The walk back to the Southern Quadrant felt like a funeral procession of one. Master Feng Xiu moved slowly, his wooden staff tapping a hollow, mournful rhythm against the root-snarled path. The weight of Deacon Lin Quan's words pressed down on his hunched shoulders, heavier than the spirit-mountains surrounding the pocket realm.
"He is bait. He stays."
The sentence replayed in Feng Xiu's mind, a cruel mantra. He had to extinguish the light in a boy's eyes—a light that had only just flickered to life after seven years of suffocating darkness.
As the dense canopy of the forest parted to reveal the clearing, Feng Xiu paused. He expected to hear the grunts of exertion, the thud of fists against bark, or the sound of Lin Kai pushing his Mortal body to its breaking point as he usually did.
But the clearing was silent.
The wind rustled the leaves of the Iron-Bark Pine, blowing gently across the dilapidated hut. Under the shade of an ancient willow tree, sitting on a transfigured wooden stump, was Lin Kai.
He wasn't training. He wasn't meditating.
He was sitting before a makeshift easel—stretcher bars holding a taut piece of rough canvas. In his hand, he held a stick of willow charcoal, whittled to a fine point . His movements were rapid, fluid, and possessed a grace that his martial arts lacked.
Feng Xiu approached quietly, not wanting to disturb the peace. He stepped closer, his old eyes squinting to see what had captured the boy's attention so thoroughly on the eve of his supposed departure.
What he saw made the breath hitch in his throat.
It wasn't a drawing. It was a mirror into the past.
On the canvas, rendered in stark shades of grey and black charcoal, was a girl. She was looking over her shoulder, a playful smile dancing on her lips, her eyes sparkling with a mixture of innocence and arrogance. Her hair was tied in twin tails, captured mid-swing as if the wind were blowing through the canvas itself.
It was Lin Yun'er.
But it wasn't the sixteen-year-old genius currently dominating the Human Greatland. It was the Eight-year-old girl who used to drag Lin Kai through the mud, the childhood friend who had vanished without a goodbye.
The detail was terrifying. Lin Kai had captured the specific curve of her eyelashes, the tiny dimple on her left cheek, the way her nose crinkled when she laughed. It was a sketch born of a memory so cherished, so revisited in the lonely nights of the last seven years, that it had been burned into the artist's soul.
Lin Kai was so focused, his brow furrowed in concentration as he shaded the fold of her robe, that he didn't notice the old man standing behind him.
Rustle.
Feng Xiu shifted his weight, stepping on a dry twig.
Lin Kai's head snapped around. His eyes were wide, alert, the instinct of a prey animal kicking in. But when he saw the familiar green robes, the tension drained from his shoulders.
"Master Feng!" Lin Kai beamed, a genuine, boyish smile lighting up his tired face. "You're back early. Did Deacon Quan give the order? Am I packing tonight?"
He stood up, wiping the graphite dust from his hands onto his trousers, looking lighter than Feng Xiu had seen him in years.
Feng Xiu didn't answer immediately. His eyes were still glued to the canvas. "This... Kai, this is..."
Lin Kai rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy. "Ah, that. It's just... something I wanted to finish. Before I leave."
He looked at the portrait, his expression softening into a profound, melancholic tenderness.
"I know I probably won't ever see her again," Lin Kai said softly, tracing the air in front of the canvas without touching it. "I'm going to Flame Cloud City, to the mud and the markets. She's... somewhere high up, soaring in the heavens. But I didn't want to forget her face. These memories... they are the only wealth I have from this place."
He chuckled, a self-deprecating sound. "It's silly, right? The Trash of the Lin Clan drawing the Future Matriarch. If she saw it, she'd probably laugh and call me a sentimental fool."
"She would not laugh," Feng Xiu whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "It is beautiful, Kai. It has a spirit."
"I'm just doing what my heart says," Lin Kai shrugged, picking up his graphite stick again to add a final touch to the eye. "Even if she doesn't appreciate it, it's my way of saying goodbye. A closure."
Yip!
Xiao Bai, who had been napping in the tall grass, stirred. Seeing her master's mood lighten, she bounded over, leaping effortlessly onto Lin Kai's shoulder. She chirped, licking the smudge of charcoal off his cheek.
"Hey! That tickles!" Lin Kai laughed, scratching her behind the ears. "Look, Xiao Bai. It's the girl I told you about. The one who used to hit me harder than the training dummies."
He held the fox up to the painting, rambling happily about the time Yan'er fell into the koi pond or the time they stole spirit fruits from the kitchen.
Watching them, Feng Xiu felt his heart breaking into jagged pieces.
'His love is so pure,' the old healer thought, gripping his staff until his knuckles turned white. 'He believes he is leaving. He believes he is moving on. He speaks of her with such fondness, unaware that her father has just sentenced him to life imprisonment.'
"Master Feng," Lin Kai said, turning back to the old man, his eyes shining with hope. "I have a favor to ask. A big one."
"Ask, child," Feng Xiu said, dread pooling in his stomach.
"Has Senior Ru Xiao returned to the realm recently?"
Feng Xiu blinked. Ru Xiao. The Shadow Guard. The nanny who had raised Yan'er and often watched over the two children playing.
"She... she returns occasionally to report," Feng Xiu admitted. "Why?"
"Great!" Lin Kai clapped his hands together. "If she is here, or if you see her... could you give this to her? Ask her to pass it to Yan'er."
Seeing Feng Xiu's hesitant look, Lin Kai's expression turned serious. "I know it seems presumptuous, but I trust Senior Ru Xiao."
Lin Kai looked down at his hands, his voice dropping into a hush as a memory surfaced.
"Do you remember when I was ten, Master Feng? Two years after the Blood Test?"
Feng Xiu nodded slowly.
"I tried to climb the wall of the Main House garden," Lin Kai recounted, a distant look in his eyes. "I just wanted to see if Yan'er had come back. The guards... they caught me. They beat me until I couldn't walk. They were going to throw me into the spirit-beast pens for trespassing."
Lin Kai smiled sadly. "But Ru Xiao stopped them. She didn't scold me. She didn't mock my zero-grade blood. She healed my knees, gave me a warm sweet bun, and walked me back here. She told me, 'Do not let the coldness of this world freeze your heart, Little Kai. Protect that warmth.'"
Lin Kai looked up at Feng Xiu, his eyes earnest. "That memory is why I trust her. She never looked at me with disgust. If anyone will deliver this painting to Yan'er without throwing it in the trash, it's her."