The Servant Who Failed Three Times
The corridor beneath the Azure Heaven Sect smelled of damp stone and old incense. Torches flickered weakly along the walls, casting shadows that trembled like restless spirits. Xiao Li's footsteps echoed quietly as he descended into the lowest levels of the sect—far below the training halls, the meditation pavilions, even the outer disciples' dormitories. Here, only the forgotten remained.
He was a servant. Not a cultivator. Not a disciple. Not even a name that the elders truly recorded.
Three failures. Three Spirit Root tests. One "cripple," one "destabilizing variable," one existence deemed unnecessary.
He had long stopped counting how many times he had been dismissed, ignored, or laughed at. The world had made its judgment. And Xiao Li… had not argued.
Yet beneath his calm exterior, a spark had begun to stir—a whisper he could not yet name. It was faint, buried under years of labor, humiliation, and endless repetition, but it pulsed with certainty:
I do not belong to this fate.
He arrived at the lower formation chamber and paused at its entrance. The cracked black stone platform waited silently at the center, surrounded by broken formation lines that had once hummed with energy. The air felt heavier than before, as if the chamber itself remembered what had happened the day prior.
Xiao Li knelt briefly to sweep away the dust that had settled overnight. His hands brushed the cracked inscriptions. The faint absence still lingered, tugging at his awareness, like a void trying to speak.
"You are here again," a voice said suddenly.
Xiao Li froze. It was low, careful, and not entirely human. He turned to see a figure stepping from the shadows—another servant, a young woman whose black hair hung loose over a plain robe. She carried a lantern, its light trembling in the damp air.
"I thought the elders would send someone to report this," she said. Her voice was calm, but her eyes flickered with unease. "Three failures… they say you're useless. And yet…"
Xiao Li met her gaze steadily. "And yet?"
"And yet," she repeated, stepping closer, "something about this place… about you… is wrong."
He said nothing. The truth was not something he could explain. Even if he tried, no words existed yet to describe the sensation—the pressure that had descended, the emptiness that had answered his blood, the feeling that the world itself had paused to watch.
She glanced at the black stone. "Do you know what this is?"
"No," Xiao Li said.
The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. "Neither do I. But it doesn't belong to the sect. And it doesn't belong to the world as we know it."
Xiao Li touched the cracked stone again, just lightly, testing it. It shivered beneath his palm, not from pressure, but from… something else.
A pulse.
Weak at first, then stronger. A ripple moving through the air that no one else could feel.
"You feel that, too," the girl whispered.
"Yes," Xiao Li said.
She paused, studying him. "You aren't a disciple, are you?"
"I am what the sect calls a servant," Xiao Li said.
"Then why does this answer to you?"
He did not know. He had not known yesterday. And yet, a truth had begun to whisper in the corners of his mind.
I am… not meant to follow the rules.
The air shifted suddenly, colder this time, heavier. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the walls. The faint glow of the inscription flickered, almost alive. Xiao Li stood.
"I will return tomorrow," he said quietly, stepping away.
The girl tilted her head. "Tomorrow? You are not afraid of the elders discovering you here?"
He shook his head. "I am not here for them."
Her eyes widened, as if she understood something dangerous but could not name it. "Then… what are you here for?"
Xiao Li glanced at the cracked black stone one last time before leaving the chamber. The void within it seemed to pulse back at him, as though acknowledging an unspoken bond.
"I do not know yet," he said, voice low. "But I intend to find out."
By the time he returned to the surface, the sun had set completely. The Azure Heaven Sect glowed faintly against the twilight, swords and pavilions reflecting the last of the light. The disciples returned to their quarters, cultivators practicing quietly under the gaze of the elders, unaware of the anomaly growing beneath their feet.
Xiao Li walked past them unnoticed, as he always had, but this time he carried a new awareness. A seed had been planted—a spark that no decree could extinguish, no failure could destroy, and no record could erase.
Somewhere far above, Heaven sensed a disturbance. Not yet strong enough to act—but it had noticed.
And it would not forget him for long.
End of Chapter 3