The winter night in Duskwillow City had reached its deepest hush. Past midnight, when even the few winehouses had gone silent and the guards dozed by their lanterns, the city seemed hollowed of life. Fog pressed against the streets like a second skin, clinging to broken walls and shuttered stalls, while the moon behind the haze was only a pale smear of silver that blurred more than it revealed.

  A figure slipped through that silence. His movement should have echoed—the soft tap of boots against the cold stone, the whisper of fabric brushing past frost-stiff weeds—but no sound carried. It was as if the night itself refused to acknowledge him. Each step dissolved into the mist, leaving no trace.

  He moved with unhurried precision, neither rushing nor wandering, as though every corner, every shadow of the city was already etched in his mind. The cold bit at his skin, turning each exhalation into a fleeting ghost of white mist, yet his gaze remained steady, sharp, and cold enough to shame the winter air.

  At last, he halted before a rundown structure. The house in front leaned against its own decay, its timbers warped, its roof patched with scraps of cloth in mismatched colours, its door a crooked plank long abandoned to rot. Anyone else would have passed it without thought—a ruin indistinguishable from the others in this withering quarter. But if Lian had been here, she would have known the place. She would have known the boy.

  Xiao Lei stood still, the fog curling around his shoulders. His chest rose once, slow and deliberate, as though he were breathing in not air but resolve itself. Then he pressed forward. The door splintered beneath his palm, collapsing inward with a dull crack that seemed swallowed at once by the mist.

  Inside, the air smelled of mildew and damp earth. A thin, sour draft slithered through broken shutters, carrying the faint rot of stagnant water. On a sagging bed frame in the corner, two figures stirred—their faces slack with the heavy stupor of exhausted sleep. The noise dragged them half-awake, confusion clouding their eyes.

  They had no time to speak.

  Xiao Lei moved. His body cut through the gloom like a lash of lightning, too swift for the failing eyes of the couple to follow. By the time they blinked, both their throats were locked in his hands. Their mouths gaped, but only a strangled rasp broke the fog. A boy’s hands. Yet the grip was iron, unyielding, the weight of cultivated strength packed into lean fingers.

  The scene would have been almost absurd—two grown adults writhing, legs kicking, arms flailing helplessly against a child no taller than their chest. But in that dim room, there was no laughter. Only the dry rasp of their strangled gasps, the desperate scrape of nails against his sleeves.

  The woman’s eyes bulged, her voice clawing free in fragments. “Why…? We did… everything you asked…” The plea cracked in her throat, trembling, broken.

  Her words did not pause him. His expression did not shift. Cold eyes stared into hers, not with hatred, not even with satisfaction—only the chill weight of judgment already passed. His fingers tightened.

  A wet snap echoed, sharp as breaking wood. Her body collapsed onto the bedding with a muffled thud, the sagging frame creaking beneath the sudden weight.

  Zi Lao, her husband, did not fight much. His body sagged beneath the grip, shoulders slack, his gaze dim but steady. Once, he had held cultivation. Now, his strength was nothing more than ash scattered on the wind. He could have struggled, perhaps, but instead his lips trembled open.

  ‘Please… take care—’ The silence that met him was colder than the grip on his throat. His eyes dimmed, and the word withered before it could form.

  Xiao Lei’s gaze remained unreadable, colder than the fog pressing against the broken shutters. Without a word, his grip had closed. Another crack split the silence. Zi Lao’s head fell back, and his body collapsed across the bed, tangled beside the woman’s.

  The boy’s hands released them as though discarding something no longer worth holding. Their limbs sprawled awkwardly, lifeless, against the tattered bedding. The room stank now of sweat, of fear, of the faint iron tang seeping from ruptured veins.

  Xiao Lei did not linger. He crouched, movements precise, and drew a pouch from beneath the bedding. The leather was worn, its weight soft and muted in his palm. Without glancing again at the corpses, he turned, stepping back into the fog.

  Behind him, the ruin of the house swallowed its dead. Ahead, the city stretched in silence, unaware of the reckoning carried out within its broken ribs.

  For him, there was no hesitation, no backward glance. Only the cold certainty of a task completed, a loose thread severed. At last, the final knot tied—he could leave Duskwillow City.

  The streets of the city lay hushed beneath the weight of night, their silence broken only by the distant bark of a stray dog and the faint clatter of a shutter caught in the wind.

  Xiao Lei moved quickly through the narrow lanes, his steps soft but urgent, as if each one sought to outpace the thoughts pressing at his mind. The horizon had yet to pale with dawn. There would be hours before anyone stumbled upon the bodies left cooling in the dark. Even if discovery came sooner, what of it? In the city’s outskirts, death was as common as hunger, and blood was traded as cheaply as grain.

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  That had been his plan all along.

  From the very first day he set foot in the city, his eyes had settled on Zi Lao. He had found him loitering outside the Fragrance House, the reek of wine heavy on his breath. That was when Xiao Lei had spoken—about Zi Yunshan’s death, about the girl Lian who would soon be under Zi Lao’s roof. He had offered him silvered temptation: two hundred spirit coins to trouble her life, to wear down her will until casting her out became the only path left.

  Zi Lao had refused at first, his voice sharp with outrage, his temper quick to flare. Yet Xiao Lei had merely revealed a fragment of his cultivation, his words falling heavy with the weight of Lei clan name. The protest withered.

  To pit himself against a Lei was folly. Zi Lao swallowed his anger, telling himself that whatever chains awaited the girl in that clan, they would still be stronger and steadier than the life of hunger and uncertainty he had given her. He remembered Zi Lao’s jaw working soundlessly, his hand tightening on a wine cup until it trembled. But it ended how he had expected.

  But later, it was Zi Lao’s wife who laid the snares, her cruelty sharpened with every passing day. That was no accident—no doubt Zi Lao had whispered in her ear.

  Xiao Lei had believed the plan foolproof. He had paid generously—two hundred coins now, another promise of two hundred, and the two hundred already given to Lian herself. Six hundred in total. For a man with threadbare sleeves and debts gnawing at his doorstep, such wealth was irresistible.

  Yet when Xiao Lei checked the pouch tonight, his brows drew together. His thumb traced the coarse weave of the pouch at his waist. A faint clink answered him, dull under the cloth. More than three hundred fifty spirit coins still remained.

  The discovery had chilled him for a moment. Then, slowly, the truth had taken shape. He must have faltered—whether from guilt or greed, hiding behind the play of drunken wagers while the coins lay untouched. But why?

  If Lian were to discover this, her heart would no doubt soften, her memory of Zi Lao gilded with pity. But to Xiao Lei, it mattered little. The man’s hesitation, his regrets—none of it changed the outcome. Zi Lao had never been worthy of the weight of his mercy.

  The coins in Xiao Lei’s pouch were nothing more than payment reclaimed. The killing itself, inevitable.

  Even in death, Zi Lao’s plea—the so-called final wish—had left Xiao Lei unmoved. He had recognized the debt owed to Zi Yunshan, yes. The old man had seen through Xiao Lei’s schemes long before his own comrades turned traitor. In his last act, he had used Xiao Lei as a blade to shield the girl. That kind of foresight deserved acknowledgment, even a measure of respect. But Zi Lao? He was no Zi Yunshan. His weakness only confirmed the path of his end.

  The inn came into view, its lanterns guttering in the faint wind. Xiao Lei passed through the threshold without pause. The air inside was stale with smoke and broth long cooled. He moved straight to his room.

  Lian was still asleep. Curled on her side, her breath came soft and even, her face drawn in the fragile calm of exhaustion. The dim light caught at the bruise near her temple, and for a moment, the room seemed to still around her.

  In the quiet, a voice stirred within him—the low, gnawing murmur of the puppy. What would she do, if she learned the truth? If she knew it was you who killed her father?

  The thought pressed like cold fingers at the edge of his mind. Yet Xiao Lei gave no answer. His eyes lingered on her for only a heartbeat before he turned away. The question was meaningless. Lian’s grief, her anger, her eventual discovery—none of it weighed enough to sway him from his path.

  He sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, his back straight, his breath slowing until the stillness of cultivation wrapped itself around him. For some reason, Qi was thin in the air, scarce as smoke in the stale inn room. Still, he drew it, moulding it with disciplined precision. Dawn would come soon, and with it, new dangers. Time was a blade pressed against his throat. He could afford no wasted moment.

  In the hush of the room, the girl slept, the boy cultivated, and the world outside rolled toward another day of blood.

  ?? — ? — ??

  The next morning, when Xiao Lei finally drew his breath from cultivation, the sun had already climbed beyond the rooftops, slanting pale gold through the shutters in long bars across the floor. Lian still slept, curled small beneath the thin blanket, her face softened in a way that told of rare rest after days of unease.

  Quietly, Xiao Lei rose. He washed and changed with swift, practiced movements, the faint splash of water the only sound in the still room. By the time he finished, he crossed to her side and shook her lightly. She stirred, blinking up at him, then stretched with the drowsy languor of a child who had, at last, found a night untroubled.

  While she freshened herself, the scent of warm rice and broth drifted in. Xiao Lei had already ordered breakfast, the bowls set neatly on the table when she returned. They ate in silence, unhurried. Steam curled between them, thin and wavering.

  Lian’s chopsticks paused once, but Xiao Lei never lifted his eyes from the bowl. When the last grains were gone, his voice cut through the quiet—measured, firm. She was to pack and meet him at the western gate of the city.

  He left without waiting for her reply.

  An hour later, Lian too stepped from the inn, bundle in hand. The cobblestones clicked beneath her hurried steps, yet her mind kept repeating scenes from yesterday. No matter how she tried, her thoughts circled back to the warmth of broth, to the rare ease of sitting across from him. Her lips shaped a vow: she would walk beside him, never behind. She quickened her pace.

  The streets narrowed, and soon she reached an alley she knew well. One path curved toward the outskirts, toward Zi Lao’s home. The other wound onward to the western gate. She slowed. The air itself seemed to hush, the noise of vendors and carts slipping into distance. For a moment her heart tugged, but she turned her steps west and did not look back.

  From the shadows, Xiao Lei watched. A cold glint crossed his eyes, as if sealing something in his heart. He knew then—her loyalty was bound to him.

  Lian reached the gate and waited, standing quietly against the wall. Nearly two hours passed before Xiao Lei appeared, his figure cutting through the milling travellers. Without words, she fell into step beside him, and together they left the city behind, the dust of the road already clinging to their steps.

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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.