The tower can wait. The sunlight can wait.
The Archives. Find something. Anything.
Move.
Han Li forced the jangling thoughts about the miniature tower and the Tower's probe into a locked box in his mind. Right now, they were just more noise. The only thing that mattered was evidence. He needed to understand the monster he lived with.
He walked to the main hall, his Tier 2 senses hyper-alert, listening for any sound that didn't belong—the return of footsteps, the flutter of another message pigeon. Silence.
He started with Xiao's personal quarters, a room he'd only glimpsed before. It was monastic: a hard bed, a simple desk, a shelf with a few well-worn medical scrolls. He searched with methodical, desperate care. Under the mattress. Behind the shelf. Beneath the floorboards, prying them up with his fingers. Nothing but dust and the faint, clean scent of medicinal herbs.
He moved to the Alchemy Room. He opened every ceramic jar, felt inside every jade box. He ran his hands along the seams of the stone furnace, searching for hidden compartments. He found ingredients, tools, ash. No secrets.
The main hall itself was next. He tapped on every wall panel, examined the legs of the heavy wooden table, peered into the empty hearth. His search grew more frantic, less careful. He overturned cushions, pushed aside furniture.
Nothing.
There was not a single portion of the living space he did not search. The valley, for all its spiritual richness, felt suddenly like a beautiful, empty prison. The secret was here, he could feel its weight in the air, but it was buried deeper than his hands could reach.
The hope that had driven him since Xiao left curdled into a cold, hard lump of despair in his gut. He sank to his knees on the polished wooden floor of the main hall, the reality of his situation crashing down.
What do I do? I don't know what this man is. Who he is.
Master is above all. More trusted than parents. The foundation of the path.
And that foundation is rotten. It's a pit covered with leaves.
What do I do now?
A wave of helpless fury rose in him, hot and choking. He couldn't scream. He couldn't cry out. The silence of the valley demanded silence from him. He balled his hand into a fist and slammed it against the floor. Once. Twice. The solid thump was pathetic, swallowed by the space. He did it again, the side of his fist connecting with the wooden planks, the pain a sharp, satisfying counterpoint to the numb terror.
Frustration boiling over, he pushed himself up and drove his fist into the nearby wall in a blind, angry arc.
THUD.
The sound was wrong.
Not the solid impact of fist on packed earth and timber. It was hollow. A dull, echoing thud.
Han Li froze, his knuckles stinging. He stared at the unremarkable section of wall near the corner, its surface painted the same plain whitewash as the rest. He knocked again, carefully.
Tap. Tap-thud.
There was a void behind it.
The despair shattered, replaced by a razor-sharp focus. He examined the wall. No visible seams, no cracks. He pressed, pushed, tried to find a trigger. Nothing. It was just a wall… with a secret space behind it.
He didn't have time for finesse. He ran outside to the woodshed, his heart hammering a new, frantic rhythm. He grabbed a sturdy, short-handled axe used for splitting kindling and hurried back.
He stood before the wall, axe in hand, hesitation gone. He took a breath, then swung.
The first blow bit deep into the plaster and lath, revealing dark emptiness behind. The second and third blows widened the hole. Dust and splinters filled the air. Within minutes, he had carved a ragged opening just large enough to reach inside.
He dropped the axe and reached into the cool, cobwebbed darkness. His fingers brushed against smooth, lacquered wood. He pulled.
Out came a simple, unadorned sandalwood box, about the length of his forearm. It was light. There was no lock.
Han Li carried it to the table, the dust of the broken wall coating his hands. He lifted the lid.
Inside, resting on a bed of faded blue silk, were two letters. One was sealed with a plain dab of wax, no sigil. The name on the outside was written in a flowing, elegant script: Li Hua.
The other was unsealed, the paper folded neatly. Written on the outside, in a familiar, precise hand he had come to know from herb labels and cultivation notes, were three words:
For Han Li.
His hands trembled as he picked up his letter. He unfolded it. The script was the same as on the labels, but the ink seemed faded in places, the lines less steady, as if written in haste or under great strain.
Han Li,
If you are reading this letter, that means I am not alive. I am already dead. And if you have searched and found this, you must be hating and cursing me right now because of my behavior with you.
My child, do not be fooled by the appearance of people. Learn to penetrate the skin and learn their spirit.
What I am going to say next may be a bolt of lightning to your mind, but do not panic yet.
The man you are living with is not me. He is a demon cultivator. A Spectral Parasite. I found his primordial spirit trapped in the Great Western Ruins. He promised me he would make me a cultivator if I found a boy with a strong spirit root. I was to cultivate that boy until he reached the Fifth Tier. Then, he would surge his will into me, I would be able to cultivate, and he would slowly grow stronger, eventually to reincarnate. I was a fool, desperate for the path.
But later, I discovered the truth. He does not want to help me. He wants to take over YOUR body. Once you reach Tier 5, your spirit will be mature, your vessel strong. He will kill your soul and wear your flesh like a robe.
But do not panic. Until you reach Tier 5, he will do nothing to harm you. You are his precious seedling. He will water you, tend to you, make you grow strong… for his harvest.
When I wrote this letter, he was not in my body. He sleeps sometimes, deep. After I stored this, he awoke. He saw me sending a secret message to Elder Lu of the Myriad Herbs Tower, begging for help. I think… I think he may have killed him.
Han Li, you must not let him suspect you. If you reach Tier 3, you can learn to control your qi emission. You can show him a slower, weaker progression while actually growing faster in secret. He will not be suspicious because he knows you took time at Tier 1. He expects you to be slow.
You can grow your strength in the meantime. You must.
Remember, my child. I sacrificed what was left of my life for your growth. Do not let that be in vain. Do not just die. I have written another letter to my family in Brightwall City. Send it to them if you can. Inside their letter is another, smaller note for you. Read that only after you have left the valley, when you are safe.
Do not let him suspect. Or your life ends. Grow stronger. Reach at least Tier 7. Learn fighting techniques. True techniques, not just cultivation.
Do not let my sacrifice be for nothing.
—Xiao Yao
The world tilted.
Han Li's breath left him in a rush. The paper in his hands felt like ice. The neat, familiar handwriting spelled out a nightmare.
Demon cultivator. Spectral Parasite. Take over your body. Kill your soul.
The words of his first, real master echoed in his memory: "They are ruthless. They know no mercy. They see other cultivators as fuel, as tools, as spare parts."
He hadn't been living with a harsh teacher. He had been living with a predator. A farmer fattening a pig for slaughter. Every lesson, every pill, every correction—all of it was fertilizer for a body meant to be stolen.
A cold, sickening understanding washed over him. The flicker of greed in Xiao's eyes when he checked his cultivation. It wasn't pride. It was appraisal. Checking the quality of his future property.
His heart thundered against his ribs, not with panic now, but with a terrifying, crystalline clarity. The fear was still there, but it had shape. It had a name. And it had a deadline: Tier 5.
He looked at the other letter, addressed to Li Hua. Family. A thread to the outside world, and a secret note for him hidden within. A lifeline.
He acted with a calm that felt foreign. He went to the hearth, stirred the cold ashes, and found a few lingering embers. He blew on them gently, added a handful of dry tinder from a basket, and coaxed a small, careful flame to life.
He held Xiao Yao's letter over it. The paper caught, the edges curling black, the precise characters dissolving into smoke and ash. He watched until it was completely consumed, until nothing remained but fragile grey flakes. No evidence. No proof that he knew.
He tucked the letter to Li Hua carefully inside his inner tunic, against his skin, next to the cool weight of the miniature tower.
Then, he set to work. He cleaned the room with frantic efficiency. He swept up every speck of dust and plaster, gathered every splinter of wood. He found some leftover whitewash in a shed and clumsily patched the hole in the wall, making it as smooth as he could. It wouldn't pass close inspection, but from a few feet away, in the dim light, it might go unnoticed. He returned the axe. He put every piece of furniture back in its exact place.
Five hours passed in a blur of desperate activity. When he was done, the main hall looked almost normal. The only trace of his search was a faint, lingering scent of dust and fresh earth, and a patch of wall that was a slightly different shade of white.
Exhaustion, deep and total, hit him then. The adrenaline drained away, leaving his limbs heavy and his mind a numb void. He walked back to his hut like a man sleepwalking.
He fell onto his bed, not bothering to remove his clothes or his boots.
Sleep was a distant star in a black sky, an impossible point of light. It would not come.
Fear was his blanket. Thoughts, sharp and relentless, were his companions. Nervous energy buzzed beneath his skin.
Demon. Parasite. Body thief.
Tier 5. The harvest.
Show slow. Grow fast. Tier 3 to hide.
Fighting techniques. Tier 7.
The letter to Li Hua. Brightwall City.
The miniature tower. The real Tower's probe.
Elder Lu. Dead because he tried to help.
The pieces swirled, a chaotic storm in the dark. But in the center of the storm was a new, hard nucleus. A purpose.
He was no longer a disciple on a path. He was a prisoner planning an escape. A crop plotting to uproot the farmer.
He stared at the ceiling of his hut, eyes wide open in the darkness. The fear was still there, cold and vast.
All he could think now was what to do next? but he got no answer.