A gilded haze swirled beneath their feet like living silk, its luminous threads parting reluctantly before each step. The stairs materialized in hesitant flickers—each translucent slab of condensed sword aura crystallizing a heartbeat before their soles touched down, as if the mountain itself doubted their worth. Lin Feng ascended without hesitation, his black robes flowing like ink spilled across the glowing steps. When Meixiu stumbled on a shimmering step that threatened to dissolve, his hand shot out to steady her elbow.
"Careful," he murmured, his grip lingering a moment longer than necessary. "The third step is thinner than it appears."
Meixiu flashed him a grin, deliberately bouncing on the offending step. Golden sparks erupted from her frost-fox fur lined boots, scattering across the luminous veins that pulsed beneath the stair's surface. "Worried about me, A-Li?"
Lin Feng exhaled through his nose—a sound that wasn't quite a sigh, wasn't quite amusement—and adjusted his pace to match hers. "Someone has to keep you from setting the sacred path on fire."
The steps existed between realms—not quite stone, not quite light—their glass-like surfaces inscribed with shifting sigils that predated language itself. Dragon-shaped currents of qi swam beneath the material, their luminous forms coiling with ancient judgment. Seven stairways arced across the cloud sea like drawn blades, each leading to a different elder's domain, each humming with distinct energies:
To the far west, Elder Bao's stair trembled with barely-contained mirth. The rotund swordsman was already halfway up while tossing dumplings over his shoulder, each steaming morsel transforming into miniature sword forms midair. Jian Nian followed with long-suffering precision, carving something into the railing with his fingernails. Every third step, he paused to glare at Feng Yan, who winked from her position on Elder Ru's crimson stairway. The flamboyant disciple had somehow convinced the Iron Widow to tolerate her presence despite not being formally chosen. Her vermilion robes blazed against the war-red steps as she twirled a phoenix-feather hairpin, dripping embers that sizzled against the sacred path.
"Really, Lin Feng," she called across the void, her voice cutting through the thin mountain air, "must you always take the boring route?"
Elder Ru's armored grip clamped her shoulder in warning, but the smirk remained. Lin Feng ignored them both, though his fingers flexed near his sword hilt when Feng Yan's embers drifted too close to Meixiu's sleeve.
Eastward, Elder Xiu's silken bridge shimmered with predatory grace. Yan Lihua moved like a brushstroke across its surface, her lavender robes undisturbed by the chasm below. Every few steps, her fingers twitched—replicating sword forms only she could see in the bridge's shifting threads. Behind her, Mu Xiaohua tripped over nothing, saved from plummeting only by the silk ribbon around her waist. Her plush tiger, Master Huahua, swung wildly from her grip, its remaining ear flapping like a distressed banner.
At the center of it all, Lin Feng's stair remained the quietest—a blade's edge of pale light cutting through the mist. Elder Lan's silhouette floated ahead like a scrap of winter moon, her bare feet never quite touching the steps. The frost spreading from her passage formed intricate sword patterns that melted the moment Meixiu's shadow touched them.
"She walks like a funeral procession," Meixiu murmured, adjusting Mr. Bunbun in her arms. The rabbit's left eye reflected the distant peaks with unsettling clarity. "Do you think she blinks? Ever?"
Lin Feng's gaze stayed forward, but something softened at the corner of his mouth—a nearly invisible shift, like a petal catching wind before it falls.
"If she does," he said quietly, "it's probably in sword code."
Below them, the sect dissolved into abstraction—training yards becoming chessboards, forests shrinking to moss patches. The air grew thinner, sharper, each breath tasting of honed steel and impending storm.
No farewells were exchanged between elders. No glances spared for rival disciples. This was no ceremonial ascent—it was the mountain's merciless arithmetic, sorting souls into their proper equations.
The final step dissolved beneath their feet like smoke, depositing them onto the summit platform where the air itself seemed to hold its breath. Meixiu immediately bounded toward Elder Tao, her boots kicking up tiny sparks that danced across the stone. "Your beard looks softer today!" she declared, squinting at the suspiciously glossy strands. "Did you buff it with sword polish? Or—" she sniffed dramatically, "—is that almond oil? I know a poison that smells exactly like—"
"And your tongue remains a lethal weapon," Elder Tao interrupted, though his gnarled fingers rose unconsciously to stroke his beard. "I'll have you transcribing three centuries worth of alchemy logs tomorrow. In rhyming couplets."
Behind them, Mu Xiaohua stumbled into view, her oversized sleeves tangled in Elder Xiu's silk ribbons. The blindfolded elder stood motionless as her new disciple flailed, sending Master Huahua the plush tiger tumbling through the air. The stuffed animal landed squarely in Shui Daiyu's arms, its remaining ear flopping over the blue-green scales peeking from her collar. Without blinking, Shui Daiyu licked the ear experimentally, then handed it back with a disappointed grimace.
Feng Yan materialized from the dispersing golden light, her vermilion robes swirling like blood in water. She leaned into Lin Feng's space, her phoenix hairpin dripping embers that scorched tiny constellations into the stone. "You're late," she purred. "Did you stop to count every blade of grass?"
Lin Feng's eyes narrowed slightly. "How are you even here?"
Feng Yan twirled a lock of fire-gold hair around one finger. "Elder Ru only remembered she was supposed to take me as a disciple halfway up the stairs," she sighed, gesturing to where the armored woman stood like a forged monument. "Terrible memory for someone who claims to recall every battle since the sect's founding."
Elder Ru's gauntlet creaked ominously, the sound echoing like a sword being slowly drawn. "Ahem."
Nearby, the Phantom Twins observed the exchange through their shared shadow. Jin Lei tilted her head left; Jin Mei mirrored right. Their voices wove together in unsettling harmony: "The phoenix preens... while the forge grows hot."
Yan Lihua stood silent beside Elder Xiu, but the air around her fingers shimmered faintly, distorting like heat over a summer road. A perfect miniature of Feng Yan's smirking face flickered in the warped space for an instant before vanishing.
Meixiu, now attempting to balance Mr. Bunbun on Jian Nian's head as the stoic swordsman stood rigid with disapproval, called out: "I give them until midnight before someone gets set on fire!"
Elder Lan's frost spread between them all—a glacial border dividing the chatter from the silence she carried like a drawn blade. The frost reached Meixiu's boots—then stopped.
For a heartbeat, the platform held its breath. Even Feng Yan's embers froze mid-drip, suspended like crimson stars in the sudden cold. Elder Lan's gaze—pale as a blade left unsheathed in moonlight—settled on Lin Feng.
Meixiu rocked onto her heels, Mr. Bunbun's ear twitching against her wrist. Click. A pebble dislodged by her boot skittered across Elder Lan's icy border and shattered like glass.
The sound snapped the stillness.
Elder Lan spoke.
The residual golden mist still coiled around their ankles like living smoke when Elder Lan spoke. Her voice manifested without movement—winter given sound, sharp enough to crystallize the air between them.
"You delayed."
The words didn't echo. They fractured the silence with surgical precision, the way glacier ice splits under perfect pressure.
Lin Feng didn't flinch. His fingers flexed imperceptibly near his sword hilt as he turned just enough to track Meixiu—currently balancing Mr. Bunbun precariously on Jian Nian's sword hilt while the stoic disciple stood frozen in long-suffering silence.
"We took a stroll," Lin Feng said, the faintest emphasis on 'we' as his gaze flicked back to Elder Lan. His tone remained even, but the shift of his weight positioned him fractionally closer to Meixiu. "She wanted to see the sect from the western overlook."
Meixiu abandoned her victim with a playful pat to Jian Nian's stiff shoulder and materialized at Lin Feng's side in a swirl of twilight robes. "The view was spectacular!" she declared, all wide-eyed innocence, though her fingers worried at Mr. Bunbun's ear in the particular rhythm that meant she was resisting greater mischief. "I was tempted to give someone a little nudge—purely for scientific purposes, of course. But then I remembered, some people sink like rocks when they're embarrassed."
Elder Lan's glacial eyes narrowed—not with anger, but with the lethal focus of a blade being slowly angled toward sunlight. The frost at her feet spiderwebbed outward, crystalline fractals branching like silver veins through stone. The air thickened with unsaid judgment, each suspended breath tasting of frozen steel.
The silence wasn't absence. It was the razor's edge between drawn swords—the moment that measures souls before blood is spilled.
Then—
A whisper of fabric as Elder Lan turned away, her white robes flowing like a retreating snowstorm. The frost patterns halted their advance, preserving a perfect semicircle of untouched stone around Meixiu's boots. Dismissal. Or perhaps something rarer: tolerance.
Meixiu leaned into Lin Feng's shoulder, her grin blooming with renewed audacity. "I think she likes me," she whispered, pressing Mr. Bunbun's paw to her lips to stifle laughter.
Above them, a lone snow finch took flight—its wings slicing through the gilded haze with a sound like a master's blade leaving its scabbard for the first time in spring. The snow finch's wingbeats faded into the dispersing light as the platform exhaled, the golden mist curling tighter around their ankles like the mountain itself hesitated to let them go.
For a suspended moment, the only sound was the phantom echo of Meixiu's laughter—bright as a whetted dagger—lingering in the hollowed silence Elder Lan left behind.
Then the world remembered itself.
Elder Bao's laughter shattered the stillness first, his chicken leg raised like a battle standard. Grease glistened on his beard as he boomed, "Don't die before breakfast, cabbages!" The twin swords at his back clattered against his wine gourd, their blades still faintly steaming from some recent, undocumented duel.
Jian Nian followed in silent exasperation, but paused just long enough to lock eyes with Lin Feng—a single nod passing between them, the kind that needs no translation among those who've tasted real battle.
Feng Yan's departure was anything but quiet. She spun in a whirl of vermilion silk, her phoenix hairpin trailing embers that scorched fleeting love letters into the stone. "Dream of me, icy prince!" The blown kiss ignited midair, dissolving into smoke just before reaching Lin Feng's impassive face. Elder Ru's gauntlet clamped down like a vise, steering her toward Iron Tear Peak's crimson path. Behind them, Shui Daiyu paused to lick one of the fresh scorch marks, her forked tongue testing the residue with clinical interest before vanishing after them.
Meixiu dodged Elder Tao's retaliatory tea pour by a hair's breadth, the liquid hissing as it etched profanities in ancient alchemical script where her feet had been. "Bring your own mortar tomorrow," the old man grumbled, already half-consumed by the mists. "And pestle. And three layers of fireproof gloves. And—" His voice faded into the swirling vapor, leaving only the acrid scent of cursed oolong behind.
Yan Lihua and Elder Xiu departed without ceremony—one moment present, the next unraveling into silk threads that whispered secrets as they vanished. Mu Xiaohua's startled yelp echoed briefly as she was ribbon-wrapped mid-stumble, Master Huahua's remaining ear flapping desperately from her sleeve.
The Phantom Twins dissolved into their shared shadow, but not before their harmonized voice curled through the twilight: "Reflections always find their way home." The scent of lotus blossoms lingered where they'd stood, undercut by something darker—like ink spilled in temple water.
Only Elder Lan remained, her presence carving silence from the gathering dark. The frost at her feet spread in fractal patterns, each crystalline branch a wordless lesson. When she finally turned, her white robes flowed like a retreating blizzard, leaving behind air so crisp it ached to breathe.
Meixiu's forehead pressed against Lin Feng's shoulder—brief but bruise-tender—before she bounded after their new master, her boots igniting tiny star-bright sparks in the gloom.
Lin Feng lingered just long enough to watch the last wisp of golden mist dissipate. Then he followed, his shadow stretching long and sword-straight across the abandoned stones. The mountain exhaled behind them, its ancient breath stirring the hem of Meixiu's twilight robes as she bounded ahead, her boots leaving star-flecked footprints that faded slower than they should.
The convergence point revealed itself like a wound in the world - seven stairways bleeding celestial gold into the twilight, each pulsing with the essence of its master. The air thickened with competing energies: ozone and iron, silk whispers and thunder's echo. Meixiu skidded to a halt, Mr. Bunbun swinging wildly as she took in the branching paths. For the first time since their arrival, even her mischief stilled - not from fear, but the weight of recognition. This was where the sect's true divisions began.
Lin Feng's hand found the small of her back, neither pushing nor restraining. Just presence. Just readiness.
The stairs waited.
The seven stairways branched like veins of celestial gold through the twilight, each pulsing with the essence of its master in shimmering counterpoint.
Elder Tao's steps oozed emerald vapors that smelled of crushed medicinal dreams—part remedy, part poison. The wood groaned like an old man's joints beneath their feet, its surface tacky with centuries of spilled elixirs that had eaten through stone yet left these planks mysteriously intact. Meixiu paused to poke a whispering clump of stair-edge moss, which promptly spat three glowing seeds at her boots before playing dead.
"Don't touch that," Lin Feng said, pulling her back as the seeds sprouted miniature fangs.
To the east, Elder Ru's iron-edged staircase rang like a battlefield at dusk. Each crimson step bore scars—here a dent from a fallen warrior's knee, there a dark stain that might've been blood or the memory of blood. Shui Daiyu ascended with reptilian precision, her forked tongue flicking out to taste the railing's metallic grief.
Elder Xiu's bridge was a living thing—silver threads humming a lullaby that promised beautiful deaths. Yan Lihua glided across its surface as if walking through a dream, while behind her, Mu Xiaohua yelped as the silk strands coiled around her ankles like affectionate vipers. Master Huahua's remaining ear flapped wildly as she wrestled with the sentient fabric.
Elder Bao's staircase smelled like a festival morning—pork fat, rice wine, and the faint ozone of detonated fireworks. The wood sagged theatrically under his weight yet never broke, its golden lacquer worn thin by decades of greasy fingerprints and spilled liquor. Jian Nian followed three steps behind, his stoic expression cracking just enough to reveal nostrils flared against the alcoholic haze.
Elder Feng's stairway didn't merely crackle—it sang. Jagged thunderbolts had carved each step from living stone, the blue-white arcs between them forming a lethal musical scale. Disciples' hair stood on end as static whispered secrets against their skin. When Elder Feng laughed, pebbles trembled loose and fell endlessly, never quite hitting ground.
The Phantom Twins ascended Elder Yue's stair of mirrors, except the reflections showed not what was, but what might be—a hundred possible selves shimmering at the edges. Their shared shadow stretched and compressed unnaturally, sometimes leading, sometimes clinging to their heels like a reluctant ghost. The air vibrated with half-heard whispers in languages no living throat should reproduce.
And then—
Elder Lan's path.
Frost bloomed beneath her bare feet in perfect sword forms, each crystalline pattern lasting just long enough to be memorized before melting in Meixiu's warmer wake. The stairs themselves hovered at the edge of perception—there when glanced at indirectly, vanishing when stared at directly. Lin Feng followed the vanishing footprints, his own boots leaving no trace, his breathing synced to the rhythm of forming and dissolving ice.
Mr. Bunbun's glass eyes caught the dying light strangely, reflecting not the present path but the waiting peaks ahead—each one a sliver of honed moonlight, sharp enough to cut careless souls.
The higher they climbed, the more the stairs remembered their true nature. The golden light deepened to something almost sentient, the hum of ancient sword intent vibrating in their marrow. By the time they pierced the cloud layer, the steps no longer flickered.
They burned.
And far below, the mountain watched through a thousand stone eyes, its patience older than empires.
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