The defiant energy sparked by the confrontation with the Profound Heaven disciple did not dissipate; it settled into the West Quadrant like a deep, smoldering coal. The "Unbroken Root" medallion was no longer just a token of resilience, but a silent badge of rebellion, polished daily by the grit and determination of the menial disciples. The nightly gatherings at Old Man Bo's forge now carried a new, electric charge—a sense of shared identity forged in the fire of external contempt.
Lin Tianyao observed this transformation with the detached precision of a master cultivator assessing a new spiritual herb. The focused, unified will was a potent fuel, far superior to the chaotic energy of fear. The Tri-Flame Vortex within him drank it in, the amethyst middle layer glowing with a steady, satisfied light. Yet, he knew this very potency was a danger. A flame this bright would inevitably attract moths, and the most dangerous moth was already circling.
Luo Feng's gaze had become a tangible weight. During his inspections, his eyes would linger on Mo Ye, probing, dissecting. The young master had seen past the performance in the garden. He had felt the iron grip, seen the void in Mo Ye's eyes. The puzzle of the quiet gardener was now an obsession.
He seeks to unmask the ghost, Mo Ye mused during a long afternoon of weeding, his body performing the menial task while his mind navigated a labyrinth of stratagems. He does not understand that to reveal the ghost is to destroy its power. My strength lies in being unseen, a rumor, a whisper. I cannot let his curiosity become a spotlight.
"The boy's pride is wounded," Old Man Kui's voice echoed in his mind. "You shamed his enemy, but in doing so, you challenged his understanding of this world. He will not rest until he categorizes you."
Then I will give him a category to pursue, Mo Ye replied, his internal voice as cold and sharp as a shard of ice. But it will be a phantom category, a wild goose that will lead him on a long and fruitless chase.
The departure of the Profound Heaven delegation had left the sect in a state of suspended animation. The war was a stalemate, a beast licking its wounds. The air was thick with a tense, anxious boredom—a perfect breeding ground for conspiracy and misplaced focus.
Mo Ye began his counter-offensive not against Luo Feng directly, but within the ecosystem of the young master's own influence. He turned his attention to the network of junior disciples who formed Luo Feng's eyes and ears. He studied their routines, their hierarchies, and, most importantly, their vulnerabilities.
His primary target was Disciple Kai, a young inner sect disciple who served as one of Luo Feng's favored messengers. Kai was all sharp edges and brittle pride, his ambition outstripping his wisdom. He clung to his role as a conduit of information as if it were a core part of his identity.
Over the following days, Mo Ye became a ghostly puppeteer. He used whispered words, strategically placed where Kai's friends would hear, to inflate the young disciple's reputation for being "uncommonly perceptive." He subtly manipulated a ledger during a shared inventory duty, ensuring Kai was the one to "discover" a minor error, earning a flicker of approval from a supervising elder. He fed Kai's ego with invisible hands, making the young man feel more central, more intelligent than he truly was.
The bait, when it was set, was a work of artful misdirection. During a duty shift organizing discarded scrolls in a dusty annex, Mo Ye found a scrap of common parchment. With a brush and diluted ink, he crafted a single, enigmatic line in a rough, unpracticed hand:
"The serpent's tail guards a fang. The pass hides more than dead."
He did not sign it. He did not fold it with purpose. He let it fall, as if accidental, between the pages of a routine logistics report he knew Kai was tasked with retrieving for Luo Feng.
The hook was perfectly designed. The "serpent's tail" was an unmistakable reference to the Zhao, and "the pass" could only be the Serpent's Tail Pass, the site of the recent, costly stalemate that haunted Luo Feng's dreams. The note was vague enough to invite wild speculation but specific enough to feel like a critical clue.
The plan unfolded with chilling precision. Kai, his ego now inflated to a fragile balloon, found the note. Seeing a golden opportunity to prove his value, he presented it to Luo Feng not as a discarded scrap, but as a vital piece of intelligence he had "vigilantly uncovered."
As Mo Ye had predicted, Luo Feng seized the bait. The mystery of the quiet gardener was instantly overshadowed by this new, tantalizing enigma. His strategic mind, hungry for a way to break the deadlock, became consumed. Was there a hidden weapon? A secret formation? A vulnerability in the Zhao's defenses? He redirected all his resources, all his mental energy, into investigating the secrets of the Serpent's Tail Pass.
From his knees in the Spirit Moss garden, Mo Ye watched the fruits of his labor. He saw Luo Feng's agents moving with a new, urgent purpose, their faces etched with concentration. He saw Kai walking with a cocky strut, basking in his master's diverted attention. The emotional atmosphere of the sect shifted subtly, the grim despair now layered with a buzzing undercurrent of anticipation and paranoid speculation.
The Soul Flame feasted on this complex emotional cocktail. Luo Feng's obsessive frustration was a rich, dark vintage. Kai's arrogant glee was a cloying sweetness. The sect's renewed tension was a hearty main course. The Tri-Flame Vortex spun with vibrant energy, its layers fusing more completely, his mastery over the Third Stage deepening without a single spark of visible power.
He had not confronted the threat. He had not denied it. He had simply rerouted it, using his enemy's own pride and his subordinate's vanity as the tools of his defense. The ghost remained in the shadows, its presence more powerful than ever because it was, once again, unseen. The price of this shadow was eternal vigilance, an endless, patient cunning. And for Lin Tianyao, that price was nothing less than the currency of his vengeance.
The success of his manipulation was a cold satisfaction that settled deep in Mo Ye's bones, a feeling more nourishing than any spiritual pill. For the next several days, he watched the ripple effects of his single, carefully placed note. Luo Feng's investigation into the Serpent's Tail Pass became an all-consuming obsession. The young master was rarely seen in the gardens or the training grounds. Instead, he was constantly in and out of the war council chambers, his face etched with a mix of frustration and fervent hope. He dispatched scouts, pored over old maps, and interrogated returning soldiers with a desperate intensity.
Mo Ye, meanwhile, sank deeper into his role as the unremarkable gardener. He was a stone at the bottom of a river, unmoved by the currents of suspicion and speculation swirling above him. He tended his Spirit Moss with a devotion that was both real and a perfect. The work was his anchor, the rhythmic, mindless motion a meditation that allowed the deeper parts of his mind to plot and plan.
The Soul Flame thrived. The complex emotional tapestry of the sect—Luo Feng's obsessive frustration, the anxious anticipation of the disciples, the underlying current of fear from the ongoing war—was a constant feast. The Tri-Flame Vortex spun with a quiet, relentless efficiency. He could feel the power consolidating within him, the Third Stage of Soul Ignition becoming as familiar and controllable as his own breath. He began experimenting in his hidden corner by the compost heaps, not with large displays of power, but with fine, needle-thin threads of the Soul Flame. He could now make a specific weed wither and die with a single, focused thought, its life force a tiny morsel for the flame. It was a terrifying precision, born of endless practice and a will hardened in the Abyss.
It was during one of these clandestine training sessions that Li Na found him. She moved as silently as he did, a shadow among shadows. He did not startle, sensing her approach long before she emerged from the gloom.
"The Young Master is chasing ghosts," she said without preamble, her voice a low murmur. "He's convinced there's a secret Zhao fortress inside the Serpent's Tail Pass. He's pulling resources from the southern patrols to fund his investigation."
Mo Ye did not look up from the patch of barren earth he was staring at. "A man who chases ghosts often fails to see the real enemy at his gate."
Li Na was silent for a moment. "The southern patrols are thin now. A determined force could strike our supply lines there with ease."
"Then it is fortunate the Zhao are preoccupied with their own secrets," Mo Ye replied, his tone neutral.
He knew the risk. By diverting Luo Feng's attention, he had potentially created a vulnerability. But it was a calculated risk. A strike on the southern supply lines would be another blow to the sect's morale, another log on the fire of his cultivation. And it would further discredit Luo Feng's judgment, creating an opportunity for others, perhaps even for a voice of cold reason, to gain influence.
"He's looking for you, you know," Li Na said, her gaze sharp. "Not by name. But he's asking about the 'quiet one from the gardens.' He hasn't forgotten."
"Let him look," Mo Ye said, finally turning to meet her eyes. In the darkness, the faint violet sparks within his own were barely visible. "He will find only what I allow him to find."
Their shared look was a compact of understanding. They were not friends, but they were allies in survival, two predators who had recognized the same scent of opportunity and danger in each other.
Two days later, the consequences of Mo Ye's manipulation arrived. A breathless messenger stumbled into the sect, his robes stained with dust and blood. The southern supply caravan had been ambushed. The thin patrols had been overrun. A month's worth of spirit grains and healing herbs were lost, and a dozen disciples were dead.
The news struck the sect like a physical blow. The fragile hope that had begun to sprout was crushed under the weight of this new failure. The air in the West Quadrant, once charged with defiance, curdled into a bitter stew of despair and anger.
And at the center of the storm was Luo Feng. Elder Guo confronted him publicly in the main courtyard, his voice a thunderous roar that echoed off the mountains.
"While you were digging for phantoms in the north, the enemy was cutting our throat in the south! Your recklessness has cost this sect dearly! Your command authority is suspended. You will return to your quarters and reflect on your failure!"
Luo Feng stood rigid, his face pale with a mixture of fury and shame. His eyes swept the crowd of gathered disciples, and for a fleeting second, they locked with Mo Ye's. In that moment, Mo Ye saw not just anger, but a dawning, horrifying comprehension. He saw the pieces beginning to click together in the young master's mind: the convenient note, the wild goose chase, the subsequent attack. It was too circumstantial to prove, but the suspicion was now a poison seed, planted deep.
Mo Ye held his gaze for a heartbeat, his own expression as unreadable as a mountain peak, before bowing his head slightly and turning back to his work.
The emotional backlash from the failed ambush and Luo Feng's disgrace was a tsunami of negative energy. The Soul Flame roared, gorging itself on the collective despair and fury. The power was immense, a violent surge that threatened to overwhelm him. He felt the boundaries of the Third Stage strain, the vortex within him spinning so fast it seemed it might tear itself apart. He did not seek to break through to the Fourth Stage—that would require a more profound catalyst—but he used the surge to solidify his foundation, to compress his power into something denser, sharper, more lethal.
That night, as the sect licked its wounds, Lin Tianyao stood in his hidden spot, the cold of the Soul Flame radiating from him like an aura of winter. He had paid a price. He had made an enemy of Luo Feng in truth, not just in curiosity. The young master's gaze was no longer that of a puzzled observer, but of a man who knew, on some instinctive level, that he had been played.
But the gain was worth it. The Verdant Sword Sect was weaker, more desperate. Luo Feng's influence was shattered. The path was being cleared. The ghost had been forced to pay a price for its shadow, trading a measure of its perfect secrecy for a tangible shift in the board's power dynamics.
He looked up at the cold, distant stars. The war was far from over. It was, in fact, just entering a new, more dangerous phase. And he, the unseen current guiding it all, was ready.