Wei Fan did not dream of immortal peaks. He dreamed of clean lines and quiet stones.
Every dawn, as the Starlight Summit shuddered awake with the clamor of sword drills and shouted mantras, he descended the nine hundred steps to the Dustfall Pavilion. There, he collected his broom—its bamboo handle worn smooth where his palms met it day after day—and began his slow ascent back up. Each step was a breath. Each breath was a beat in the mountain's own silent rhythm.
His world consisted of three courtyards and one ancient plum tree. That was enough.
Today, the highest courtyard was strewn with the aftermath of a night duel. Scorch marks blackened the flagstones near the meditation alcove. A broken sword tip glinted beside the old well. Wei Fan picked it up, noting it was still faintly warm, and set it aside on the low wall. He would return it to the armory later, with no note and no expectation of thanks.
As he swept, disciples flowed around him like water around a stone in a stream. They did not see him; he was part of the scenery, as fixed and unremarkable as the stones he cleaned.
"I heard Elder Kuo is nearing a breakthrough to Nascent Soul," one disciple whispered to another as they passed.
"The new vein in the West Ridge is yielding spirit jade, can you believe our luck?" came a reply from near the gate.
"If I don't place in the autumn tournament, my family's stipend will be cut. I cannot afford to fail."
Wei Fan heard it all. He remembered most of it. His only reply was the soft, rhythmic swish of bristles on stone.
Near noon, a new disciple—his face still soft with youth, his eyes wide with the newness of it all—tripped over the handle of Wei Fan's broom. The boy stumbled, and a stack of scrolls he was carrying spilled across the freshly swept stones.
"Sorry! I am so sorry, Elder—ah—" the boy stammered, his cheeks flushing.
"I am not an elder," Wei Fan said, his voice low and calm. He knelt to help gather the scrolls. One had come loose, its seal broken, and it unfurled just enough to reveal not a text, but a map. It was not a map of territories or sect borders. It depicted underground Qi flows, their lines converging toward the very heart of the mountain in a pattern that was strangely organic. It looked less like geology and more like a system of veins, or perhaps roots.
The disciple snatched the scroll back, his hands trembling. "This is secret sect material. You should not have seen."
"I did not see," Wei Fan replied evenly. He rose and returned to his sweeping.
But he had seen.
That evening, as twilight deepened into a starless indigo, he made his final rounds. The moon was a thin, pale scratch in the sky. In the third courtyard, beneath the silent boughs of the ancient plum tree, he found a single fallen leaf. It was not from the plum. This leaf was shaped like an open hand, its veins tracing faint silver lines in the dim light.
He reached for it. Before his fingers could touch, the leaf crumbled into a fine, gray dust. The dust swirled once, twice in a breeze he could not feel, then seeped into the cracks between the flagstones as if being drunk by the mountain itself.
Wei Fan straightened. For a long moment, he simply stood there, his broom held loosely, the night wind tugging at the hem of his plain robe.
Then, from deep below—so deep it was less a sound and more a tremor in the soles of his feet—came a single, resonant thrum.
It felt like a heartbeat. Or like a vast root, patiently pushing through stone.
Wei Fan did not smile. He did not gasp. He simply stood and listened until the sensation faded into the mountain's usual silence.
Then he swept the courtyard one last time, leaving no trace he had ever paused, and descended the long stairs to his small, quiet room at the foot of the peak.
That night, he did not dream of clean lines. He dreamed of something vast, and sleeping, and green.