Chén Yè stood in the doorway of his assigned room and did not step inside.
Small.
One bed against the wall. A narrow bookshelf, empty. A wardrobe with nothing in it. A door to the right—bathroom.
Four walls. A ceiling. A floor that would not flood when it rained.
It was the finest place he had ever been allowed to sleep.
He entered carefully.
The bedframe was solid wood. The mattress dipped beneath his palm—real padding. No straw. No mildew.
A tray waited beside it.
Rice. Vegetables. Steam rising.
His stomach clenched hard enough to hurt.
He sat and ate slowly. Chewed. Swallowed. Forced himself not to shovel it in with both hands. The food was warm. Seasoned. Meant for him.
When the tray was empty, he lay back.
The ceiling was smooth and uncracked.
Three days ago he had been digging through refuse.
Two days ago he had spat teeth onto stone.
Yesterday, an existence had crushed a hall full of children without lifting a finger.
Now he had a full stomach.
He should plan.
Instead, exhaustion took him.
Even if it's temporary, he thought, I'll use it.
His eyes closed.
Soon, quiet breathing filled the room.
---
In another wing, something shattered.
Xīng Hé stood in the center of her chamber, chest rising sharply.
Silk hung in ribbons from the bed. The bookshelf lay in splinters. The walls bore dark smears where her fists had struck again and again until skin split and bone showed through.
The composure she had worn in the hall was gone.
She kicked the remains of the shelf. Wood cracked apart.
"They took everything," she said hoarsely.
Another kick.
Everything.
She had known more than most.
In her family library, among the dry records and genealogies, were stories disguised as bedtime tales. She had recognized the patterns early—lessons hidden in metaphor, warnings wrapped in fantasy.
She had done the math years ago.
Mortals lived briefly.
The Awakened stretched that span.
Transcendent?
The texts had gone silent.
Long enough that parents died. Siblings died. Children died. Generations folded into dust.
Five hundred years, at least, to reach that height—if she survived. If she advanced cleanly. If she was not broken in the war first.
Five hundred years.
Her mother's face flickered in her mind. Her father's hands. Her newborn brother, barely a week old, warm and fragile against her chest.
Dust.
All of them.
She drove her fist into the wall again. Blood spread across white stone.
The war had begun after the last Transcendents left.
Five centuries of drafting children. Feeding them forward. Harvesting the strong.
When the powerful neared ascension, they left as well.
The system endured.
Unless someone broke it.
The thought settled into her like iron.
She would not take five hundred years.
She would rise faster.
Faster than the ones above her. Faster than the ones waiting to ascend.
And when she reached the summit—
She pictured the shrine. The guards. The hands that dragged her away.
The unknown voice that had told the officers where to find her.
Ignorant.
Or deliberate.
She did not know which she preferred.
"If I find you," she whispered, blood dripping from her knuckles, "you will answer."
The fury burned until it hollowed her out.
Eventually her arms fell to her sides. Her breath came ragged. Tears tracked silently down her face. She hadn't noticed them begin.
"I will stop this," she said.
Not a scream.
A decision.
"I will reach the top."
Blood slid from her hands to the floor.
"I swear it."
The blood reversed.
It crawled backward across her skin, slipping into torn flesh. Bone vanished beneath knitting tissue. Skin sealed smooth, unbroken.
The sheets twitched.
Ribbons of silk dragged themselves together, seams fusing without thread. The bed remade itself.
Splinters lifted from the floor. Wood fitted into wood. The bookshelf rose whole.
Crimson faded from the walls.
Cracks sealed.
The room exhaled—pristine.
Xīng Hé swayed.
She did not see the restoration. Did not feel the concept settling into her bones.
She collapsed—
Onto the bed, now whole.
Her hands lay against the sheets, smooth and unscarred.
The chamber stood untouched. Untarnished. As if nothing violent had ever occurred within it.
She slept.
Something had awakened.
Not fed by ritual. Not drawn out by testing.
Born from refusal.
She did not know.
No one did.
Not yet.
---