The invitation was sealed with the Empress's personal sigil: a single, stylized feather dipped in crimson wax. It commanded his presence at the "Celebration of Stabilized Heaven."
Xiao Lan held the parchment with trembling hands, as if it might burn her. "Master! An imperial banquet! This is a great honor!"
Bai Yi sat on his floor, leaning against the bed. The world still wavered at the edges. His fast had left him feeble, not dead. The System's status read [Malnourishment: Severe. Natural death possible in 14-21 days.] Two more weeks of gnawing emptiness. He wasn't sure he could stand the smell of Xiao Lan's hopeful rice cakes for that long.
The banquet, however… He'd overheard the guards talking. The feast would feature spirit beast flesh, brimming with violent energy. Wines aged for centuries, potent enough to scorch a mortal's soul. For a cultivator, it was a challenge. For a weak body with no cultivation… it was poison.
Death by lethal gluttony, he thought, a morbid spark lighting in his chest. It was natural. It was accidental. It was perfect.
"Help me up, Xiao Lan," he said, his voice a dry rasp. "I must attend."
The Hall of a Thousand Feasts was a river of light and noise. Long tables groaned under whole roasted beasts that shimmered with internal heat. Fruits glowed with their own soft luminescence. Jugs of wine passed hand to hand, their contents swirling with miniature, tempestuous clouds.
Bai Yi was placed at a low table, far from the Empress's dais but squarely in view. Minister Li sat several tables away, watching him like a hawk.
When the signal to eat was given, the courtiers began with refined, delicate bites, carefully circulating the potent energies they ingested.
Bai Yi did not.
He reached for the nearest platter—a hunk of meat from a Thunder-Bull, crackling with residual lightning. He tore into it with his hands. Juice ran down his chin. He chewed, swallowed, and felt the first bolt of foreign energy stab his stomach like a hot knife.
Good.
He grabbed a goblet of Nine-Peak Mountain Wine and drained it. Fire traced a path down his throat and exploded in his gut, mingling with the lightning.
Better.
He ate. He drank. He ignored the stares. He reached for spirit peppers that numbed the tongue and steamed buns filled with molten custard that threatened to scald. He was a man drowning, and food was his anchor, pulling him down.
A scandalized whisper rippled through the court. "He has no refinement!" "Is he a beast?" "He'll die!"
The whispers turned to murmurs of fascination. "Look at him… he fears none of the chaotic energies." "Is he… is he subduing them through sheer will? This must be the 'Dao of Indulgence'—facing the storm head-on to temper the spirit!"
Empress Hong Yue, seated on her elevated throne, took a small sip from her cup. Her eyes were on Bai Yi. A faint, knowing smirk touched her lips. She saw the desperation beneath the performance. She found it more entertaining than the feast.
Bai Yi's world narrowed to a war inside his body. It was a battlefield. Lightning warred with fire. Ice-wine clashed with pepper-heat. His meridians, tiny and unused, felt like glass capillaries about to shatter. His stomach was a distended, painful drum. The rupture was close. He could feel it.
He slumped back, palms on the floor behind him for support. A deep, guttural groan was torn from him. It was a sound of pure, miserable discomfort.
"A storm of fire and ice within," he moaned, the words bubbling up from the chemical chaos in his gut. "A rebellion of the gut. Oh, chef, what sin?"
The complaint, born of real agony, slipped out.
The air above the banquet hall shimmered. The words, spoken in a pained groan, did not glow. Instead, they vibrated at a frequency that settled.
A visible wave of calm, like a gentle, golden mist, radiated from Bai Yi's table. It washed over the platters of raging spirit-beast meat. The violent energies within them softened, mellowed. It washed over the jugs of tempest-wine. The miniature storms inside stilled to gentle breezes.
Then it washed over the guests.
Minister Li, who had been struggling to digest a particularly fiery morsel, felt a sudden, warm liquefaction in his chest. A wisp of grey smoke—a toxic impurity he'd accumulated from a poorly refined pill—escaped his lips with a sigh. He blinked, feeling lighter, clearer.
All around the hall, the same thing happened. Soft sighs of release punctuated the silence. Aches faded. Headaches cleared. The over-rich food in their stomachs settled into pure, easy nourishment.
The scandal was gone. Replaced by universal, pleasant relief.
A senior minister with a chronic joint ailment stood up, flexing his hand in wonder. "My… the pain is gone. He… he used the banquet! He turned the violent energies into a purifying tide for all of us!"
The hall erupted in quiet, awed chatter.
Bai Yi sat amidst it, his body no longer at the brink of rupture. The storm inside had been harmonized into a warm, gentle flow that seeped into his bones, strengthening them. The System updated.
[Physical Status: Recovering. Impurities Purged. Constitution Slightly Improved.]
[External Event: 'Public Benefactor' reputation solidified. Social capital greatly increased.]
Two servants gently helped him to his feet. He was miserably full. He was horribly healthy.
As he was guided out, supported by their arms, he heard the whispers.
"A true sage… he risked his own well-being to cleanse us all."
"The 'Poem of Digestive Enlightenment'! I will remember it forever!"
"So humble. He didn't even claim credit. He just groaned and saved us."
From her throne, the Empress watched him be carried away. She lifted her cup again, her smirk deepening. She spoke softly, to no one but the void beside her. "He tries so hard to leave. And he only succeeds in painting himself more firmly into the canvas. How very… artistic."
Back in his quarters, Xiao Lan fussed over him. "Master, your great work! The whole servant quarter is talking of your selfless act!"
Bai Yi stared at the ceiling. The warm, purifying energy still hummed in his veins. He didn't feel purified. He felt painted into a corner with gold leaf, a celebrated prisoner in a cage of his own accidental making.
Death by feast had failed. He was now a public figure. A celebrity sage.
His quiet, natural death had never felt farther away.