My dao to eternity

The sound reached the shop before any explanation for it did, a distant crack like dry thunder rolling down off the mountain's northern shoulder, sharp enough that Old Mu's chisel skipped clean across the grain he'd been working and left a pale gouge he hadn't intended.

Li Fan was already moving toward the front of the shop before the echo had finished rolling out across the rooftops, his eyes on the northern sky rather than on anything closer. A thin plume of dust rose above the tree line where the outer sect grounds gave way to open mountainside, drifting slow and pale against the morning's clear blue, the kind of dust a landslide made, or something that had struck the earth with a landslide's weight behind it.

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