The jungle stilled, as though the earth itself recoiled from the blood that soaked into its roots. The earlier cries of steel and men were gone, swallowed by silence. Only the faint hiss of wind slid through the canopy, carrying with it the sharp metallic tang of blood and the sour musk of fear.

  Xian Rou’s body lay crumpled, twisted against the soil like some grotesque offering. His lifeless eyes open, clouded and pale. The scarlet stain at his abdomen and chest spread slowly, seeping into the dirt in quiet defiance of the stillness around him.

  From the shadows, Lian crept forth. Xiao Lei caught the movement at the corner of his eye and felt annoyance stir—her timing reckless, her presence unnecessary—but he smothered it before it reached his face.

  His expression remained flat, unreadable, though the flicker in his gaze made her falter mid-step.

  Around them, the survivors of the Black Scorpion gang had already begun to edge backward. They shuffled silently, not daring to meet the boy’s eyes. Their footsteps cracked twigs and brushed leaves, but Xiao Lei did not stop them.

  He let them retreat, each shadow swallowed by distance, until only two groups remained in the clearing: the battered Kao family entourage, and the unlikely duo of Xiao Lei and Lian.

  Xiao Lei’s voice broke the silence, cold and precise. “Check the bodies. Take what’s useful.”

  Lian froze. Her fingers twitched at her sides, her lips parting as if to protest. But his gaze cut to her—calm, steady, yet carrying the weight of command. Beneath it, her hesitation withered.

  She nodded and moved stiffly toward the fallen corpses. Her small frame wavered, clumsy, tripping once as her shoe caught on a root. The sight would have drawn laughter, curses even, in another time. Here, no one dared. The air was too heavy, the boy too dangerous.

  Kao Feng swallowed hard. His throat bobbed visibly, the sound loud in the quiet. His lips trembled open, words struggling to form, but none came. Beside him, Kao Huo and Kao Fei stood rigid, their young faces drained of colour.

  Blood stained their sleeves and cheeks, streaks dried to black beneath the trembling of their chins. Their fear was not hidden—it was raw, stark, and stank in the air like sweat.

  At last, Kao Huo’s voice cracked. “Y–you would rob us? After saving—”

  The rest of his plea never reached the air.

  A flash split the silence. Xiao Lei’s hand flicked, and in the next breath an arrow buried itself deep into the skull of one of the Kao party. The man collapsed without a sound, his body folding like a puppet with its strings cut. Dust rose from the ground where he fell, mingling with the reek of fresh blood.

  “Lian,” Xiao Lei said evenly, “fetch it.”

  She stiffened, eyes darting to the corpse. The man’s face was half-caved where the arrow protruded, the wound still weeping.

  Her face paled. Blood smeared her knuckles, the sticky warmth seeping between her trembling fingers. It was a pitiful sight.

  Xiao Lei’s eyes shifted to Kao Fei. “Young mistress,” he said, tone almost mocking in its calm, “why don’t you help her?”

  Fear broke through her pride like water through brittle clay. Kao Fei’s breath quickened, but without protest she moved. Kneeling in the dirt like a servant, she joined Lian, her silken sleeves darkened as she grasped at the arrow.

  Two girls bent over a corpse, struggling like common scavengers—it was a sight that made the Kao retainers avert their gaze, anger burning in their eyes but fear sealing their lips.

  Kao Feng’s breath rasped louder now, his body sagging with the poison coursing through his veins. The world swam at the edges of his vision. He knew—if he resisted here, if he faltered even an instant—the boy would not hesitate to kill them all. His jaw clenched, teeth grinding as he reached at his waist.

  Kao Huo’s hand twitched toward his sword hilt, knuckles whitening, but Kao Feng’s warning glance froze him. His jaw worked, fury caged behind clenched teeth.

  A pouch came free. He threw it to the ground. One by one, the others followed. A small pile of leather and jade grew before Xiao Lei.

  Rage burned in the Kao men’s eyes, but it was hollow—stripped of the will to act. Dread was the only thing that remained.

  Lian staggered back, finally freeing the bloodied arrow. Her hands shook as she held it, crimson still dripping from its bent head. She brought it to Xiao Lei, who took it without a word.

  “Transfer everything,” he ordered quietly.

  She obeyed, moving quickly to transfer the loot into a larger sack Xiao Lei had fashioned from the hide of some slain beast. The hide creaked as it filled, bulging until it was nearly as tall as she was.

  When it was done, Xiao Lei hoisted the sack with one effortless motion, slinging it across his back. He turned to leave, his steps steady, his presence unyielding.

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  Lian lingered. Her eyes softened for a moment as she looked at Kao Feng’s gray face, the poison spreading deeper into his veins. With a small movement, she drew a vial from her sleeve and tossed it lightly to the ground before him. “For the poison,” she murmured.

  Xiao Lei did not stop her. He did not even glance back. His figure receded into the trees, the sack swaying at his shoulder, each step unhurried as though death itself had cleared a path for him.

  Kao Feng’s hand hovered over the vial, trembling. His heart thundered with the thought of retaliation, the bitter urge to strike while the boy’s back was turned. But then he looked—looked at the careless gait, at the boy’s calm shoulders, as if the world itself could not touch him. And the thought withered.

  He let his hand fall.

  By the time his breath steadied, the boy and the girl were gone, swallowed by the jungle’s shadow.

  ?? — ? — ??

  Night deepened, and the world below seemed to pause. Even the insects were timid, their faint rustling barely stirring the oppressive shadow around them.

  Perched high atop a broad-limbed tree, Xiao Lei sat motionless, his back resting against the rough bark. No cave, no shelter had presented itself, so the night would have to be endured here, exposed yet concealed in shadow. By tomorrow, if their pace held, they would reach the city. That thought offered little comfort.

  The faint acrid scent of beast droppings clung to the air; he had scattered the last of the rank-three leavings around the trunk, their musk warding lesser predators. The precaution was meagre but necessary. Below him, the forest floor remained a black ocean, unknowable and shifting.

  Not far from where he sat, Lian lay curled against the branch, her small frame trembling even in sleep. Hunger had hollowed her face, and her lips were faintly cracked.

  Earlier, she had cried herself into exhaustion, muffled sobs catching against her sleeve when he refused to share their food. She had begged, promising through hiccupping tears that she would never again disobey him. But her words had not swayed him. The lesson had to be carved into her marrow.

  She had given the antidote to Xian Ruo without his permission. Soft-heartedness was a weakness that killed. If she was to remain by his side, it had to be broken. Xiao Lei had wanted her since discovering the truth of her body—Myriad Cauldron Physique, a treasure not many would ever stumble upon—but not as she was now, na?ve and untampered.

  His gaze slid to the half-empty sack—herbs giving off their faint medicinal tang, coins metallic beneath, jade slips clinking softly inside. Lighter now after he’d stripped it of trinkets, it held only scraps fit for mortal vein cultivators.

  One slip, gleaming faintly, had caught his interest earlier, likely from Kao Feng’s possession. Yet it stirred nothing in him; it would not guide his path. He had set it aside with the rest.

  The day’s events unspooled in his mind, sharp as knives. He should have killed them all. Xian Ruo had died easily enough, but Kao Feng… no, that man would not have fallen so simply. Now, with the Kao clan’s wrath certain to ignite once word reached the city, his path was merely delayed, not avoided.

  Still, he needed resources—and pillaging the weak was the fastest road to strength. More than that, he required pressure, constant and unrelenting. Only with danger snapping at his heels would his cultivation surge, breaking past the barriers that shackled ordinary men. This was survival, and he had long accepted it.

  He exhaled, forcing the turmoil out with the breath, leaving only the steel of decision. He could not step backward to choose differently.

  From the sack, he withdrew a block of pale wood. With a flick of his wrist, a thin, scalpel-like brush appeared between his fingers, its edge glinting faintly in the moonlight.

  He set the blade against the grain and began to carve. Each stroke was deliberate, pared with care. Shavings curled and drifted away, catching briefly in the faint night breeze.

  A thin, whimpering sound stirred from the figure nearby, but Xiao Lei didn’t so much as glance—his knife kept moving, shaving the wood to a sharper edge.

  Slowly, the crude block gave birth to form: a lean figure, upright, the jaw sharp, brows tilted in familiar disdain. He paused, blade hovering. The likeness stared back at him—Xian Ruo’s face, carved in silence.

  ?? — ? — ??

  Morning crept through the canopy in faint silver shafts, but Xiao Lei was already crouched by a small fire, its thin smoke curling upward through the branches. A rabbit-like beast, skinned and cleaned, turned slowly on the spit. The faint crackle of fat against flame carried into the hush, the smell sharp and tempting after days of near-hunger.

  Lian stirred awake, eyes still heavy with the salt of dried tears. She sat up, gaze drawn instantly to the fire. Her lips parted, uncertain—yesterday’s pleas had met only silence. Yet before she could ask, Xiao Lei extended a strip of roasted meat toward her.

  He watched in silence, observing without a word, tracing how obedience and relief intertwined, a quiet study in subtle control.

  For a heartbeat, disbelief held her still. Then her small fingers snatched it from his hand. Her teeth sank into the meat before she realized she hadn’t even thanked him. The warmth spread through her chest, chasing away the emptiness that had clung to her all night—yet beneath it, a sour sting of shame lingered. Why did it feel like forgiveness when it was only survival?

  The bitterness that had clouded her face dissolved, swallowed in the warmth of food. Anger, grievance, resentment—gone as quickly as smoke on the wind.

  In the quiet of his mind, the puppy’s cold voice stirred. Kid, you’ve begun to learn the way of control.

  Xiao Lei gave no answer. His gaze remained on the fire, unreadable, though deep inside he knew this was merely the first step.

  By the time the embers died, the two were already on the move. Their pace was swift, cautious, eyes cutting through the tangled green. Yet no spirit beast crossed their path, no human groups emerged from the undergrowth. The forest seemed emptied, its silence stretched thin until the first break in the trees appeared.

  Stepping beyond the boundary felt like crossing from one world to another. The damp chill of the jungle gave way to open air and unbroken sunlight, warm against their faces. Before them spread a crude stone road, worn by countless feet, alive with travellers and traders whose voices blended into a low roar of life.

  Carts creaked beneath heavy loads, donkeys brayed, and hawkers called out wares in voices rough with dust. After days hemmed in by dripping leaves and suffocating quiet, the press of humanity was almost overwhelming, a tide of sound and colour that made the forest feel like a dream half-remembered.

  At the road’s end rose a boundary wall of dark stone, rough yet imposing. Xiao Lei’s gaze lingered, measuring every detail until certainty settled in him. Duskwillow City—the name Zi Yunshen had spoken.

  Only then did he move forward. Beside him, Lian’s small face lit with unguarded joy, her heart quickened by the thought of a father she had never once held in memory.

  But to Xiao Lei, the noise was little more than clutter—faces without weight, voices without meaning. His eyes scanned the crowd, calculating and silent, the city promising nothing but another hunt.

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  Destiny Reckoning. It’s set in the same universe, and you definitely don’t want to miss it, because the stories will eventually crossover.