Elder Song's interest was as swift and sharp as a striking hawk. Within two days, the sharp-faced auditor returned, not with more junior disciples, but with two of Elder Song's personal attendants. Their auras were restrained but carried the weight of solid Foundation Establishment cultivation, a stark contrast to the general malaise of the sect. They examined the "mutated" Spirit Moss with clinical detachment, their spiritual senses probing the area with an intensity that made the air hum.
Mo Ye observed from a respectful distance, his own spiritual presence suppressed to an almost non-existent whisper. He had carefully withdrawn all traces of the Soul Flame from the patch, leaving behind only the residual, warped energy signature—a spiritual scar that felt alien and potent, yet frustratingly inert. It was a bait with no hook, a mystery without an immediate solution.
The attendants spoke in low tones, their words inaudible, but their body language was clear: confusion, followed by a calculating curiosity. They took samples of the moss and the soil, sealing them in jade containers etched with preservation runes. Before they left, one of them, a woman with cold, discerning eyes, approached Mo Ye.
"You are the disciple who tends this quadrant?" she asked, her voice devoid of warmth.
"Yes, Honored Attendant," Mo Ye replied, bowing deeply.
"Elder Song wishes to speak with you. Tomorrow, at the third bell. Be at the Logistics Hall." It was not a request.
That night, the forge was silent. Old Man Bo stared into the flames, his single hand clenched. "Song's hall," he grumbled. "It's where he counts his coins and plots his schemes. You walk in there a gardener, you might walk out assigned to scrub his privy. Or not walk out at all."
Li Na, for once, looked genuinely concerned. "He's a spider, Mo Ye. He doesn't see people, only flies for his web. Be careful what you promise him."
Mo Ye merely nodded. He had anticipated this. To a man like Elder Song, a menial disciple who stumbled upon an anomaly was not a person; he was a resource. The question was, what kind of resource would he become? A tool to be used? Or a problem to be eliminated?
The Logistics Hall was a stark contrast to the sect's grand, now-dusty main halls. It was clean, efficient, and ruthlessly organized. Spirit-calculation abacuses clicked in corners, and disciples moved with a quiet, purposeful haste. The air smelled of ink, dust, and the faint, metallic tang of concentrated spirit stones. It was the heart of Elder Song's power, a place where everything had a price.
Mo Ye was led into a spartan office. Elder Song sat behind a plain wooden desk, devoid of the usual trappings of a sect elder. He was a man of average build with a forgettable face, but his eyes were like twin pools of still, deep water, hiding sharp intellect and boundless avarice. His spiritual pressure was a subtle, constricting thing, not meant to intimidate, but to measure, to assess net worth.
"You are Mo Ye," Elder Song stated, his gaze sweeping over Mo Ye as if appraising a piece of livestock. "The auditor reports you discovered an… anomaly in the West Quadrant."
"It was this one's duty to report anything unusual, Elder," Mo Ye said, keeping his eyes lowered, his voice carefully neutral.
"Unusual is an understatement." Elder Song leaned forward slightly. "The energy signature is aberrant. It does not match any known spiritual pathogen or cultivation deviation. It is… new." He paused, letting the word hang in the air. "New things can be valuable. Or they can be dangerous. Which is it?"
"This lowly one does not know, Elder. I am but a gardener."
"A gardener who notices things," Song countered, his voice softening into a deceptive calm. "A gardener who is… surprisingly calm under pressure. The war broke many. It made others desperate. You seem to be neither. That, in itself, is interesting."
Mo Ye remained silent, understanding the game. Elder Song was probing for leverage, for a hook.
"I will be direct," Song said, his eyes narrowing. "The West Quadrant is a drain on resources. My initial recommendation was to abandon it. This… anomaly… has stayed my hand. For now. I am assigning a team to investigate it. You will continue your duties there. You will watch. You will listen. And you will report anything—anything—directly to me. Not to the auditors. To me. Do you understand?"
The meaning was clear. Mo Ye was being conscripted into Elder Song's intelligence network. He was to be the vulture's eyes on the ground.
"In return," Song continued, "your position will be secure. Your spirit stone ration will be… less inadequate. And should this anomaly prove to be of value, you may be rewarded further." He leaned back. "The alternative is to be reassigned to the deep mines, where the air is thick with stone-dust and forgotten men cough their lungs out in the dark. The choice is simple, is it not?"
There was no choice. It was a beautifully framed trap.
"This one understands and is grateful for Elder's guidance," Mo Ye said, bowing again.
"Good. You may go."
As Mo Ye left the Logistics Hall, he felt Elder Song's gaze on his back like a physical weight. He had successfully diverted the immediate threat to his position. He had even gained a sliver of patronage from the sect's emerging power. But the cost was high. He was now under the direct scrutiny of the most dangerous man in the Verdant Sword Sect.
He walked back towards the gardens, the cool mountain air doing little to dispel the cloying sense of being owned. The ghost, who had manipulated elders and shaped a war from the shadows, was now a marked piece on a greedy man's board.
A cold smile touched his lips. It didn't matter. Every piece, no matter how small, could be turned against the player. Elder Song saw a useful tool. Lin Tianyao saw a new, more challenging game. The vulture thought it was circling prey. It did not realize it was flying into the patiently woven web of a spider that fed on ambition itself.
The walk back to the West Quadrant felt longer than usual. Each step was measured, his mind a fortress under quiet siege. Elder Song's gaze had been more than an assessment; it had been a brand. He was now property, his value tied to a mystery of his own creation. The freedom of being an invisible menial disciple was gone, replaced by the precarious position of a watched asset.
He found Li Na waiting for him at the edge of the garden, her arms crossed, her expression unreadable. She didn't need to ask. The look on his face and the direction from which he'd come were answer enough.
"Song's web," she stated flatly.
"He sees a useful fly," Mo Ye replied, his voice low. "He has offered me the choice between being his eyes or being crushed."
Li Na's eyes narrowed. "And you agreed."
"There was no agreement. Only an acceptance of reality." He looked towards the "mutated" patch of moss, now cordoned off with simple talisman strips by Song's attendants. "I have bought us time. The quadrant is safe, for now. Our work continues."
"Our work?" Li Na asked, a sharp edge to her tone. "Or your experiments?"
The question hung in the air between them, a line drawn in the sand of their unspoken alliance. She was no fool. She had seen the careful way he curated the garden's decline, the timing of the "anomaly's" discovery. She knew he was playing a deeper game.
Mo Ye met her gaze. "The two are no longer separate. Elder Song's interest has made it so. To protect your work, and mine, we must navigate his."
He needed her. Her pragmatism, her network, her ability to move and observe in ways even he could not. But trust was a currency he could not afford to spend. He needed her compliance, not her camaraderie.
"He will use you until you are dry, then discard you," Li Na warned, her voice dropping. "He is not like the others. He has no pride to wound, no honor to appeal to. Only profit."
"Then we must ensure I remain profitable," Mo Ye said, a plan already crystallizing in his mind. "And that the profit he perceives is an illusion we control."
Over the next few days, a delicate dance began. Elder Song's investigation team, comprised of two alchemists and a formations expert, arrived daily to study the anomalous patch. They took more samples, set up monitoring arrays, and debated theories in hushed, frustrated tones. The energy signature was a ghost—present enough to detect, but impossible to pin down or replicate.
Mo Ye played his part perfectly. He was the humble, observant gardener, offering meek suggestions about soil composition and watering schedules from before the "change." He reported every minor fluctuation in the surrounding plants, every stray thought, directly to Elder Song through a designated courier. His reports were a masterpiece of mundane detail sprinkled with just enough tantalizing, useless information to maintain interest. He was feeding the vulture scraps, keeping it circling but never allowing it to land.
Meanwhile, in the ruined greenhouse, Xiao Qing's orchid continued its stubborn growth. The golden bud had unfurled slightly, revealing petals the color of captured sunlight. The circle of purified earth around it was now large enough for her to sit in, and she often did, meditating and channeling her gentle, persistent qi into the ground. The hope emanating from that small space was a quiet, steady counterpoint to the tense, greedy energy of Song's investigation.
Mo Ye visited the greenhouse in secret, drawn to the contrast. Standing at the threshold, he could feel the two opposing forces—the corrosive ambition of Song and the pure, defiant hope of Xiao Qing. The Void-Sapphire flame within him reacted to both, a strange, dual sustenance that was both agonizing and enlightening. It was as if his very Path was being forced to evolve, to encompass a broader spectrum of existence.
One evening, as he observed Xiao Qing from the shadows, he saw her falter. Her qi, always so steady, flickered. The orchid's glow dimmed for a heart-stopping moment. She was pushing herself too hard, her own meager cultivation base insufficient for the task she had set herself. She was trying to purify an ocean with a teaspoon.
A part of him, the cold, calculating architect of despair, saw an opportunity. Her failure would be a potent fuel. The death of that stubborn hope would be a feast for the Soul Flame.
But another part, the strategist who thought in layers and long-term gains, saw a different path. A failed experiment was data. A sustained one was a tool.
The next day, among the "mundane details" in his report to Elder Song, he included a carefully worded observation. "The disciple responsible for the abandoned greenhouse appears to be attempting to cultivate a Sun-Petal Orchid. The effort seems doomed, given the spiritual poverty of the location, but her persistence is... notable."
It was a seed. He was pointing the vulture's gaze towards a different, potentially valuable "anomaly"—not of corrupted energy, but of unwavering will. He was diversifying his portfolio of mysteries, giving Elder Song more to think about, more to covet. The more balls the greedy elder tried to juggle, the more likely he was to drop one.
The game was escalating. He was no longer just defending his position; he was actively managing his new master's avarice, using it as a shield and a tool. The ghost was learning to serve the vulture, all while secretly sharpening a knife for its throat. The weight of the vulture's gaze was heavy, but for Lin Tianyao, it was just another form of pressure, and pressure was what forged the sharpest blades.