She saw the fresh tear in his sleeve, the faint smear of blood he'd missed.
She didn't ask what happened.
"How many more times," she asked in the air, her voice heavy, "will you come home wet from the river?"
Meanwhile.
Alone in his room, Li Xian studied the pawn ticket.
The Dao Matrix was a constant, aching pressure behind his eyes, a hunger that gnawed at his thoughts.
He finally understood. Glutton didn't provide free power. It was a business model.
Relics were the raw materials. Growth was the product. Cultivation was just a violent form of commerce.
He laid out his plan.
First, the alchemist's stall on the pawn ticket. Then, the Yunhai salvage auction. And then, he would pay a visit to the River Gate Sect.
Li Xian smiled, a cold, predatory thing.
He whispered to the silent, starving presence in his mind.
"Glutton... if you want to eat history—"
"—I'll build you a market."