Chaos has a very particular sound.
It isn't just noise. It's a dissonant blend of screams, wood groaning under thermal stress, and the dull roar of fire devouring oxygen. For most people, that sound paralyzes rational thought. For Xie Luan, it was a melody of opportunity.
Chen Liu had retreated into the corridor, barking orders as guards ran like headless chickens, hunting for buckets. Thick, greasy black smoke began to sink from the ceiling, forming a curtain of darkness that swallowed the floor of the room.
Xie Luan, curled on the tiles, coughing and shielding his head, opened one eye between soot-smeared fingers.
No one was looking at him. Fear of the fire had erased him from their minds. They were animals fleeing an elemental predator.
His gaze slid to the bed turned funeral pyre. Beyond the flames, on the back wall, smoke was beginning to lick at a landscape painting—snowy mountains and cranes in flight. The same painting Elder Mo had stared at, anxious, before trying to break him.
A man's greed is his true testament, Xie Luan thought.
His mind ran the variables in a fraction of a second. The fire would take roughly three minutes to eat through the roof supports. Chen Liu would need at least two minutes to return with water or reinforcements. The distance to the wall was five meters. The heat was lethal—yes. But Xie Luan had just devoured a Foundation Establishment cultivator. He had fuel to burn.
He made a choice.
He wasn't going to flee.
He was going to steal.
Instead of crawling toward the exit, he rolled inward. He stayed low, beneath the most toxic layer of smoke, sliding over carpets that hadn't caught yet. The heat slapped him like a physical force. His eyes dried out. The fine hairs on his arms singed.
He reached the back wall. The painting was already burning around the edges. Xie Luan rose, shielding his face with his sleeve, and tore the canvas down with a sharp yank. The wooden frame cracked apart—revealing what lay behind.
A small door of black steel set into stone. No visible lock. Only a metal plate etched with a seal that glowed with faint red light: a basic protection formation.
Xie Luan smiled through his coughing.
Qi identification. Classic.
If he forced it, the box would explode. If he used his own Qi—either nonexistent or "wrong"—it wouldn't open. But Xie Luan was full of Mo Zha's Qi. He hadn't digested it yet; it sat inside him like carrion inside a vulture.
He placed his pale hand on the hot plate. Closed his eyes. And pushed out a pulse of energy.
Not his.
Mo's.
He imitated the dead Elder's filthy, lust-tainted vibration.
Click.
Steel bolts withdrew with a satisfying metallic sound. The door opened.
There weren't mountains of gold. Mo Zha wasn't that rich. But the essentials were there.
A heavy leather pouch.An old scroll tied with silver thread.And a token.
Xie Luan reached in. The metal scorched his fingers. He grabbed the pouch first—the clinking music of spirit stones colliding was pure satisfaction. Money.
He grabbed the scroll. Knowledge.
Last, his fingers closed around the token.
It was a rectangle of black metal—heavy, cold to the touch despite the blaze. A single symbol was engraved on it: a crane with a snapped neck. The moment he touched it, he felt a malignant vibration—an oath of debt and blood.
So this is the leash that bound the dog, he thought.
He shoved everything into his robe and cinched it tight under his belt, pressing it to his skin. The token's cold edge against his stomach sent a chill through him.
CRACK! A roof beam gave way, crashing onto the burning bed and throwing a rain of sparks.
Time was up.
Xie Luan dropped to the floor again and crawled back toward the door, coughing—this time for real. Smoke had flooded his lungs. His eyes streamed from irritation. He slipped into the corridor just as Chen Liu returned with two disciples carrying buckets.
"There he is!" one guard shouted.
Xie Luan collapsed at the steward's feet—shaking soot and misery. "T-the painting!" he choked, pointing toward the inferno. "I tried to save the Elder's painting… but it burned too much!"
It was a stupid lie—the kind of stupidity expected from a loyal, terrified servant.
Chen Liu didn't even hear him.
He stared at the uncontrolled blaze and knew the pavilion was lost.
"Get him out!" Chen Liu ordered, voice breaking. "Get everyone out! If the fire reaches the alchemy storage, we'll all blow to pieces!"
A guard seized Xie Luan by the collar and dragged him down the corridor, heels scraping polished stone. They burst into the outer courtyard.
Cold night air—wet from recent rain—hit Xie Luan's face like a blessing. He inhaled greedily, washing smoke from his system. The guard dumped him on the soaked grass, far from the burning building.
"Stay there, trash," the guard spat, then sprinted back toward the fire.
Xie Luan lay in the grass, breathing, feeling the weight of the money pouch and the token against his ribs. He'd won. Mo was dead. The money was his. No one suspected.
Then the sky darkened.
It wasn't a cloud.
It was a presence.
A spiritual pressure descended on the courtyard—dense and razor-sharp—stealing breath from every throat. Even the fire seemed to bow, like an animal submitting before a greater predator.
Xie Luan went rigid. Instinct older than empires screamed: Danger. He curled tighter against the ground, hiding his face, shrinking his aura until it was no more than stone.
Something landed on the roof of the main building.
No sound against the tiles.
A man.
He wore immaculate white robes that seemed to glow in the dark, silver embroidery on the sleeves. His face was young—beautiful—and terrifyingly cold. In one hand he held a black iron fan. Behind him, floating like a solid shadow, loomed the spectral silhouette of a massive crane.
The Envoy of the Crane Tower.
Chen Liu stumbled out coughing, saw the man on the roof—and his legs failed. He dropped to his knees in the mud, dignity forgotten.
"E-esteemed Envoy!" Chen Liu shrieked, smashing his forehead into the ground. "We didn't expect you so soon! There has been… a terrible accident!"
The man in white didn't climb down. He looked at the burning pavilion with eyes like frozen glass.
"I see the accident," he said. His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried across the entire courtyard—clean and emotionless. "I see the fire. I smell Mo Zha's death."
The Envoy snapped his fan shut with a dry crack.
"Mo Zha was incompetent. His death doesn't matter to me."His gaze sharpened."But his debt does."
He lifted a hand. A bronze compass appeared in his palm. The needle spun wildly, pointing toward the fire… then wavered, trembling—shifting slightly.
Xie Luan, lying in the grass twenty meters away, felt his heart stop.
The token.
The cursed black token pressed to his stomach was reacting to the compass.
Idiot, Xie Luan cursed himself. It's a tracking object.
He flooded the token with his own Qi, wrapping it, smothering it, trying to isolate its signal. The Envoy's compass needle jittered… then swung back toward the blaze, confused by the massive interference of spiritual flames and the death of the original owner.
The Envoy frowned.
"Seems Mo Zha's stupidity destroyed my payment as well," he said with contempt. "He burned the token in his agony."
He looked down at Chen Liu.
"The Frostblade Sword Sect has inherited Mo Zha's debt. Tell your Patriarch that the Crane Tower will come to collect at the next solstice."He paused, letting the words sink like a blade."And the interest has risen."
Without waiting for an answer, the Envoy turned. He took an impossible step—like gravity had lost its authority—and vanished into the night, leaving a trail of frost across the hot tiles.
Chen Liu remained kneeling in the mud, shaking, knowing his life had just become bureaucratic hell.
Xie Luan released the breath he'd been holding. He was drenched in cold sweat. He'd been one heartbeat away from being discovered by a cultivator who could crush him with a thought.
But the Envoy was gone.
And Xie Luan had the money.
He had the secret.
And he was alive.
Li emerged from the shadows of the bushes, sprinting toward him, face twisted with panic.
"Master!" Li whispered, dropping to his knees at Xie Luan's side. "I saw everything! The fire! The flying man! Are you hurt?"
Xie Luan sat up slowly. He wiped soot from his face with his sleeve. His black eyes gleamed in the dark, reflecting the collapsing pavilion's flames.
"I'm fine, Li," Xie Luan said.
He touched his chest, feeling the hard outline of the stolen token. It was a risk—a beacon.
But it was also a key.
A key to doors Mo Zha had never dared to open.
Xie Luan stood, leaning on his servant's shoulder.
"Let's go home," he said. "I need to count my money."His gaze sharpened."And we need to pack."
"Pack?" Li echoed, confused. "Where are we going?"
Xie Luan looked back once at the flames. The Frostblade Sword Sect had nothing left to offer him but suspicion and someone else's debt. He'd squeezed the fat fish dry. It was time to find deeper waters.
"This pond has become too small, Li," Xie Luan said, turning and walking into the night."We're going to the city."