Morning breaks pale and uncertain. Mist coiling through the mountain road like a living thing, clinging to pines and stone alike. Zhen Yan walks alone, footsteps steady, unhurried. The rain of the previous night has washed the dust from his robes, yet the red blossoms along the hem seem darker now, as if steeped in memory rather than water. Xu Ren's final words echo without sound. Families whose names never appear. Pruning the weak. Amusement. Zhen Yan does not feel rage because rage burns too brightly, consuming too quickly. What settles in his chest instead is something colder, heavier—certainty.
The road leads him toward Qinglu Pass, a narrow stretch of land where merchants, cultivators, and messengers must pass if they wish to reach the inner provinces. If there are roots beneath silk, they will draw nourishment here. By noon, he reaches an inn perched against the mountainside. Its sign creaks softly in the wind. Travelers gather within—some loud, some cautious, some pretending not to listen. Zhen Yan steps inside without drawing attention, choosing a seat near the wall.
Tea is poured as the bowls clink, conversation flows.
"…another village wiped clean," someone murmurs.
"They say it was bandits."
"Bandits don't leave ledgers."
Across the room sits a man dressed in plain gray robes, posture relaxed, eyes lowered. Too relaxed. Too aware. When Zhen Yan shifts slightly, the man's fingers pause for half a breath before resuming their grip on his cup.
A watcher. But not a killer—but a messenger.
Zhen Yan finishes his tea and rises. As he passes, a folded scrap of paper slips from his sleeve, landing silently beneath the other man's table.
The man stiffens.
Later, outside the inn, the mountain wind carries the faint sound of footsteps following, but they soon come to a stop at a narrow cliff path overlooking a deep ravine with clouds drifting below like an endless sea.
"You are not fine," the messenger says, voice tight. "Did you mean to be followed?"
Zhen Yan turns slowly. The bamboo hat shades his mask, hiding everything except intention. "I meant for you to choose," he replies. "Run—or speak."
The messenger swallows. "If I speak, they will kill me."
Zhen Yan steps closer, boots stopping just short of the cliff's edge. "If you do not, they already have."
Silence stretches.
Then the man exhales shakily. "I carry seals. Invitations. Commands wrapped as courtesy." He pulls the scrap of paper from his sleeve. "This symbol—do you recognize it?"
Zhen Yan does.
A stylized crest, elegant and ancient, once glimpsed in passing when the Zhen Family still stood—embroidered on the robes of those who never looked down.
"Their banquets are lavish," the messenger continues. "Their halls quiet. They speak of harmony while villages burn."
Zhen Yan's grip tightens. "Where?"
The messenger points east.
That night, Zhen Yan watches from the forested hills as lanterns illuminate a grand estate below. Silk banners sway gently in the breeze. Laughter drifts faintly upward, carried on music and wine. A celebration.
The contrast is almost obscene.
Zhen Yan kneels among the trees, ghost mask reflecting lantern-light in fragments. His daggers are laid out before him, checked, balanced, returned to their hidden places. The sword rests across his knees, patient.
"So this is where the roots drink," he murmurs.
Below, servants move like ants. Guards patrol in lazy patterns, unaccustomed to threat. Inside those walls sit men and women who have never seen blood in their own hands—and never needed to. Zhen Yan rises. The forest seems to lean inward as he moves, shadows parting for him as if recognizing something inevitable. Far away, within silk-draped halls, laughter rises. It does not know yet, that the wind has already arrived.
Night settles gently over the estate, like a silk blanket drawn to hide rot beneath. Lanterns sway along carved corridors, their light warm, their glow practiced. Music fades into laughter, laughter into polite applause. The celebration within the great family's outer estate continues uninterrupted—wine poured, verses exchanged, alliances affirmed with smiles that never reach the eyes.
Zhen Yan moves where the light does not.
He crosses the outer wall without a sound, fingers finding old stone seams, feet touching down like falling leaves. The bamboo hat comes off, secured at his back. The ghost mask remains. In places like this, faces are masks already—his merely honest.
Guards patrol the gardens in pairs. Their steps are lazy, their attention dulled by years of peace bought with other people's lives. Zhen Yan times their routes, counts their breaths, and memorizes the rhythm of their confidence.
When he moves, it is between heartbeats.
A tap at the neck. A precise strike at the wrist. Two guards sink into sleep among the peonies, never seeing the red blossoms stitched along his hem as he passes. The estate is vast. Corridors branch like veins, leading deeper toward the heart. Zhen Yan does not rush. He follows the pull in his chest—the same cold instinct that once guided him home through night markets, through rain, through memory.
He stops before a side hall guarded not by soldiers, but by silence. No footsteps, no servants, only a sealed door marked with the same ancient crest the messenger showed him. Zhen Yan exhales. Inside, the air is cool and dry.
Shelves line the walls, stacked with scrolls, ledgers, sealed documents bound in silk cords. The smell of ink and old paper fills the room. This is not a treasury of gold.
It is a treasury of truth.
Zhen Yan moves from shelf to shelf, eyes scanning names, dates, locations. Villages listed like commodities. "Operations" recorded with detached precision. Casual notes in elegant script: Population reduced. Resistance minimal. Entertainment satisfactory.
His fingers still before he then finds it.
A thin ledger, older than the others, its edges worn from use. He opens it slowly.
Zhen Village.
Zhen Family — adopted child: male, infant.
Outcome: eradicated. Survivor unconfirmed.
The world narrows.
For a moment, there is no sound—no music, no laughter, no wind. Only the steady beat of his heart, each pulse measured, controlled, restrained by years of discipline.
"So it was written," he murmurs.
There is no shaking in his hands, or crying in his throat. Grief has long since burned itself into something harder, something sharper.
As he closes the ledger, footsteps approach. Zhen Yan slips into shadow as the door opens.
Two men enter—well-dressed, refined, voices low with amusement.
"Did you hear?" one says lightly. "Another coordinator lost. Such a shame. These tools grow unreliable."
The other chuckles. "Tools break. We replace them. That is the privilege of standing above."
They stop. One of them glance at the ledger and frowns. "Was this ledger moved?"
Zhen Yan steps out. The lantern flickers. The ghost mask reflects their pale faces, distorted and trembling.
"Who—" one begins.
A dagger flashes, striking the wall beside his head, pinning his sleeve without touching flesh. The message is clear.
"Sit," Zhen Yan says calmly.
No other words leave their mouth as they do what is told. Minutes later, the room is silent again. Zhen Yan stands alone, ledgers secured beneath his robes. He has learned enough—for now. Names. Routes. Hierarchies. And something else, something deeper: the certainty that this estate is only a branch.
The roots lie further in. As he exits the hall, distant laughter reaches him once more. A toast is raised somewhere. A song begins. Zhen Yan pauses at a balcony overlooking the inner gardens. Lantern-light glows on polished stone, on silk sleeves, on faces untouched by consequence.
He does not strike tonight.
Not yet.
"Enjoy your celebration," he whispers into the wind. "You are standing on borrowed time."
Then he disappears, leaving the silk halls intact—
But no longer untouched.