GAN YUAN XIAO (干援霄)

  Day 26, 4th Month of the Lunar Calendar, 6000th Year of the Yun Dynasty, Zhouwei Province, Mingyun Sect

  My master punished me to kneel before our ancestors’ tablet for the day. I understood why.

  After we returned from court, Grand Chancellor Deng said nothing. But I could see the disappointment burning in his eyes. Controlled, quiet, unmistakable.

  Su Tang had cleared Ah Qi. Her testimony regarding the murder weapon’s wound of a narrow puncture, had been more than convincing. It had been surgical. Exacting.

  But her precision raised questions she had no way of foreseeing.

  And those questions pointed to us.

  The wound resembled an unnatural pinprick, one that bore a disturbing resemblance to qìjiàn (气箭), Zhouwei treasured symbol, said to represent the peak of martial arts.

  To most, qìjiàn was a childhood myth, just like the jīnlián (金蓮) that distinguished true royalty of the Liantai Sect, or hēihuī (黑灰), a spectral force whispered to swirl amongst masters of Taishan.

  The legend of qìjiàn centred on the life of our province’s wandering founder: Yao Jian (藥劍).

  Yao Jian refined the weapon over nine lifetimes of suffering, weaving air into invisible, weightless and untraceable arrows. But he erred, as cultivators often do.

  He had loved.

  Love, for cultivators, is a luxury we cannot afford. For that one woman, he sacrificed Ascension.

  Unfortunately, he chose poorly. The woman he loved was unfaithful to him. The woman betrayed him and stole qìjiàn. The woman gave it to her lover who scattered it like seeds in a storm.

  What had once been pure, became weaponised.

  In the wrong hands, qìjiàn brought suffering and disaster.

  As punishment, the gods cursed Yao Jian with endless reincarnation. No love. No peace. Only repetition. To remember, relearn, and live with the shame of his one mistake.

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  Most had forgotten the story. Those who hadn’t, laughed at it.

  But I knew it wasn’t a myth.

  I had spent ten thousand years learning the technique.

  And I had mastered it.

  That meant someone else could too.

  Doubt doesn’t need truth to flourish. A single breath, and it spreads like mould in dark places. Even now, whispers crawl through Zhouwei like rats: a vengeful ghost. A cursed arrow. Yao Jian, back to finish what he failed to do.

  And all of that…pointed back to my master.

  I wanted Su Tang to succeed. I still did.

  But I cannot let my master fall.

  The court already looked at him with sharpened smiles. The Emperor is wary. Zhao Qingshan waits for any excuse to pounce. And this, this was a gift. A way to raise a trembling hand and say, “Look. Look what lies beneath the Chancellor’s shadow.”

  All because I let my affection get in the way of foresight. I wanted Ah Qi cleared. I wanted her safe.

  So, my master was right to punish me.

  I bowed my head and accepted it in silence.

  ***

  My knees ached.

  Straight after kneeling, Master had given the order. No time to rest, no room for resentment. “Observe the Empress,” he said. I had done this many times. And each time, I returned with nothing but shadows and wasted hours.

  Now I leaned against a pillar in the far corridor outside the Empress’s hall. It was quiet. Too quiet for a palace that claimed to be the most fortified place in the Heavens. Most of the guards I had passed barely reached the fourth cultivation tier. Mediocre by any standard, disgraceful even by Taishan’s standard.

  I tilted my head back, letting the carved stone press into the back of my skull. The patrols were disorganised. Coverage was thin. She was inviting something—or someone—in.

  Then it came.

  A streak of black smoke hurtled past, fast enough to cut wind from still air. My muscles moved before I had time to think. I sprang from the pillar, sword drawn, mask fitted in one smooth motion.

  The black smoke curled unnaturally, a twisting current that extinguished every flame in its path. Oil lamps sputtered. Lanterns swung like corpses from the gallows. Candlelight snuffed out like breath meeting winter air.

  I moved. My qīnggōng barely held pace as I pursued the smoke through the winding pavilion. Over stone bridges, under moon gates, across a sleeping garden that didn’t deserve to witness what passed through it.

  It led me toward the outer court.

  Then—nothing.

  The night swallowed the trail. No scent. No residue. Not even the faint spiritual signature left by most cultivators.

  Gone.

  I stood still, sword raised, heart pounding. My breath burned in my throat. The air tasted of old iron and cold ash. I scanned the corners, listening, thinking, waiting.

  Who could be faster than me?

  The thought echoed in my skull, more unsettling than the black smoke itself.

  I sheathed my blade and slipped the mask from my face.