I shot a sideways glance toward the mouth of the alley, steeling myself. “To catch the cub, you have to face the tiger.”

  And these two had worked far too hard to lure me here for it to be random. Someone wanted me on this stage tonight—fine. I’d play along and see who was directing the play.

  So I put on my best lazy grin, clapped both men on the shoulder, and drawled,

  “Lead the way. The night wind may be cold, but not as cold as the sect leader’s tea will be if we keep him waiting. And tell me—where exactly is he waiting? Hopefully he remembered the snacks.”

  They exchanged a look. Suspicion faded just enough, and they flanked me—one left, one right—pulling me southeast.

  The streets tightened into twisting veins of stone. Dew seeped between the slabs. Moss glistened under moonlight like a film of cold milk. A stray cat leapt down from a wall, its tail flicking dust into the air. The layer was thick—thick enough to pass for a burial shroud.

  A small shiver crawled up my spine, though I kept my face smooth.

  As we walked, I counted silently—three left turns, one right, two collapsed archways. If things went badly, this little map might be the difference between escape and a shallow grave.

  At the end of the path stood a blank gray wall. One of the men reached into a crack, found a hidden switch, and pressed.

  Click.

  A panel slid aside just enough for a person to squeeze through. A breath of air rolled out—cold, stale, carrying the rot of old herbs and the metallic bite of rust. It crawled up my back and prickled across my scalp.

  They shoved me in gently enough, but the wall slammed shut behind me with a heavy thud, slicing away the moonlight like a severed thread. Darkness pressed in from all sides. I glued my eyes to the two silhouettes ahead. Every step broke the silence with soft, unpleasant creaks, like we were treading on something living, or something that used to be.

  I couldn’t tell how long we walked before a single speck of orange cut through the dark—like someone had poked a pinhole through a sheet of black ink. Slowly, it bloomed into view.

  An abandoned ancestral hall.

  Walls peeling. Incense table toppled. Dust thick as grave dirt. Bedding, wine jars, and a heap of weapons thrown across the floor like a camp built in desperation.

  Several figures stood there, unmoving. The candlelight carved their faces into halves—one bright, one shadowed. Their eyes clung to me like hooks.

  I straightened my spine—if I was going to die, I’d at least walk in like I meant to be here. I tilted my head, smirked, and asked lightly,

  “So… where’s the sect leader? He did say he’d be waiting. Hate to think I came all this way for nothing.”

  The figures shivered—just slightly, like paper effigies stirred by wind. Someone frowned. Someone’s stare sharpened. Someone else let out a low, amused hum, as though trying to decide if I was pretending to be stupid, or simply insane.

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  The two men beside me stiffened. Veins bulged on one man’s hand; the other reached instinctively for the dagger at his waist. Leather whispered under his fingertips.

  The candle flickered. Shadows stretched long, then snapped short. For an instant, it felt like something unseen had locked onto me from above—like a beast waiting to swallow me whole.

  Then a tall shape stepped forward, blocking the candlelight. Heavy boots hit the floor in measured beats, each thumping directly against my ribs.

  He wore a tattered dark-red cloak over black iron armor, wolf-fang spikes gleaming faintly at the shoulders. But the face above the armor wasn’t the brutish monster I expected. It was pale, austere, cold. Thin lips. A permanent crease of ice between his brows. And those eyes—long, sharp, predatory—like a hawk circling high above, choosing its prey.

  “So you’re the outsider who came with the sect leader?”

  His voice was low, gravelly, like cold wind forced through a stone crack.

  My heart tightened. Friend? Enemy? Too early to tell.

  So I smiled.

  “Outsider, sure. But ‘came with’… depends how you define it.”

  The candle twitched. His hawk-eyes narrowed.

  “Oh? Define it.”

  I shrugged lightly.

  “Well, if you mean walking shoulder to shoulder, then maybe. But if you mean being dragged along… then I’m definitely in the ‘victim’ category.”

  A short, cold laugh escaped him.

  “Dragged? The man who hung my brother’s head on the city gate? What are you compared to that?”

  Something clicked in my chest. Blood feud. And only one group around here hated Lian openly enough to say it out loud—the Western Altar rebels.

  So I’d walked straight into their nest.

  Good. Sometimes the only way out is through.

  I let my eyes widen, made my voice tremble.

  “I—I was doing work for the Blood-Lotus Sect, but you know how the sect leader is. Paranoid. Cruel. He claimed I was leaking information and shoved me into an underground pit. If I hadn’t gotten lucky, I’d be bones by now. I… I honestly want to defect to your side.”

  He studied me for a heartbeat—then gave a soft, almost amused snort.

  “An underground pit? Interesting. Didn’t know the western outskirts had such a thing.”

  A chill rippled through me.

  He knew exactly where we’d been. This wasn’t a probe. He had intel.

  The candle flared. His eyes narrowed further. He stepped closer, slow and intentional, a predator savoring the moment before the kill.

  “You want to defect? Truly?”

  My gut twisted, but I forced myself to nod.

  “Truly—as true as… as true as that bowl of wine on your table!”

  And only after saying it did I realize that inside the bowl— seemed to be— water instead.

  He still didn’t answer—just lifted his chin slightly, signaling the man beside him to search me.

  As they turned me inside out, I kept thinking furiously about when to bolt if they exposed me.

  The tension was about to snap when a low whoosh sounded outside—

  the wooden plank at the entrance was suddenly split open, and a figure burst in.

  The candlelight hit his face, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

  The man from Qingyin Hall!

  Wasn’t that—

  the pig demon?!

  My mind immediately conjured tusks and bristles… though he was still in human form at the moment.

  Before I could react, he had already crashed head-on into the man who’d been interrogating me.

  Steel clashed with a spray of sparks, exploding in the cramped ancestral hall.

  The two of them moved so fast they twisted into one blur of shadow.

  I couldn’t tell who was man and who was pig anymore.

  I shrank back against the wall, trying not to move, when another round of shouts erupted from the opposite side—

  Lian, dressed in blazing red, stormed in with his long whip cracking like a serpent of fire, cutting into the crowd.

  Hua and the Vice Envoy followed right behind him, rushing in through the broken wall.

  In an instant, the tide turned.

  The rebels were forced back step by step.

  My brain was still stuck on the absurd image of “pig demon versus Blood-Lotus traitors,”

  but my eyes had already lit up uncontrollably.

  I cupped my hands around my mouth and yelled at Lian,

  “I’m over here—!!”