The disciples of the Four-Leaf Clover Sect began their preparations for the event scheduled for the following day. Although many of them already had assigned masters or instructors, few were willing to miss the opportunity to study under the newly appointed Guest Elder, whose arrival had caused a true uproar earlier that very afternoon.
Among those preparing was Wang Tao.
Of ordinary appearance, with dark hair and eyes, his unremarkable features would hardly draw attention—were it not for the robes trimmed with red edges, the unmistakable symbol of his status as a core disciple of the sect.
One of the exceedingly rare cultivators to reach the eighth level of Body Refinement before the age of twenty, Tao bore expectations that few could endure. Abundant privileges and resources came hand in hand with relentless, almost suffocating pressure. Even so, no one suspected that behind that exemplary figure lay a past steeped in darkness.
Wang Tao had joined the Four-Leaf Clover Sect two years earlier, at the age of sixteen. The official reason was never disclosed. The truth, however, was simple—and bloody: the assassination of an Internal Elder, a cultivator of the Qi Absorption Realm.
Tao was a member of one of the most feared criminal organizations in the province: the Invisible Hand. A hidden force responsible for assassinations, infiltrations, and political destabilization throughout the region.
His bond with the organization had begun far too early.
At the age of six, he witnessed the murder of his own parents. Upon recognizing his innate talent for the metal and water elements, the members of the Invisible Hand chose to spare him—not out of mercy, but utility. From that day onward, Tao was shaped into a tool. Espionage, infiltration, poison-focused medicine, silent execution techniques—every lesson was accompanied by pain, control, and fear.
Regarded as one of the organization's most promising talents, he was destined to rise swiftly through its ranks—were it not for the deep hatred he harbored toward his captors. A hatred kept tightly restrained, sealed by the poison that permanently flowed through his veins—an invisible shackle that rendered betrayal impossible.
Now, however, with the emergence of the new Guest Elder, an unforeseen variable had appeared. A future never calculated by the Invisible Hand was slowly beginning to take shape.
Tao had never doubted his goal.
Only the path to reach it.
"Perhaps this new Elder can help me…" he murmured to himself.
Closing his eyes, he returned to his cultivation.
Meanwhile, in one of the residential areas reserved for external disciples, a sixteen-year-old girl moved her hands restlessly before a canvas.
Yellow paint was applied without restraint, spreading in nervous strokes that outlined golden hair and the precise features of the young man she had seen earlier that afternoon, standing upon the podium.
"Why did he seem so perfect?" Yan Li murmured, unable to understand why the image of the new Elder unsettled her so deeply.
Beautiful by conventional standards, she had dark hair and eyes, skin pale as snow. Even by her own judgment, she would have been perfectly harmonious—if not for the small freckles scattered across her cheeks. Still, Yan Li rarely evaluated herself by such measures.
She was obsessed with beauty.
Regardless of its origin, whenever something captivated her, she sought to imprison it on the canvas, to eternalize it through painting.
"Just one more touch…" she whispered.
The piece was complete. Ethereal, almost unreal, it reproduced the young man's face exactly as she had seen it hours before.
Then, Yan Li screamed.
In a burst of incandescent fury, she tore the canvas in half. Then into four. Then into smaller fragments, until nothing remained but irregular strips scattered across the floor.
"Why?!" her voice faltered. "It's not the same… it doesn't evoke the same feeling!"
Indignant, she collapsed to her knees.
Yan Li hailed from a noble family of cultivators in Cloud Prefecture. As in many patriarchal families, the arts were entrusted to women: culinary arts, music, calligraphy, painting. Yet Yan Li had always been different.
From a very young age, she displayed extraordinary talent in painting. She learned proportion, symmetry, and technique with almost cruel rigor. After years of exhausting repetition, she was regarded as one of the greatest artists in the prefecture.
And yet, she was never satisfied.
Every painting seemed incapable of containing the beauty she sought to express, as though something essential always slipped through the material itself. For that reason, few of her original works had survived—and those that remained existed only because they were beyond her immediate sight.
"Why is it always like this…" she murmured, pulling at her hair in frustration.
She rose slowly, her eyes still burning.
"I need to see him again."
She was determined to take the test, even if only to observe him once more. There was something sublime about the new Elder—something that resonated deep within her soul.
"I will pass this test. One way or another."
Her eyes shone with resolve.