For three days, Lee Wei waited for the axe to fall. He swept the pavilion's floors with a nervous tension that made Elder Kong scoff in his mind.
"Relax, you fool! You're vibrating like a plucked lute string. If you act this suspicious, even your precious anonymity won't save you. The Law Enforcement Elder doesn't know it's you. He just knows a concept exists. He still has to find the concept's face."
'That's not comforting!' Lee Wei thought, vigorously scrubbing a stain on the floor that had probably been there for a century. 'He's the Law Enforcement Elder! His job is finding people!'
"His job is finding people who stand out," Elder Kong corrected, his tone annoyingly smug. "You, by your very nature, defy his entire professional paradigm. You are a walking, talking blind spot. Now, stop worrying about that and focus. I've been sensing a peculiar energy fluctuation from the west wall. I think a previous archivist hid a Spirit-Concealing Amulet behind the plaster. It would be perfect for you."
Lee Wei was about to retort that he didn't need a Spirit-Concealing Amulet when he was already a spiritual void, when the heavy oak door of the pavilion creaked open.
The groundskeeper, an old man who mostly napped in a back room, shuffled in, followed by the severe form of Law Enforcement Elder Hong himself.
Lee Wei's blood turned to ice. He immediately dropped his gaze to the floor, making his posture as unassuming as possible, his movements slow and meaningless. He became a piece of the scenery.
"The Sect has a task for the Miscellaneous Affairs disciples," Elder Hong's voice cut through the dusty silence, devoid of warmth. "A shipment of mundane spiritual herbs needs to be delivered to the Blue Rain Outpost, near the Serpent's Pass. It's a simple resupply run. You," he said, his gaze sweeping over the room and, to Lee Wei's horror, stopping directly on him. "You look idle."
Lee Wei felt a jolt of pure panic. He saw me! He actually looked at me!
"Don't you dare faint!" Elder Kong snarled in his head. "He's not seeing you. He's seeing an available body. Look up, you idiot. Look bland and confused."
Lee Wei forced his head up, letting his eyes go slightly unfocused, his mouth hanging open just a little. He looked, he hoped, profoundly stupid.
Elder Hong's eyes narrowed slightly, as if trying to bring a faint smudge on a lens into focus. He failed. He tossed a small, plain pouch onto the floor near Lee Wei's feet. It jingled with spirit stones. "That is for supplies. A cart is waiting at the main gate. You leave within the hour. The outpost is expecting the delivery in three days. Do not be late."
With that, he turned and strode out, his robes swirling. The groundskeeper gave Lee Wei a sympathetic shrug before shuffling back to his nap.
Lee Wei stood frozen, staring at the pouch on the floor. The Blue Rain Outpost. It was a tiny, insignificant speck on the map, but it was right on the border. The border with the Blood Tiger Sect.
"Oh, you have to be joking," Elder Kong muttered, his mental voice a mix of dread and perverse admiration. "He's not even giving you a choice. He's not ordering you to be a spy; he's ordering you to be a delivery boy. And the message... the message must be hidden in the shipment itself. The arrogance! The sheer, brilliant simplicity of it! He's using your very existence as the camouflage."
'I'm not going,' Lee Wei thought, his mind resolute. 'I'll pretend to be sick. I'll break my leg. I'll quit the sect.'
"And draw more attention to yourself? The one who suddenly has a tragic accident right when the 'perfect, undetectable idea' is set into motion? He'd have you investigated down to your core marrow. No. You must go. This is the ultimate test of your nature."
Defeated, Lee Wei picked up the pouch. The spirit stones inside felt like lead weights.
The journey started with a profound lack of drama. The cart was old, the donkey stubborn, and the road dusty. Lee Wei, dressed in his plain grey disciple robes, attracted no more notice than the rocks by the roadside. He passed patrols of inner sect disciples, their auras sharp and vigilant. They glanced at the cart, dismissed it, and moved on.
He camped by the road, eating dry rations. He practiced the basic breathing technique all disciples were given, feeling the faintest wisp of spiritual energy circulate within him. It was, according to Elder Kong, "pathetic, but suitably unremarkable."
On the second day, the road began to climb into the rolling hills that marked the border region. The air grew cooler, the forests thicker. It was there that he encountered the first sign of trouble.
A fallen tree blocked the path. And leaning against it were three rough-looking men, their spiritual auras coarse and predatory. Bandits.
"Well, look what we have here," the leader grinned, showing several missing teeth. "A little lost lamb from the Verdant Cloud Sect. That cart looks heavy. Why don't you let us lighten your load?"
Lee Wei's heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. This was where his peaceful life ended, face-down in a ditch for a cart of cheap herbs.
"Don't run. Don't fight. Don't even speak," Elder Kong commanded, his voice calm. "Just be. Be the most uninteresting person they have ever seen."
The bandits approached, their eyes gleaming. Lee Wei sat on the cart, his posture slumped, his face empty. He didn't reach for a weapon. He didn't plead. He just stared into the middle distance, as if contemplating the philosophical nature of dirt.
The lead bandit stopped a few feet away, his grin faltering. He looked at Lee Wei, really looked at him. His two companions flanked him, looking confused.
"Hey! I'm talking to you, sect brat!" the leader barked.
Lee Wei slowly turned his head, his gaze sliding over the bandit without truly registering him. He gave a slow, vague blink.
There was an awkward silence.
"Boss," one of the other bandits whispered, "is he... simple?"
"He's got to be faking it," the leader muttered, but he sounded uncertain. He peered at Lee Wei, his divine sense pressing in. It was like trying to grasp smoke. There was nothing to latch onto, no fear, no defiance, no discernible spirit—just a vast, beige emptiness.
"Are we... are we really going to rob him?" the third bandit asked, sounding embarrassed. "It feels like kicking a puppy. A really, really boring puppy."
The leader scowled, his dramatic moment utterly ruined. "Ah, forget it! He's not worth the effort. The cart's probably full of rubbish anyway." He spat on the ground near the donkey's feet. "Come on. Let's find someone with a pulse."
They shouldered their weapons and melted back into the forest, leaving Lee Wei alone on the road. He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
'It worked,' he thought, a hysterical laugh bubbling up inside him.
"Of course it worked," Elder Kong said, though he sounded vaguely impressed. "Now, stop gawking and move the donkey. We're behind schedule."
He reached the Blue Rain Outpost without further incident. It was a small, fortified compound manned by a handful of bored-looking outer disciples. He handed over the shipment to the quartermaster, a weary-looking woman who signed his scroll without looking at him.
His task was complete. Relief flooded through him. He could go back now. Back to his dusty shelves and his peaceful, anonymous life.
He turned to leave, but the quartermaster stopped him. "Hey. You. The Law Enforcement Elder sent a separate package for you to deliver. Personal orders." She shoved a small, sealed cylinder of metal into his hands. It was cold and heavy. "The instructions are inside. Don't open it until you're a mile down the road towards the Serpent's Spine."
Dread, cold and sharp, pierced through his relief. The Serpent's Spine wasn't the way home. It was a treacherous ridge that led directly into the disputed territories—the perfect, covert route into the heart of the Blood Tiger Sect's domain.
His hands trembled as he took the cylinder. He walked out of the outpost gates in a daze, the donkey cart trailing behind him. Once he was a safe distance away, hidden by a copse of trees, he broke the seal on the cylinder. A tightly rolled scroll fell out.
It wasn't a long message. It was a map, with a single, red 'X' marked deep within Blood Tiger territory. And beside it, written in stark, uncompromising characters, was a command:
'Deliver this to the silent crow perched on the gravestone in the valley of fallen heroes. You will not be seen.'
Lee Wei stared at the message, his blood running cold. It was an instruction for a dead drop. For the missing spy.
He was no longer just a delivery boy. He was the message.
He looked up, towards the jagged, forbidding peaks of the Serpent's Spine. The path was narrow, rocky, and shrouded in mist. It looked like the entrance to hell.
Taking a deep, shuddering breath, he urged the donkey forward. The animal, sensing his despair, stubbornly refused to move.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Elder Kong grumbled. "Just walk. And try to look more... you. It's our only advantage now."
Lee Wei climbed off the cart, took the donkey's bridle, and began to walk, pulling the reluctant animal behind him. Step by step, he left the safety of the Verdant Cloud Sect's territory behind and started the climb into the domain of his enemies. He was a ghost on a deadly mission, armed with nothing but a profound desire to be anywhere else.