A low wind stirred the mountain dust, sifting gold motes through the eastern training field of the Jade-Dust Sect. It carried the scent of dew-wet stone, sandalwood from the elder's path, and the faint copper tang of sweat and bruises.
Dozens of outer disciples formed disciplined rows on the terraced plateau. Bare feet slid across polished granite. Sleeves snapped with each rotating strike. The instructor, a tight-lipped woman with a crow-feather bun, walked with hands behind her back, her gaze sharp enough to slice chi flow from fifty paces.
"Too shallow, Lin'er," she barked. "When you channel from the dantian, mean it. The thunder will not wait politely."
Lin'er swallowed hard, reset his stance, and nearly fell over trying again.
Behind them, toward the edge of the stone court where old plum trees whispered over a small cliff, lay a figure wrapped in stillness and shadow—untouched by exertion, undisturbed by form correction or sect protocol.
Li Wei Chen lay sideways beneath a drooping branch of blossoms, head cradled in one arm, the other resting across his ribs like a dead poet's pose. His robe was rumpled. His belt was loose. A single plum petal rested between his lips, as if he'd inhaled it mid-breath and forgotten to exhale.
Above him, the blossoms rustled gently in the wind—though none fell.
"He's still there?" whispered a junior disciple with a basin of morning water.
"Of course he's still there," another muttered. "He's always there. Useless as wet hemp."
"Doesn't even snore."
"Maybe he's dead?"
They all looked. One petal drifted down. Li Wei Chen exhaled, and the petal fluttered away. No more movement.
In the hierarchy of the Jade-Dust Sect, outer disciples were less than oxen. They fetched spirit moss, cleaned latrines, and ran errands into towns where even commoners laughed at their tattered sleeves. Only the most promising were ever selected for inner courtyard trials.
Wei Chen had never even made the list.
"He failed the simplest chi-meridian test," said another disciple once, watching him nap during incense hour. "His spirit thread's probably broken. Or cursed. Or both."
And yet, there he lay, every morning, beneath the same plum tree. The roots had grown soft from his weight. The grass no longer dared grow beside him. The tree above him had once bloomed only in early spring. Now it bloomed constantly.
No one questioned it. But everyone avoided sitting beneath it.
Today, the sky darkened with a different kind of silence. Clouds rolled over the high ridges, their edges curdling violet. A sheen of lightning flickered behind them like a giant's breath. The sparring instructor paused and sniffed the wind.
"Storm chi," she murmured.
A distant rumble. Then a low crackle, too deep to be thunder.
The disciples faltered. One of them looked toward the Sect bell tower. Still no signal.
Then came the smell—ozone and scorched fur.
From the far side of the mountain, a scream pierced the haze. Then two. The wind rose. Distant trees bent sharply.
And beneath the blooming plum tree, Li Wei Chen shifted ever so slightly.
He scratched his ear.
Then went back to sleep.
The scream had barely torn through the morning fog when the jade alarm gongs began to hum.
Not ring. Not toll. They hummed—a deep, resonant vibration that quivered along the bones of every disciple within the outer ranges. The tone was ancient, predating the sect itself. A frequency said to echo the heartbeat of the mountain's first guardian spirit. When it hummed, you ran or you died.
"Red alert signal!" the instructor barked, chi flooding her limbs as she flared into motion. "Evacuation protocol! Defensive lines at Gate Terrace!"
Disciples dropped water basins, cultivation scrolls, half-filled baskets of spirit mushrooms. A ripple of chaos erupted down the slope.
Someone cried out, pointing uphill.
Through the mist and curving ridge of pine, a bolt of unnatural lightning arced sideways—not down from sky to earth, but across the treetops. It tore through branches like a blade made of wind and hatred.
Then came the roar.
Thunder Beasts were rarely seen. Born of karmic rot and storm-fed malice, they only descended when leyline fractures stirred the oldest hate. This one sounded huge. Its call wasn't just loud—it unwound the air, made it raw and sharp, as if sound itself had grown claws.
Disciples ran. Some tried to form defensive arrays, only to be flung backward by surging gusts of electric pressure. A boy no older than thirteen clutched a talisman in both shaking hands—too late. The beast crashed through the lower forest wall, antlered head crowned in flame-veined fur, eyes glowing like wet obsidian.
Its hooves shattered stone. Its breath sparked blue.
It was heading straight for the open training yard.
"Scatter!" the instructor screamed.
She leapt forward, a spiral of green-light chi forming a crescent blade in her palm. Her first strike hit the beast's shoulder and ricocheted with a thunderclap. The beast didn't even flinch.
The air cracked—one of the outer barriers flickered into collapse, the protective formation unable to stabilize with so many disciples panicking.
In the chaos, a child tripped. One of the water-carrying juniors, Lin'er, the one mocked for his shallow stance. He stumbled backward and fell, head striking the stone with a dull crack. His eyes fluttered.
The beast pivoted.
One hoof—huge, black, glowing with karmic rot—rose into the air above Lin'er's tiny, stunned body.
And then…
Everything stopped.
No wind. No sound. No roar. No clangor of metal or chi. The moment stilled as though someone had inhaled the world.
A single bloom fell from the plum tree's highest branch.
The hoof froze mid-air.
Lightning—blinding and blue-white—splintered from the sky directly above the courtyard. It struck the center field, arcing in all directions.
Stone exploded. Smoke surged.
The shockwave knocked every conscious disciple flat.
And there, just within the crater's light, unmoved, unsinged, utterly untouched…
…Li Wei Chen slept.
Beneath the tree, the grass curled but did not burn. The blossoms above his head trembled but did not fall. Even the scent of plum remained soft in the air, untouched by ash or lightning.
Lin'er coughed. Looked up. The beast had vanished, or fled—none could tell. The mist swallowed its form.
The silence broke. Groans. Staggering feet. Distant shouts for medical aid.
But still, no one approached the tree.
Not yet.
Not until the elders came.
The smoke had only begun to settle when the cloud-cutting whistles of elder descent sliced through the sky.
They came as wind before form. Then silk before flesh. A ripple of heat, a shimmer of colored light, and suddenly the courtyard bowed under the weight of greater chi.
Three figures emerged—two in sea-iron robes, the third in pale lavender, barefoot despite the stone. Their robes bore the jade-threaded sigils of Senior Outer Command. Their eyes bore the weight of seven hundred storms.
Elder Yan, the sharpest among them, stepped first through the mist. His left sleeve was always shorter than the right, a gesture of mourning for his former master, though none dared name the name. His voice, by contrast, was all cutting precision.
"Report," he barked to the instructor, who stood straight despite her limp and bloodied forearm.
"One Thunder Beast. Southern flank. Breach lasted less than two minutes. Barrier failed due to mass disciple panic."
"And fatalities?"
"No deaths, Elder. Minor injuries. One child nearly trampled. A few lightning burns."
He squinted at the shattered field. "And this crater?"
"Lightning strike," she said. "Vertical. From above. Precise."
Yan's gaze narrowed.
"Thunder Beasts don't call down vertical lightning. Not unless—"
He turned.
His breath caught in his throat.
There, untouched amid the wreckage, the boy. Still lying under that cursed tree. Still asleep.
Another elder, a stockier man with burnt-orange facial tattoos, strode up beside him.
"Is that—"
"Yes."
"Again?"
"Yes."
The third elder, the barefoot one, said nothing. Her gaze moved between the scorched courtyard and the bloom-draped tree with an expression that was neither confusion nor interest, but…faint amusement.
Yan muttered, "He hasn't moved. Not an inch."
"He might be dead," the tattooed one offered.
Yan snorted. "Dead men don't snore."
Indeed, faintly, almost imperceptibly, Li Wei Chen exhaled. A long, contented breath through the nose, as if he'd just dreamed of steamed buns and moonlight.
Yan stepped forward, raising two fingers to his temple. A spark of green chi snapped between them—an awakening seal. It hissed slightly as he pointed it toward the boy's brow.
Nothing.
The spark fizzled and died midair.
"He's blocking it?" said the tattooed elder.
"He's not even trying," Yan hissed. "It's like it's sliding off."
"That tree shouldn't even be blooming in this season."
"Nor in this direction."
The barefoot elder finally spoke, her voice like wind curling through hollow bamboo. "Shall we beat him?"
Yan blinked.
She was serious.
"To test his reaction," she added. "Might tell us if he's just lazy or something stranger."
The tattooed one nodded. "Sound idea. Only way to be sure."
Yan raised his foot.
Li Wei Chen opened one eye.
"Oh," he said. "Did the storm already pass?"
All three elders froze.
Wei Chen stretched, slowly, lazily, like a cat who'd forgotten whether it preferred dawn or dusk.
He rubbed his eye. Yawned.
Then sat up, disheveled and blinking.
The tree above him dropped another plum blossom into his lap.
He picked it up, sniffed it. "Still blooming," he murmured. "That's nice."
The barefoot elder crouched before him, face unreadable.
"Do you know what just happened?"
He looked around at the crater, the broken stone, the scorched banners.
"Hmm," he said. "Someone made quite a mess."
Yan's eyebrow twitched. "You were in the middle of the courtyard when a Thunder Beast attacked. You are completely unburned. Unharmed. Not even dust on your sleeves. Explain."
Wei Chen looked down. Brushed his sleeve. "That's not true. There's some dust here."
He showed them a fingertip smudge.
No one laughed.
The barefoot elder tilted her head. "And the lightning?"
He yawned again. "Wasn't mine."
She almost smiled.
Yan growled. "Take him to the Disciplinary Hall. I want three interrogation seals on him before midday."
Wei Chen blinked. "Do I get to finish my nap first?"
The tattooed elder grunted. "Let him nap on the walk there."
"No need," said Wei Chen, rising to his feet, rubbing the back of his neck. "It's not far. Besides…" he looked up at the blooming tree, something unreadable passing through his gaze, "it's getting too noisy here anyway."
The Hall of Stones sat like an open jaw on the north ridge of the Jade-Dust Sect — an austere, crescent-shaped structure carved directly into the mountainside. Wind never entered it. Sound never left. The roof was slate black, inscribed with a spiraling mantra to ward off dream-walkers and soul parasites. The stone chairs inside were cut from the same mountain as the sect's founder's tomb.
No disciple came here by accident.
Wei Chen walked between two stone-faced enforcers, robes dragging behind him as if trying to resist the pull. His sleeves were rolled unevenly. A single strand of plum blossom petal still clung to his hair.
The central dais was ringed with seven elder seats, though only five were occupied. Of those, three radiated the sort of spiritual weight that made teeth itch and stomachs tighten. The air shimmered faintly around Elder Yan's head like a heat mirage — a sign his soul had begun to hover above his body from impatience.
"We begin," he said without looking up. "Disciple Li Wei Chen, Outer Rank 319, cultivation status: Stagnant Flow. You are accused of dereliction of duty, cowardice during sect-wide alert, and suspected spiritual anomaly."
Wei Chen scratched his chin. "I think you missed breakfast negligence."
Someone in the corner choked on a breath.
Yan didn't blink. "You were found asleep during a red-rank Thunder Beast incursion."
"I was dreaming," Wei Chen said. "It was a good one. Something about ducks with human voices."
Yan continued, flatly, "When the protective barrier failed, disciples scattered in panic. You did not move."
"There was no order to move."
"A child nearly died. Lightning struck feet from where you lay."
"It didn't hit me."
Silence.
Elder Qiu, the one with the facial tattoos, leaned forward. "Do you understand how serious this is?"
Wei Chen looked around, as if considering it. "The chairs are nice."
"This is a formal tribunal."
"Is it? No gavel."
"You are mocking the hall."
Wei Chen yawned. "Only lightly."
The barefoot elder, seated at the far end, tapped her chin with a bone-carved fingernail. "He's not shielding. Not deflecting. No arrogance. No fear. Just… detachment."
"He has no cultivation!" Yan snapped. "That tree he sleeps under—somehow it shields him. He's parasitizing the bloom cycle."
"Yet the beast avoided him."
"Or didn't notice him."
"Or something worse," the barefoot one murmured. "Something asleep beneath the mask."
The phrase hung in the air longer than it should have.
Another elder, ancient and shriveled with a voice like thin ice, finally spoke: "He should be punished. For ignorance if nothing else."
"Agreed," Yan said immediately. "I recommend exile."
"No, too simple," said the tattooed one. "Samsara Rift."
Even Wei Chen blinked at that.
The barefoot elder raised one brow. "You want to throw him into karmic mist?"
"Let it read him. Let it cleanse him. If he is truly empty, the Rift will devour him. If he's hiding something…" Qiu smiled faintly. "The cliff will see it."
Yan didn't object.
None did.
Wei Chen sighed. "Do I need to pack?"
"You go tonight," said Yan.
"Of course," Wei Chen muttered. "Why delay interesting things?"
The path to the Samsara Rift Cliff wound through moonlit stone and whispering pine. No torches lined the way. No guides followed. The elders had not even bothered to assign an escort. Perhaps they thought the cliff would handle the matter for them.
Li Wei Chen walked alone, hands in sleeves, the faint scrape of sandals barely louder than the wind through needles. Insects hushed as he passed. The mountain itself seemed to lean away.
Far below, the basin still crackled with dying thunder.
A nightbird cried out once, then never again.
The cliff revealed itself not with grandeur but with absence. One moment there was path — the next, only space. The stone ended like a breath cut short, jagged and dark against the stars.
Wei Chen stopped at the edge.
Below, the rift churned.
No fire, no color. Just a slow, endless roil of grey-white mist that pulsed like a dying lung. It rose from the fissure in slow tendrils, writhing with the faintest suggestion of faces, limbs, regrets. Some said it was a fracture in the world's karmic balance. Others claimed it was the mouth of a forgotten beast still dreaming beneath the world.
The sect had built no railing here. No altar. Only an old, cracked prayer stone with its characters half-scrubbed by wind.
He stood for a time. Minutes? Hours? The Rift did not measure such things.
He watched it shift. The way the air pulled downward, not up. The way the wind coiled sideways, as if arguing with gravity.
He yawned.
Then smiled, very slightly.
His voice was quiet, almost reverent. "All this talk of fate and cycles. But no one ever throws in a decent surprise."
The mist below twisted, as if listening.
Wei Chen took a slow step forward. Pebbles shifted beneath his feet.
"Power," he murmured, "is dull."
The next step brought him to the edge. The soles of his sandals hovered a hair's breadth from the void. Moonlight caught the edge of his jaw. His eyes, for once, were fully open.
"I just want something interesting."
He leaned forward.
The stone beneath him crumbled.
There was no scream. No panic.
Just a slight widening of the eyes as gravity finally remembered him.
The wind seized his robe like a lover's final grasp. His body tilted forward. The rift opened like an eye.
He fell.
The mist rose to meet him.
And then…
The world forgot him.