They walked in silence for the first hour.
The Greymoss Forest earned its name — a thick grey mist sat low between the pines and never fully burned off, even as the morning moved toward midday. The trees were old and close together. The path wasn't really a path, more a direction that Lian Zhu seemed to navigate by memory.
Ren Yao kept up. It cost him more than he let show.
His nodes were rebuilding — he could feel it, a faint warmth in fourteen points throughout his body, like embers that weren't sure yet whether they were dying or growing. It was not enough to do anything useful with. It was enough to keep walking.
"Your core nodes are at eleven percent," ARIA said. "Don't do anything exciting."
He had no plans.
They stopped midday at a flat rock beside a narrow creek. Lian Zhu produced two small portions of dried food from inside her robe — travel rations, the kind that tasted like compressed determination — and set one near him without comment.
He ate it.
She ate hers and looked at the tree line.
"The forest has Rank 2 monsters near the outer edge," she said. Not a warning exactly — more like she was thinking out loud and had decided to include him. "Further in it goes up to Rank 4. We're taking the outer route."
"How long have you known this path?"
"I grew up using it. The sect is on the Dustfall City side. My master used to take us through here for training when I was young."
He filed that. She'd been at the sect since childhood. The sect had mattered to her long before she inherited it.
"What happened to your master?" he asked.
The question sat there.
"He died," she said, without looking at him. "Three years ago. Suddenly." She picked up her travel sack and stood. "I became sect leader at seventeen."
She said it like a fact, not a grievance.
But he heard what was under it — three years of holding something together that was already collapsing when it landed on her.
He stood too.
"The debt," he said. "How much?"
She named a number.
He didn't let his face change, but internally he ran it against what he knew of cultivation economics. It was large. Not unsurvivable — but it had clearly been designed to grow faster than repayment.
"The Ironstone Guild," he said.
"You know them?"
"By name. They operate in Ironmere City too." He paused. "They're not lenders. They're acquirers. The debt is just the method."
She stopped walking.
He almost walked into her.
She turned around and looked at him with an expression that was not quite surprise — more like the look of someone who has suspected something for a long time and just heard it confirmed.
"They want the sect grounds," she said.
"They want the location. The grounds are in Dustfall City outskirts, which means they're near the forest's Rank 3 territory. That's extraction territory for materials — monster cores, rare herbs, lumber. A guild that controls that land makes money forever."
Her jaw was tight.
"I know," she said quietly. "I know that's what it is. But knowing doesn't—" She stopped. Started again. "The number grows. Every month it's larger. Even when I pay."
"They add fees."
"Interest. Penalty for late payment. Administrative costs." The last one she said with something like bitter disbelief. Administrative costs. "It doesn't matter how much I pay."
Ren Yao thought about this.
"Fun problem," ARIA said. "Not solvable through direct payment. Needs a different angle."
"Then you don't pay the debt," he said.
Lian Zhu stared at him.
"You make paying it irrelevant," he continued. "You make the sect worth more standing than seized. If the sect becomes profitable — if it becomes something other parties want access to — the guild's leverage disappears. They want the land because it's easy to take. Make it not easy."
The forest moved around them. A bird somewhere. Wind through old pines.
"You say that like it's simple," she said.
"I said it like it's a direction. I didn't say it was simple."
She held his gaze for a moment. Then she turned back toward the path.
"Talk while we walk," she said. "You said you could help. Tell me what that actually means."
He told her some of it.
Not the system — that was too early, and he didn't know enough about what ARIA was yet to explain her to a stranger. But the rest he gave her plainly: his former cultivation rank, the fact that his nodes had survived, the fact that they were rebuilding.
"Foundation Building Stage 7," she repeated. "Before crippling."
"Yes."
"And now?"
"Significantly less. For now."
She walked for a while without responding.
"You're going to need time to rebuild," she said.
"Yes."
"During which you can't fight."
"Not effectively, no."
"So your immediate use to the sect is—"
"Strategy. Observation. Knowledge of how guild operations work from the inside." He paused. "And something else. But I need to test it first before I say it out loud."
"Diplomatically worded again," ARIA said approvingly.
Lian Zhu glanced at him sideways. Assessing.
"You're being careful about what you tell me," she said.
"You're being careful about what you tell me," he replied. "We're both strangers."
Another beat.
"Fair," she said.
They walked.
The mist thickened slightly as the afternoon moved toward evening. The path widened — they were approaching the forest's outer edge.
"Two members," Ren Yao said. "You said you had four including yourself."
"Two disciples. Cao Fen and Wei Dun." Something shifted in her voice. Softer, just for a moment. "They stayed. I don't know why. They know the state of things."
"People stay for reasons," he said. "That's worth something."
She didn't respond.
But she didn't dismiss it either.
Dustfall City appeared through the tree line as the sun began to drop — a modest city, the kind that had ambition in its past and practicality in its present. Stone walls. Tiled rooftops. The smell of coal smoke and cooking food.
Lian Zhu led him through the outer districts without stopping, turning down streets that grew quieter and the buildings older. The Hollow Fang Sect sat on the city's northern edge, where the streets ended and the open land toward the forest began.
He saw it.
And he understood why she'd been standing at that river.
The outer wall had sections that had simply crumbled and not been repaired. The gate was intact but the wood was weathered past its prime. Beyond it — a training yard that was clean but empty, swept by habit rather than use. Three buildings that had probably housed hundreds and now housed four people.
A carved stone archway still stood at the gate.
HOLLOW FANG SECT — the characters worn but readable.
Lian Zhu pushed the gate open and walked in like she did it every day, because she did.
He stood at the threshold for a moment.
"Well," ARIA said. "It's got character."
He stepped through.
Two figures appeared from the main hall — a young woman about Lian Zhu's age with a precise way of carrying herself, and a slightly younger man who was broad-shouldered and trying not to look surprised at the stranger.
"Sect leader," the young woman said. Then she looked at Ren Yao. "And—"
"New member," Lian Zhu said. No hesitation. "Temporary basis. He works. He stays." She looked at Ren Yao. "Cao Fen. Wei Dun." Then back to them. "Questions after dinner."
Cao Fen looked at Ren Yao with careful, intelligent eyes.
Wei Dun looked at his shoes, then back up, then back at his shoes.
"Welcome," Cao Fen said finally. Formal. Controlled. "I'll prepare a room."
Ren Yao nodded.
Lian Zhu was already walking toward the main hall.
"Quest progress updated," ARIA said quietly. "Day one. Thirty days remaining. No pressure."
He followed her inside.