[Time Remaining: 6 Days, 14 Hours, 02 Minutes]
I stared at the ceiling.
The wooden beams of my shack were rotting. I knew every crack, every termite hole. I had counted them four hundred times tonight.
I couldn't sleep.
How do you sleep when a blue box is floating above your head, counting down the seconds until your social execution?
"System," I whispered, my voice raspy. "Are you sure about this?"
[SYSTEM]:Certainty is for the boring. You are on a mission of passion.
"I'm on a mission of suicide," I corrected.
I sat up. The paper in my hand was damp with sweat.
I had spent the entire night writing.
First, I tried compliments.
"Your cultivation is tall like a mountain."
Trash. She destroyed a mountain yesterday. That's like telling a shark it's good at swimming.
Then I tried logic.
"We should form a strategic alliance based on…"
I crumpled that one immediately. I'm an outer disciple. My only strategic value is as cannon fodder.
So, I was left with the nuclear option.
Earth Strategy #1.
Art.
Specifically, poetry.
"If this fails," I muttered, looking at the ink-stained page, "I am personally haunting Shakespeare."
The sun rose like a bloody eye over the Heavenly Dao Sect.
The bells rang.
GONG. GONG. GONG.
The sound vibrated in my chest. It was time.
The Welcoming Ceremony took place in the Grand Plaza. It was a sea of disciples. Ten thousand robes fluttering in the wind.
Outer disciples in grey. Inner disciples in blue. Core disciples in white.
And above us all, on the Jade Throne floating ten feet in the air, sat Ancestor Ling Shuang.
She was exactly as terrifying as yesterday.
She didn't move. She didn't blink. She sat with her chin resting on one hand, staring at the horizon as if the entire sect was invisible.
The air around her was cold. I could see the breath of the disciples in the front row turning to mist.
"Presenting gifts!" the Sect Elder bellowed.
This was it. The parade of wealth.
A Core Disciple stepped forward. He was handsome, arrogant, and held a box made of gold.
"Disciple Zhang offers a Thousand-Year Blood Ginseng!" he shouted, bowing so low his nose touched the stone.
The crowd gasped.
"A Thousand-Year Ginseng! That can revive the dead!"
"Brother Zhang is truly wealthy!"
Ancestor Ling Shuang didn't look. She didn't even twitch.
"Place it," she said. Her voice was flat. Dead.
Disciple Zhang froze, his smile cracking. He placed the box and retreated, sweating.
Next came an Inner Disciple.
"Disciple Wang offers the Sword of the Frozen River! A High-Grade Spirit Artifact!"
The sword gleamed. It radiated cold power.
Ling Shuang's eyes flickered to it for a microsecond.
"Useless," she murmured. "The metal is impure."
Disciple Wang looked like he had been slapped. He stumbled back, pale.
I swallowed a lump in my throat the size of a fist.
They were offering fortunes. Kingdoms worth of treasure. And she didn't care.
Because she had everything. She was the peak.
What do you give someone who has everything?
[SYSTEM]:You give them what they lack.
I clutched my piece of paper.
"Next!" the Elder shouted. His eyes scanned the crowd and landed on the grey robes. "Outer Disciples!"
A ripple of laughter went through the Inner Court.
"Outer disciples? What can they offer? Dust?"
"Why are they even allowed here?"
I stepped forward.
My legs felt like jelly. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
I was the only one moving.
A path cleared. Not out of respect, but out of confusion.
"Hey," a voice hissed.
I looked to my left. It was Li Hao. An Inner Disciple known for bullying the weak. He was smirking.
"Are you lost, trash?" Li Hao whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. "The garbage dump is that way. Don't insult the Ancestor with your presence."
Snickers rippled through the crowd.
I ignored him. I focused on the white figure on the throne.
I walked until the pressure became hard to breathe. I was ten steps away.
I bowed.
"Outer Disciple Chen Wei," I said. My voice shook, then stabilized. "Greetings, Ancestor."
The plaza went silent.
Ling Shuang slowly turned her head. Those ice-blue eyes locked onto me.
The temperature dropped.
"You," she said. "The one with the noodles."
Someone in the back laughed. I felt my face heat up.
"Yes, Ancestor," I said. "I... I have a gift."
I held out the paper.
It was cheap rice paper. Wrinkled. Stained with a drop of ink in the corner.
Li Hao burst out laughing.
"A paper?" he shouted. "He brought a piece of scrap paper! Ancestor, allow me to remove this insult—"
Li Hao stepped forward, his hand reaching for his sword.
BOOM.
He didn't even finish the step.
Gravity intensified tenfold. Li Hao slammed face-first into the stone floor. He didn't scream; he couldn't. The air had been squeezed out of his lungs.
The laughter died instantly.
Ling Shuang hadn't moved a muscle. She was just looking at me.
"I did not give him permission to speak," she said softly.
Then she looked at my hands.
"Read it."
My hands trembled. I unfolded the paper.
"It... it is a poem," I stammered. "From my hometown."
"Read."
I took a deep breath. I closed my eyes for a second, picturing the hospital room. The white walls. The silence.
I began to read.
"The stars are not beautiful because they are bright," I said.
My voice carried over the silent plaza.
"They are beautiful because they are distant."
I looked up. She was watching me.
"We burn to be seen," I continued, looking straight into her eyes. "But the brighter we burn, the darker the space around us becomes."
"I stand on the peak, and the view is endless."
"But there is no one standing beside me to ask: Is it cold?"
Silence.
Absolute, suffocating silence.
The Sect Master's mouth was slightly open. The disciples looked confused. They didn't get it. They were cultivators. To them, loneliness was a price, not a pain.
But Ling Shuang...
Her eyes widened. Just a fraction.
The ice cracked.
For the first time, the statue looked like a woman.
"Is it cold?" she whispered.
She repeated the last line. Her voice wasn't flat anymore. It sounded... hollow.
She stood up.
The motion was so sudden that the Elders flinched.
She floated down from the throne, landing softly in front of me. She was tall. Her presence smelled like snow and ancient dust.
She reached out and took the paper from my hands. Her fingers brushed mine.
They were freezing.
"Where?" she asked. "Where did you find this dao?"
"I..." I panicked. I couldn't say Earth. "I wrote it. From experience."
"Experience?" She looked at me. Really looked at me. "You are a Foundation Establishment ant. What do you know of the peak?"
"I don't know the peak," I said quietly. "But I know the dark."
The blue box flashed in my vision.
[CRITICAL HIT][Romance Progress: 0.5%][Status: Resonated]
Ling Shuang stared at the paper. She traced the ink with a pale finger.
"The brighter we burn..." she murmured.
She looked up. Her expression was complicated. Confused. Like someone waking up from a long, dreamless sleep.
"You," she said.
"Yes, Ancestor?"
"Come to my peak."
The crowd erupted.
"WHAT?!"
"The Ancestor's Peak?! It's forbidden!"
"He's an Outer Disciple!"
Ling Shuang turned her head. One glance silenced ten thousand people.
"Tomorrow," she said to me. "Bring more."
"More... poems?" I asked.
"More words," she said. "More of this."
She tapped the paper against her chest.
"I wish to know if the stars are truly beautiful."
Then, she vanished.
She didn't fly away. She just faded into mist, taking my crumpled piece of paper with her.
The pressure lifted.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping for air.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[Mission Objective Complete: First Contact][Reward: Access to Ancestor's Peak][Current Status: The Most Hated Man in the Sect]
I looked around.
Every single male disciple was staring at me with murder in their eyes. Li Hao was peeling his face off the pavement, glaring daggers at my back.
"System," I groaned, burying my face in my hands. "I think I just painted a target on my back."
[SYSTEM]:Correction. You painted a target on your heart. And she just took the first shot.
"That sounds poetic," I muttered. "Did you write that?"
[SYSTEM]:No. But I'm learning.
I looked up at the shattered mountain peak. A faint light flickered in the window of the highest tower.
She was reading it.
I survived.
But as I looked at the angry mob surrounding me, I realized something.
Surviving the Ancestor might have been the easy part.