The mud was cold. It smelled of river rot and dead leaves.
Wei Tian knelt by the northern wall of the Eastern Pavilion. The wood here had warped decades ago, creating a jagged, lightning-bolt crack near the floorboards. The high-altitude wind whistled through it constantly. It was annoying. It made the pages of his books turn when he hadn't asked them to.
He held a wooden bucket filled with wet clay and crushed straw. A thoroughly mortal solution to a thoroughly mortal problem.
He scooped a handful of the gray sludge. He pressed it into the crack.
This was where the problem started.
Wei Tian had spent eons maintaining the structural integrity of dying galaxies. He possessed an innate, unavoidable relationship with the concept of 'Order'. When his fingers pushed the mud into the splintered wood, his muscle memory bypassed his conscious restraint.
He didn't just plug the hole. The molecular structure of the clay instantly aligned with the cellular structure of the ancient ironwood.
A microscopic snick echoed in the quiet room.
Wei Tian pulled his hand back. He wiped the excess dirt on a rag. He looked at the wall.
It didn't look patched. It looked like the wood had organically grown together in a seamless, flawless grain. The weather-beaten gray of the exterior matched perfectly. It was, structurally speaking, the most perfect piece of wall on the entire mountain.
"Damn it," Wei Tian whispered.
The door slid open behind him. Xiao Mei stepped in carrying a bamboo tray. She looked at him kneeling by the baseboard with a bucket of mud. Then she looked at the wall. She blinked, tilting her head.
"Where did the draft go?" she asked. Her voice was small. Cautious.
"I plugged it," Wei Tian said. He didn't turn around.
Xiao Mei walked closer. She leaned down, squinting at the smooth, undisturbed wood. "With what? I don't see a patch."
"It's a very subtle mud."
Xiao Mei stared at him. She looked at the bucket. She looked at his hands. She clearly wanted to ask how mud could spontaneously turn into century-old ironwood, but she lacked the vocabulary. She settled for gripping her tray tighter.
"Elder Shen Mu officially announced the Assessment of the Husband," she blurted out. The words rushed together. "It's in six days. They are going to test your formation theory, your physical endurance, and your qi resistance."
Wei Tian stood up. His knees popped. "I have zero qi. Resistance testing seems redundant."
"That's the point," Xiao Mei muttered, dropping her gaze to the floorboards. "They want you to fail publicly. So the Sect Master has to annul the contract." She set the tray on his reading desk. "I brought tea. Careful. The kitchen auntie just boiled the water. It will burn your tongue."
Wei Tian walked over. He picked up the ceramic cup.
Xiao Mei flinched, expecting him to drop it from the scalding heat.
The moment Wei Tian's fingers touched the cheap ceramic, the chaotic thermal energy of the boiling water reorganized itself. It didn't cool down gradually. It snapped instantly to the exact, optimal temperature for human consumption. The heavy plume of steam vanished, replaced by a gentle, wispy curl.
He took a slow drink. He swallowed.
Xiao Mei's mouth opened slightly. "The steam... it just stopped."
"It's a cheap cup," Wei Tian said, setting it down. "It leaks heat."
"That's not how cups work."
"You should tell the person who made the cup." Wei Tian pulled his chair out and sat. "Thank you for the tea, Xiao Mei."
She backed out of the room. She looked like she wanted to run.
Wei Tian picked up his brush. He dipped it into the inkstone.
Six days until an assessment. He needed to prepare. Not to pass. To fail. Failing correctly required a surprising amount of calculation. If he failed too terribly, they might execute him for insulting the sect. If he passed even a single test, they would interrogate him. He needed to fail in a way that was completely, utterly forgettable.
He began writing a list of things to be bad at on a piece of rough parchment.
Footsteps approached the pavilion. Heavy, deliberate, carrying the hum of a Core-layer Sage cultivator. Not Xiao Mei.
"Enter," Wei Tian said, not looking up from his paper.
A senior disciple stepped through the door. She wore the silver-and-blue trim of the inner sect. Her face was set in a mask of intense, administrative boredom. Lin Rou. She carried a stack of heavy, leather-bound manuals.
"The Elder Council requires you to study these prior to the Assessment," Lin Rou said. She dropped the heavy stack onto the edge of his desk. The wood groaned. "Basic Formation Theory. Foundational Qi Pathways. The History of White Jade. Do not lose them. They belong to the outer archive."
"Put them next to the tea," Wei Tian said. He finished a character on his list.
Lin Rou glanced down. Her eyes dragged across the cheap parchment on his desk. She fully intended to look away. She intended to sneer at the mortal's handwriting and leave.
She didn't leave.
She stopped breathing.
Wei Tian had not used a single drop of qi. The ink was just ink. The paper was just paper. But the geometry of the strokes—the absolute, mathematically perfect alignment of the ink, the spatial relation of the negative space to the black lines—it mirrored the fundamental Dao of the universe. It was a structural absolute.
To a mortal, it was just neat handwriting. To a Sage-layer cultivator whose entire life was dedicated to chasing the profound truths of heaven and earth, looking at that ink was like staring directly into the sun.
Water hit the polished wood of the desk.
Plip.
Lin Rou blinked. She reached up and touched her cheek. Her fingers came away wet. She was crying. Not sobbing. Just an involuntary, physiological response to encountering perfection her brain could not process. Her spiritual sea was vibrating so violently it gave her vertigo.
Wei Tian stopped writing. He looked at the teardrop on his desk. Then he looked at Lin Rou.
She was trembling.
"Who..." Lin Rou choked out, her voice raspy. "Who taught you that stroke?"
Wei Tian looked down at his list. He had written the word 'stumble'.
"No one," Wei Tian said. He pressed the tip of his brush down hard against the paper. The bamboo handle snapped with a sharp crack. He ruined the character, dragging a thick, ugly smear of black ink across the page. "My hand slipped."
The perfection was broken. The oppressive weight of the absolute truth vanished from the room.
Lin Rou gasped, sucking in air like a drowning victim. She wiped her face violently, her cheeks flushing crimson with immediate, inexplicable embarrassment. She didn't know why she had cried. She just knew she needed to leave this room immediately.
"Read the manuals," she snapped, her voice pitching an octave too high. She turned and practically sprinted out the door.
Wei Tian sat in the silence. He dropped the broken brush.
He looked out the window at the setting sun. The orange light hit the jagged peaks of the Qinghe range, casting long, bruised shadows across the courtyards.
He pulled a fresh piece of paper toward him. He picked up a spare brush. He started writing a new list, deliberately forcing his wrist to hold the brush at an awkward, inefficient angle.
1. Bleed heat from cups slowly.2. Write with a severe leftward slant.3. Let drafts exist.
He stared at the ink. "Being ordinary," he murmured to the empty room, "is significantly more complicated than I anticipated."
It was exhausting. Being a god required nothing. Reality simply bent to accommodate his existence. Being a mortal required constant, active suppression of every instinct he had developed over a billion years.
Night fell. The sect grew quiet. The ambient noise of three thousand disciples sparring and shouting faded into the hum of crickets and mountain wind.
Wei Tian closed his eyes. He didn't expand his awareness far. Just a fraction of a millimeter. Just enough to let the mountain's natural acoustics bypass the physical walls of his pavilion.
The high tower of the Elder Council.
Shen Mu was pacing. His boots ground against the stone floor.
"The border patrols just sent the hawk," another elder was saying. The voice was thin, nervous. "It's not just a rumor. Mo Zheng's vanguard crossed the eastern river an hour ago. The Iron Blood Sect's banners are visible from the valley."
"Is it an attack?" Shen Mu demanded.
"No. The vanguard stopped at the boundary marker. They sent a single rider forward with a jade slip. A formal request."
"A request for what?"
"A courtesy meeting. Mo Zheng is requesting a personal audience with the Sect Master."
In the pavilion, Wei Tian kept his eyes closed. He let the sound of the elder's voice fade back into the background noise of the wind.
He ran the information through his framework. The Threshold.
Mo Zheng. Iron Blood Sect. An army sitting at the border. A meeting request.
Was a throat currently being cut? No. Was the realm cracking? No. This was posturing. This was two regional powers threatening each other over resources and pride. It was local weather.
Wei Tian categorized the incoming Iron Blood Sect as 'bureaucratic noise.'
He opened his eyes. He picked up his book, the one with the worn blue cover. He turned to the page he had marked with a dried leaf that morning.
Let the Sect Master handle the courtesy meeting. He had a list to practice. Tomorrow, he was going to be exceptionally, completely, flawlessly bad at pouring tea.