Morning poured over Heaven's Loom Peak like pale silk.
Rat climbed the jade steps to the mirror pool, boots whispering. The hall's ceiling vanished into dim height. Threads of silver light hung from beams to water, drifting in slow tides. It looked like someone had poured the night sky into a room and told it to behave.
Elder Yue sat on a low stone by the pool, spine straight, hands folded. The reflection of her face in the water looked older than the one above it. She did not turn when he stopped three paces behind.
"Report," she said.
"No one stabbed me on the way up," Rat said. "Progress."
Yue's reflection blinked. The real Yue did not. "You walked near a place only the Patriarch visits. Do not insult me with jokes."
Rat let the grin die. "I was below. I did not touch the quiet man in the middle."
"The Patriarch is not quiet," Yue said. "He is listening."
"To what?" Rat asked.
"To what you woke," she said.
Silence pressed. The pool's surface trembled, as if a thin wind walked across it.
Yue finally looked over her shoulder. "There is more humming in this mountain today than in the last ten years. Threads were calm. Now they tighten when you breathe."
"I have been told I inhale inconveniently," Rat said.
Her mouth almost smiled. Almost. "No punishment. Not yet."
"That sounds like a threat written by a lawyer."
"It is a warning," she said, and the words landed heavy. "The sect listens even when no one speaks. Formation stones repeat what they hear to those who can read them. Walls develop opinions. You stepped where opinions are old."
He shifted his weight. "Understood."
"You will assist the archivists," she said. "Mapping Qi fluctuations. It is valuable work that happens to keep you under observation."
"So detention with homework."
"With seniors who know which lines not to pull," Yue said.
Rat glanced at the hanging threads. They swayed as if they had moods. "And Golden Core?" he asked. "I keep hearing the words from people who are bad at explaining."
Yue faced the water again. "Foundation is scaffolding. You stabilize the house. Golden Core is when the house admits it wants to be a bell and begins to ring on its own. It is not a ball of light. It is a song that holds."
"That is… clearer than I expected," Rat said.
"Do not try to sing yet," Yue said. "You have neighbors." She flicked two fingers. The silver threads rippled once. "Go. Work. And if Elder Ren speaks sweetly, remember the taste of clean water."
Rat bowed, shallow. "Yes, Elder."
He turned to leave.
"Rat," Yue said.
He paused.
"Do not die small," she said softly. "It would be wasteful."
He did not trust his voice, so he nodded instead and walked out into the sun.
The archive smelled like dust and tea and ink that had learned to meditate.
Shelves curved in long spirals around the hall, each lined with bamboo slips and thin stone tablets etched with hair-fine lines. Three disciples worked at a low table, brushes steady, eyes red. Rat recognized one from the night before.
Yan Mei looked up. She had sharp eyes and a sharper bun. "You again," she said. "The one who walks like he is trying not to break a floor."
"I am considerate," Rat said. "Rat. Temporary. Here to ruin your peace."
"Heard," Yan Mei said. She gestured to a stool. "Sit. Copy these. Do not sneeze on the slips. He Shen will cry."
A taller boy by the window did not look up. He Shen's hair fell in a curtain over one eye. His hands were too clean. "I do not cry," he said flatly. "I file complaints."
"Which is crying with calligraphy," Yan Mei said. "Do the thing, Rat."
Rat sat. The Codex expanded across his inner vision like ink soaking paper.
[New Task Category: Sect Survey.]
[Objective: Record flux in peak formations. Personal Interest: High.]
"Stay quiet," Rat thought.
[I can hum in your head if you prefer.]
"Later," Rat muttered.
Yan Mei slid him a slate chalk and a thin stone etched like a spider's web. "Hold this. Mark when you feel the pulse change," she said. "Every time the mountain breathes wrong."
He took the tool. It vibrated faintly in his palm, an old tuning fork trying to remember a favorite song. Threads ghosted into view at the edge of his sight. He blinked them away. The Fate Interface could draw stick figures over reality later.
They worked through noon.
Rat traced hairline tremors on the grid. He Shen collected them in a ledger. Yan Mei muttered under her breath at a stubborn crack of energy coming from the east terrace. The Codex offered commentaries, mostly smug.
[Observation: Your sensitivity is above baseline archivist level.]
"Do not get proud," Rat whispered. "It is embarrassing."
[Counterpoint: I am excellent.]
"Say that again and I feed you to a paper shredder."
[Your humor is a coping mechanism.]
"Your observations are a coping mechanism," Rat said.
"Talking to yourself?" Yan Mei asked without looking up.
"Practicing wit," Rat said. "Very advanced technique."
"Mm," she said. "He Shen tried to practice charisma. The mirror cracked."
He Shen's brush paused. "I can still file a complaint."
"Please do," Yan Mei said. "I will sell copies to the outer dorms."
A breeze slid across the hall, almost a sigh. Faint humming rose from the mountain around them. Rat felt it under his nails. The hum matched the Old Temple's pulse by intent rather than tone. The Basin had rhythms, and they were starting to argue.
[Network observation: Azure source below Heaven's Loom in steady respiration. Peripheral peaks responding. Distant bells at low amplitude.]
"Keep it to footnotes," Rat thought. "Not everyone invited to the lecture."
[Understood.]
Whispers moved outside the hall. Inner disciples walked past in pale robes, voices pitched low. Rat caught words like "singing treasure" and "patriarch's shade" and "not natural." He kept his head down and his ears open.
By the second pot of tea, the room had warmed. Work settled into a rhythm. Even He Shen stopped glaring and started counting.
"You always hear like this?" Yan Mei asked, after a long silence.
"Like what?" Rat said.
"Like the hall is trying to be a drum," she said.
"Only since the forest stopped pretending it was dead," Rat said.
Yan Mei leaned back, studying him. "You are either very brave," she said, "or very good at lying to yourself."
"It can be both," Rat said.
He Shen snorted. "He is a thief who got promoted. That is not bravery. That is luck."
Rat smiled without showing teeth. "Luck is a skill."
"Luck is a disease," He Shen said. "It spreads."
"Then you should keep your distance," Rat said.
He Shen's brush scratched a little harder.
A shadow fell over the table.
"Children," said a warm voice. "Working hard or pretending to for my benefit?"
Elder Ren Jinhai smiled like a cup of tea you did not trust. His robe was understated, the color of dried blood hidden under silk. His eyes were calm in a way that was not.
Yan Mei and He Shen stood and bowed. Rat stood slower and inclined his head.
"Elder," Yan Mei said. "We are counting the mountain's temper."
"And how does Heaven's Loom feel?" Ren asked.
"Restless," He Shen said quickly.
"Hungry," Yan Mei said, and then winced, as if the word had jumped out of her mouth without permission.
Ren's gaze slid to Rat. "And you, temporary one. What do you hear?"
Rat felt the Codex stir, a cat in his skull stretching, curious.
[Alert: Elder Ren's Qi signature reads inverted. Flow in, not out. Masked intake.]
Emera's dream-voice brushed his mind, soft as fog. "A root that grows where it should not."
Rat smiled like he had no idea what either of them meant. "I hear a choir learning a new song. Some of the singers know the words. Some are humming. One is drunk."
Ren's eyes warmed. "Drunk on what?"
"Possibility," Rat said.
Ren laughed, surprised. "Discipline suits you," he said. "Do not misplace it." He looked down at the grid of tremors Rat had been marking. "Clean lines," he said. "You are precise. That is rare in one with so much noise."
Rat held his gaze. "I practice."
"I am sure you do," Ren said gently, as if promising a knife later. He flicked his sleeve and glided on, his shadow thin against the floor.
Yan Mei exhaled. "Do not let him smile at you too long," she whispered. "It is like sun on snow. Pretty. You forget about the cold underneath."
"Noted," Rat said.
By late afternoon, the hall had emptied by halves. Work rotated. Scrolls stacked in neat towers. The mountain's hum calmed to a sullen purr.
Rat packed his copied slips into a basket. As he stepped into the corridor, Elder Yue was already there. She had a way of appearing that made distance feel polite rather than sneaky.
"Elder Ren came to compliment your penmanship," she said.
"He also complimented my discipline," Rat said. "I felt very educated."
"Ren has good taste," Yue said. "He also likes to salt his food before it rots."
"That is a colorful worry," Rat said.
Yue's eyes flicked once toward the distant central peak. "Some in this sect believe the Gateway to Heaven will open again. If it does, many hands will reach through at once. The first touch is not always kind."
"Is Golden Core needed to stand that wind?" Rat asked.
"Golden Core is needed so the wind does not blow you into a story told by other people," Yue said. "Now go eat something that looks like food. The kitchens try harder for inner robes."
He bowed. "Yes, Elder."
"And Rat," Yue said as he turned, "if the sect starts to ask where your steps go at night, let me do the answering."
"Understood," he said.
He stepped back into the labyrinth of terraces. The Inner Peaks stretched like the vertebrae of a dragon, each capped with a hall, each wrapped in formations like spun glass. Qi auroras rose in vaporous curtains to the sky, very faint. It was like the mountain was holding its breath, waiting.
The Codex slid text across his vision, conversational.
[Administrator Reputation within sect: Still Volatile. Admiration 22%. Suspicion 61%. Desire to test you 17%.]
"Only seventeen?" Rat said. "I am wounded."
[Give it time.]
"I would rather not."
[Nor would I. Your continued survival benefits my runtime.]
"Romantic," Rat said.
[Learning.]
The day thinned. Bells marked shifts across the peaks. Lamps opened like flowers in the courtyards. Rat drifted toward the dining hall on legs that remembered travel more than rest.
He ate in the corner. Plain rice, bitter greens, thin pork, a sweet broth that tasted like a memory of meat. He listened. Laughter, quiet boasts, philosophy traded like knives wrapped in cloth. He kept his eyes on his bowl and his ears on everything else.
Elder Ren passed once, smiled at no one, and left no footprints. Elder Lian arrived with three disciples and ate like a soldier before a march. She caught Rat's eye and tipped her cup. Warmth in the gesture. Warning in the glance.
Later, in his new quarters, Rat sat cross-legged on the floor. The room was clean. The window faced the Inner Peaks. He could see the mirror pool as a coin of light. He could see the ribbon path climbing toward the sealed terraces where the sect kept its secrets.
He let his Qi settle. He let the Fate Interface open at the edges, careful and small.
Lines sketched themselves across his perception. Threads from the outer peaks to the central heart. Formations like woven baskets. Pathways humming soft. For long minutes he only watched.
Then, like a stain spreading through silk, faint red loops appeared in the lower formation levels. Not lines. Loops. They turned on themselves, gnawing.
They did not come from outside. They grew from the circle around the Azure Pulse Bell. Hungry circles where lines should run.
[Codex Notice: Pattern corruption detected in undercroft layers.]
[Origin: Inner pool beneath Heaven's Loom.]
Rat's mouth went dry. "Corruption from the Bell," he whispered. "Or something wearing the Bell like a mask."
Emera stirred, far and foggy. "Some songs catch in the throat," she murmured. "They turn into choking."
Rat stood. The red loops scaled, slow and patient, toward the lower dorms and the servant tunnels. He felt them as pressure against his palms.
"That is not good," he said.
[Recommendation: Alert trusted authority.]
"Yue," he said. "Not Ren."
[Concur.]
A soft knock sounded.
Rat turned. The door slid open half a handspan. Yue's voice came through, low.
"You were near the heart, were you not?"
"If I say no," Rat said, "does that make it better?"
"No," Yue said. "It makes it inevitable."
The door closed.
Rat looked back at the red loops clawing toward him through the floor like roots that had forgotten which way was down.
He swallowed. "Alright then," he said softly. "Let us cut circles."
[Codex of Strands of Fate - Status Update]
Vitality: 6
Qi Sense: 8
Comprehension: 6
Fate Entanglement: 35
Realm: Foundation Establishment (Peak)
Tags: Temporary Inner Disciple, Heart-Seeker of Heaven's Loom
Modules
• Fate Interface v2.0 - Range stabilized to 300 paces. Hostile loop detection enabled.
• Creation Archive (Fragmentary) - Access improved in temple proximity.
• Temple Link - Old Temple remote ping functional within one day's travel.
New Trait: Choir Mind (Minor)
Effect: Codex predicts Administrator mood shifts and mirrors tone to reduce cognitive shock during high-strain perception.
Risk Notices
• Corruption loops detected in lower formation. Source likely tethered to Azure Pulse Bell.
• Prolonged observation may imprint sect network rhythms on Administrator Qi. Limit nightly scans to one hour.