Two days had passed.
Two days since the night blood stopped being a rumor and became a memory. The Four-Leaf Clover Sect remained standing, but it breathed differently now—like someone who had survived a blow to the chest and still hadn't understood how.
---
Mountain of the Four Tributaries — Forgotten Warehouse
Wang Tao pushed the wooden door slowly; the creak sounded far too loud. Inside, it smelled of old dust, oxidized metal, and dried herbs—forgotten things that no one would miss if they vanished.
Perfect.
His body still ached, but it wasn't a clean pain. it was the kind that reminded him: you are only barely alive. He closed the door and removed his cloak. The bandages beneath his tunic were stained with dried blood. He looked at his chest, at his bound ribs.
Two days, and I still feel shattered inside.
He breathed slowly. The Sect wouldn't give him pills—not now, not with suspicions circling like crows. And even if they did, it wouldn't be enough.
Wang Tao opened the cloth bag. The herbs were there, delivered as promised: bitter, toxic, expensive.
He stared at the cauldron in the corner—a large vessel of black iron, an ancient tool used by those who once dreamed of being alchemists but never were. He ran his hand along the rim, feeling the coarseness of the metal.
"Body refinement is like the birth of a phoenix."
His master's words came unbidden, and he hated remembering them—because they came with a greater reminder: "From here on, the resources are your own responsibility."
Wang Tao filled the cauldron with water and ignited the spiritual flame. The heat grew slowly, as if the water itself were hesitating. He tossed the herbs in one by one. The water darkened: green, then black, then a strange shade of deep purple, like a bruise.
The vapor rose, its scent strong, nearly suffocating. He stood there, watching, measuring his own limits.
I've done worse things.
A lie. He had killed, he had lied, he had stabbed fate with filthy hands. But this was something else—this was self-destruction with full consciousness.
The water began to bubble—a living sound, a warning. Wang Tao carefully removed his bandages: cracked skin, scars, blemishes. The body remembered.
He stripped naked and stepped in all at once, submerging his entire body.
The pain arrived in the first second.
Not like a knife—but like liquid fire surging through his skin, entering, invading. He held his breath, teeth grinding, limbs contorting like a marionette on a stage. His body trembled, electrocuted.
The worst part was that it didn't just hurt his body—it hurt his soul. Every second was a struggle not to black out. His mind flickered, waking a second later, only for the process to repeat: once, twice, three times. An endless fight.
His body wanted to escape; instinct screamed: RUN. But Wang Tao didn't run. Not anymore.
The world was heat and poison. His skin began to burn—not the sting of a wound, but the burn of dissolution, as if his body were being erased. In that moment, Wang Tao realized his impotence, his weakness.
Once again, trapped by a fate that consumes me, layer by layer.
NO MORE.
And then, he stopped—stopped trembling, stopped fainting, stopped running, stopped playing the victim. For the first time, he felt the water not as an enemy, but as a forge. The pain didn't stop, and neither did his struggle to survive.
His skin began to peel away—not all at once, but in small pieces, as if the body were shedding an old husk. His throat pulled a sound, almost a scream, but he swallowed it.
He swallowed everything—because screaming didn't change the price. He stayed until he felt that if one more second passed, he would die.
Wang Tao stumbled out. His skin was red, raw, and in some places, bloody and exposed. He fell to his knees, gasping. The air felt like it was cutting him.
But he wasn't finished. Not yet.
He took the second cauldron. This one was different: clean water, different herbs—less toxic, more nourishing, restorative. The scent was softer, almost sweet. He waited for it to boil and entered again.
This time, the pain was different—a pain of reconstruction, like ants crawling under his skin, like something growing where there had once been a void. Wang Tao closed his eyes and let his body drink, let the flesh remember what it felt like to be whole.
When he finished, he collapsed onto his back on the floor: panting, trembling, his chest heaving, his vision spinning. But he felt it—the skin was still there, reconstructed, firmer, more resilient.
A cold thought came to him: If this was just the skin, how much will it cost to rebuild the rest?
He laughed quietly, without humor—because he knew the answer. It would cost what it always cost: everything.
Fine. Now I only have to repeat the process two more times...
---
Mountain of the Four Tributaries — Yan Li's Cave
Yan Li stared at the paper, her hands stained with ink, her fingers trembling. It wasn't exhaustion; it was something tightening inside her, a cord that hadn't existed before.
She breathed as Sai had taught: slowly, through her nose, into her abdomen. But her mind wouldn't obey—it pulled at memories, pushed images: the arrow, the blood, the rumor, the silence afterward, and Wang Tao's face. That face that always seemed distant, but now felt like an abyss.
She tried to paint a flower—a simple flower, a beautiful flower. The line came out heavy, thick, as if the beauty were being crushed. She froze, watching the ink drip—a dense, dark drop.
And the world drew closer. Again. Like the day before. As if the air had texture, as if the silence had weight.
She felt something inside her chest—a fine vibration, an intimate, cruel color.
Dirty Violet.
It was her color. She closed her eyes and felt it. Her hands touched the brush—this time, the color was clear. She guided it to manifest. Brush, ink, paper—the process repeated with every stroke. The painting was monochromatic, but it was unique, sensitive, as if it spoke.
Then her eyes burned—not with pain, but with emotion.
It's beautiful...
Her eyes welled with tears. She fell to her knees and cried—emotions surging like a river without banks, all the same color: dirty violet. She just felt; she felt too much, and the feeling was a blade.
The flower didn't turn out beautiful—it turned out true. It looked like an open wound on the paper. Yan Li sighed, her face wet, her makeup smudged, and stared at it. For an instant, she found it beautiful—and that terrified her.
She dropped the brush, stood up, and paced the cave aimlessly. She thought, as if apologizing to her own heart:
I don't want to become someone who sees beauty in pain.
But the world didn't ask for permission. The world never did.
---
The Plateau
Wei Lian sat on a rock, observing: the wind, the passing disciples, the lowered gazes, the conversations cut short. The Sect had a new identity now—a collective mask. And he felt it.
The problem was that feeling wasn't enough—he wanted to understand, he wanted to name it, because when he named things, he existed better. He clenched his fingers, looking at Wang Tao's cave: closed, silent.
He didn't know what to think. Brother. Assassin. Victim. Guilty. Choice. Consequence.
Sai had said: "What price are you willing to pay for it?"
Wei Lian swallowed hard. What if the price is accepting someone I didn't want to accept?
He laughed to himself, quietly—because it was ridiculous: he, a mortal, talking about price. But something inside him answered:
You also want to be seen. And being seen has a cost. It always has.
Wei Lian closed his eyes and for a moment imagined what it would be like to have an identity that didn't change—a solid identity, a whole soul. He opened his eyes and realized he was jealous—not of Wang Tao, nor of Yan Li, but of Sai. Because Sai seemed to know who he was, even if it was a mask, even if it was a lie. At least it was stable.
Wei Lian took a deep breath and stayed there, waiting—like someone waiting for a mirror to appear in the wind.
---
Mountain of the Four Tributaries — Forgotten Warehouse
Wang Tao dressed himself again. His body still ached, but the pain was more distant, more bearable. He looked at the knife on the table, the same one he used to cut herbs.
He picked it up and looked at his own arm: the new skin, pink and fresh. He hesitated for only a second, then pressed the blade against his forearm, slowly increasing the pressure.
The blade didn't cut—it slid, as if the skin were toughened leather. Wang Tao exhaled.
First Layer of Body Refinement — Tempered Skin.
The Master didn't lie.
He clenched and opened his hand—the muscles responded differently now: denser, heavier.
The path is still long. This was only one step.
But what he didn't realize was that every journey begins with a single step. He sighed and walked back toward the Sect.
Because now the sect is my family. And family is the kind of weakness that fate loves to collect on.