Chapter 27: Whispers of the Second Stage
The next morning, Lin Ma awoke to the scent of sandalwood.
A parchment had been slipped beneath his door. No signature, no emblem. Just one sentence, scrawled in black ink:
> "You are being watched. Do not trust the night."
He turned the note over—nothing.
His first instinct was to dismiss it as some student's joke. But after the Mirror Trial, Lin Ma knew better than to ignore warnings, no matter how cryptic.
He folded the note and burned it over the candle's flame.
The embers curled in a strange direction—rising sideways before vanishing.
Something was shifting again.
---
Later that day, in the outer fields of the academy, Lin Ma stood in front of a stone formation used for qi focus. He wasn't alone. The atmosphere was tense with rivalry.
Students gathered in a loose half-circle. Many of them were from noble families. Some had mocked Lin Ma for months.
But now they looked… uncertain.
It had spread through whispers—Lin Ma's breakthrough. That he had emerged from a secret trial none of them had passed.
Even Wei Zhen, the academy's "golden boy," was watching from the shade of a tree, arms crossed, eyes narrowed.
"Lin Ma," said one of the instructors. "Demonstrate the new cultivation path you claim to have awakened."
It was a test.
And a trap.
If he failed, he'd lose the shred of respect he had gained. If he succeeded—he'd paint a target on his back.
Lin Ma inhaled deeply.
Let them see.
He formed the Mirror Sigil in his palm.
The air changed immediately. The wind dropped. Qi in the field twisted, gravitating toward him.
Students gasped. The instructor stiffened.
From his shadow, something stirred—a faint shimmer, like ripples across a dark pond.
Then—boom.
The stone formation cracked straight down the middle, clean and loud.
Even the instructor took a step back.
That wasn't just raw strength.
It was precision. Spiritual resonance.
The Mirror Qi.
Lin Ma let it fade.
Silence followed. Then the instructor muttered, "Class dismissed."
But as the students dispersed, one figure didn't leave.
Yun Xue.
A quiet, scholarly girl who rarely spoke. She approached him slowly, her long black hair tied with blue silk. Her presence was calm, yet her eyes gleamed with urgency.
"You shouldn't have shown that," she said softly.
Lin Ma frowned. "And why not?"
She looked around to make sure no one was listening.
"Because the ones who sent that scroll to the forbidden archives… they didn't bury it. They planted it."
Lin Ma's heart skipped.
"You know about the Mirror Scroll?"
She nodded. "Only because my father was part of the sect that sealed it long ago. I'm warning you—there's more to that technique than power. Every stage brings… hauntings."
"Hauntings?"
Yun Xue pulled out a thin jade slip and pressed it into his hand. "Read this. Tonight. Alone. And prepare yourself."
She vanished into the fog.
---
That night, Lin Ma read the jade slip.
It detailed the Second Stage: "The Voice of the Forgotten." A trial where memories that weren't his would start to bleed into his mind. Echoes of those who failed before him.
He was no longer alone in his own head.
And worse… if he listened to those voices too long, they would begin to replace parts of him.
His thoughts.
His will.
His identity.
---
As the clock passed midnight, Lin Ma sat cross-legged.
He activated the Mirror Sigil again.
This time, there was no dramatic shift—just a cold silence.
Then a voice echoed from the far side of the room.
> "I begged them not to bind the scroll. I saw what it did to my brothers."
Lin Ma opened his eyes.
No one was there.
> "The scroll doesn't give power. It borrows it—from every soul it breaks."
A second voice. A woman's.
Then dozens more began to whisper, overlapping, too fast to catch.
> "You'll forget her name eventually… your mother…"
> "Don't fall asleep…"
> "She never died for you. She died to delay you."
Lin Ma shouted, "Silence!"
But the voices didn't stop. They pressed against his skull like nails driven into glass.
He clutched the jade slip Yun Xue gave him—and it began to glow.
A symbol emerged—a bell.
He focused on it, pulling his mind away from the noise.
Slowly, the whispers faded.
Lin Ma collapsed backward, drenched in sweat.
So that was the second trial—not a fight, not a test of strength.
It was corruption.
Whispers trying to rewrite his truth.
And they would keep coming… every time he called on the scroll.
---
By dawn, he hadn't slept.
But he had survived.
And now, he understood something terrible:
The Mirror Scroll wasn't a tool.
It was a door.
And something on the other side had started watching him too.
---
End of Chapter 27