The walk from the archives to the Hall of Eternal Judgment is exactly nine hundred and forty-two steps.
Li Chen does not let go of my collar.
He drags me like a hunter drags a carcass, his knuckles white with the strain of a panic he does not yet understand. His Qi is erratic; it is a flickering, golden flame that smells like ozone and scorched sugar.
"You are coming with me," Li Chen spits, his voice cracking just enough to let the cold in. "You have been reading the forbidden scriptures. I can feel the filth on you, Lian Shen."
I do not resist. I move with him, my feet ghosting over the stone floor. I am light, almost weightless, without the heavy burden of a beating heart to anchor me to the earth.
"Filth is a matter of perspective, little guy," I whisper.
"Shut up!"
Li Chen stops. He turns to me, his face a blur of heat and vibration. He is shaking. Through my Spirit Gaze, I see his spirit. It is a beautiful, polished sphere of light, but it is covered in microscopic fractures.
My words from the archive are like water freezing inside those cracks,expanding, pushing.
I reach out a hand. I do not touch him. I simply point toward the Great Gate.
"If you take me in there, they will ask you why you laid hands on a record keeper. They will ask why a prodigy of the Burial of Breath is trembling in front of a fool who cannot even lift a sword. What will you tell them, Li Chen? That you are afraid of a mere record keeper?"
"I am not afraid of you!" Li Chen roars.
His outburst echoes through the courtyard. Several outer sect disciples stop and stare. Their gazes are like needles. Li Chen feels them. His aura that golden, arrogant light flickers and dims. He cares what they think. He lives for their applause. That is his tragedy, and that is my feast.
Inside me, the thread of the inner demon pulses with amusement. It is a cold, oily sensation that travels up my spine. It likes the way Li Chen's pride tastes. It wants more.
"The more you yell, the more they see the cracks," I say softly. I lean in, my face inches from his. I do not need to see his eyes to know they are searching for a reflection that is not there. "Is this what your master taught you? That justice is found in a gripped collar and a raised voice?"
Li Chen's grip loosens. Just a fraction.
"You are... you are trying to confuse me," he stammers.
"No," I reply, my voice flat as a frozen lake. "I am simply showing you the mirror boy. You see a monster because you think you are human. Do you not?"
We reach the heavy, iron-bound doors of the Judgment Hall.
The two guards, disciples of the Burial of Flesh, 9th Stage, stand like statues. They do not have faces to me; they are merely two pillars of muscle and iron.
"Li Chen asks for an audience with the Pavilion Master!" Li Chen shouts, but his voice lacks the steel it had moments ago.
The doors groan open.
The air inside the hall is heavy with the scent of Authority. It is a sharp, metallic smell that reminds me of a slaughterhouse. At the end of the long hall, seated on a throne of scarlet silk, is the Pavilion Master.
To a normal man, the Master is a god. To me, he is a massive, swirling storm of dark crimson Qi. He is at the Burial of Dao. His presence is so thick it makes the frost on my skin itch.
"Lian Shen," the demon whispers in the back of my skull. "His heart. It is old. It is heavy. It would be a grand meal."
Not yet, I think back wiping my drooling in a manner no one noticed.
Li Chen pushes me forward, forcing me to my knees. The stone is cold, but I do not feel it.
"Master!" Li Chen bows low, his voice desperate. "I bring you a traitor. Lian Shen has practiced forbidden scriptures. He has desecrated the sanctity of the records!"
The Pavilion Master does not speak. The silence stretches, a physical weight that begins to feast on Li Chen's spirit bit by bit.
Finally, the Master's voice booms, vibrating through my very bones.
"Lian Shen. Look at me."
I raise my head. I look at the storm.
"I dare not disobey the records, Master," I say, my voice echoing clearly through the hall. "Master, I am just a little ill. Senior brother is making a fuss out of nothing."
Li Chen gasps. "Master, do not listen to him! He is—"
"Silence," the Master commands.
The crimson storm shifts. I feel a probe of mental energy a strike from a Burial of Mind master hit my forehead. It is meant to shatter my resolve, to make me scream.
It hits the empty space where my heart used to be. It finds nothing to grip. The Master is taken aback for a moment, his aura wavering in the briefest of seconds.
"Where is your heartbeat, boy?" the Master asks, his tone shifting from authority to genuine, cold curiosity as he was taken aback by a bit.
I smiled. It is the first time the devils in my lashes truly wake up.
"I found it too loud, Master. So I silenced it."