RECKONING
There was a disturbance moving through the residence.
Songhe felt it before he could name it. It seeped slowly and invasively into the consecration wards woven into the fabric of his floors. The sigils, laid with care over decades, began to fray, their power loosening its hold.
His hand stilled against the low table.
Fire?
Not the careless blaze of accident or neglect. This was something purer, and far more dangerous. His thoughts moved at once through swift, practiced calculations.
This was fire that could destroy Ling Feng.
Then, unbidden, Nana. Taotao…
“Divine fire?” The words slipped from his lips, low and disbelieving.
Across from him, Immortal Fa Hai lowered his teacup with care. His gaze settled on Songhe, noting the subtle fracture in the elder’s composure. It was not overt, never that, but unease revealed itself in the tension along his shoulders and in the way his stillness had become too rigid to be called calm.
Fa Hai did not interrupt. Whatever realization had taken hold of Songhe, it was not one that welcomed interference.
Songhe rose with a motion that lacked its usual refinement and crossed the room. Fa Hai’s gaze followed as he reached the threshold. A talisman flickered briefly between Songhe’s fingers before he cast it against the wooden door.
When he pulled it open, it did not reveal the corridor beyond. Instead, it parted onto a space overtaken by flames.
Fire stretched inward, consuming structure and air alike. It did not crackle as ordinary fire did, but moved with a quieter intensity, its heat pressing against the senses rather than overwhelming them. The light it cast was not warm. It was exacting.
Songhe stepped through without hesitation and did not look back.
Fa Hai remained seated for a moment longer, his gaze fixed on the opening and the fire beyond, his thoughts turning with uncharacteristic uncertainty. To follow uninvited into the elder’s affairs was no small matter. Respect demanded restraint, and fear reinforced it.
But this was fire.
After a moment’s hesitation, he rose. If nothing else, he could assist in containing it.
He approached the door and stepped forward.
A force met him with violence, throwing him backward, the impact carrying enough intent to make its meaning unmistakable.
By the time he steadied himself, the door had already closed, sealed, and the talisman fell from its surface in a curl of ash. Whatever lay beyond was no longer accessible to him.
Within the residence, the fire had fully taken hold.
Songhe moved through it untouched. The flames parted around him with certain reluctance, bending, shifting, recoiling, yet never fully withdrawing, as though recognizing him while refusing to yield entirely.
Ling Feng.
He did not call out or waste breath on uncertainty. The situation had already narrowed into a single course of action. He turned and crossed from his own chambers toward those of Nana and Taotao, his steps swift and unbroken.
He found Nana first.
She lay upon the floor, her form small against the encroaching fire. The flames curved around the shape of her body, tracing its outline without touching her, inching closer with an unnatural, deliberate slowness.
With a single, precise motion, Songhe reduced her, body and spirit alike, into a white, luminous bead. The transformation was instantaneous, her physical form collapsing inward without resistance. What remained hovered briefly before settling into his palm.
He found Taotao in the common room.
There was no pause. Songhe repeated the act, compressing him into a second bead. It was a contingency, and a fragile one at that. Without cultivation or a spiritual core to sustain such a state, the transformation would not hold. In only a few breaths, both spirit and form would begin to degrade beyond recovery.
He closed his hand around the two beads and stood still for a moment.
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Ling Feng remained unaccounted for.
The fire pressed closer.
Songhe exhaled slowly. The decision had already been made for him.
He turned away.
* * * * * * *
It was dusk, and Ling Feng stood behind the bamboo thicket, watching as the house was consumed by angry flames.
He understood with certainty that this was not a fire he could contend with. There was no technique he could invoke, no force he could draw upon that would allow him to bend it to his will.
Yet in his haste to escape, he had left something behind.
The wooden box Xi Lihua had given him, the single object that could secure his place in Heyu Zong, remained in his private quarters. He could picture exactly where he had set it down, how carelessly he had turned away from it in that moment.
He wanted to go back, but the fire stood between him and the box.
Even if he forced himself through the flames, there would be nothing left to recover. The box, and whatever it contained, would already be gone, with it vanishing something that could not be replaced.
A sound rose from his chest before he could suppress it. It tore free, low and jagged, carrying a rawness he had never heard from himself before. His breath hitched as something inside him strained against the confines of his own body.
Threads of smoke began to unravel from his skin, lashing outward as they struck the ground and the surrounding bamboo, leaving faint, charred marks where they touched. Each strand recoiled before surging forward again, restless and erratic, driven by a will that was not entirely his own.
The forest recoiled. Leaves trembled, branches shuddering beneath the pressure.
Ling Feng stood at the center of it, unmoving, his gaze fixed on the burning house. Something dark settled behind his eyes as the outburst slowly forced itself back under control.
How could he have made such a mistake?
Around him, movement began to gather.
He heard it first, footsteps approaching from multiple directions. Then the presence of others became clear. Cultivators arrived in numbers, surrounding the burning residence with startling speed, their formation tightening as they took their positions.
Ling Feng did not wait for them to complete the perimeter. He turned abruptly and fled into the forest, moving with all the speed and energy his spirit nature could allow.
As he widened the distance between himself and the fire, the sense of danger did not leave.
It followed.
At first, it was only a single presence, faint but unmistakable. Then others joined it, and the pursuit grew behind him.
They were tracking him.
Ahead, the forest thickened, the terrain shifting as the trees grew darker and denser. The boundary of the Blackwood came into view. Ling Feng hesitated only for a moment before crossing into it without looking back.
When the pursuers reached the threshold, they stopped. One by one, they came to a dead halt at the edge of the Blackwood, their forward momentum breaking against an unspoken boundary.
They did not turn away immediately, as if they wanted to follow but were held back by restraint. After a moment, they turned away, returning toward the direction of the fire.
Among the pursuers, Zi Rongyu stepped forward to make the report.
Grand Master Li Weiji stood in the courtyard of Songhe’s residence, his gaze fixed on the burning flames. His brows were slightly arched, his expression touched with regret at what was being lost.
Zi Rongyu bowed deeply before speaking.
“Master, something malevolent was present, hovering around the residence. It sensed us and fled. We pursued it, but it has entered the Blackwood.”
Li Weiji did not respond immediately. His attention remained on the flames.
“Master,” Rongyu continued, “I request permission to pursue the anomaly into the Blackwood.”
“No,” Li Weiji said, the refusal immediate and absolute.
Zi Rongyu lowered his head slightly, disappointment visible for only a moment before he concealed it. “Yes, Master.”
Silence followed.
After some time, Rongyu spoke again, more carefully this time.
“Master, why are we not attempting to extinguish the fire?”
Grand Master Li Weiji exhaled quietly before answering.
“This is not a fire that can be extinguished, Rongyu. It will burn itself out once its purpose has been fulfilled.”
Rongyu considered this briefly before asking, “Purpose? What caused it, Master?”
“I do not know,” Li Weiji said. “But its meaning is clear enough.”
A pause followed before he continued.
“Two things. It is either a warning or a punishment for a grave sin.”
The implication settled heavily over those standing nearby.
Rongyu frowned, uncertainty settling across his features. He knew the owner of the residence, yet his mind struggled to accept that implication. After a moment’s hesitation, the question slipped out before he could restrain it.
“But who is being punished, Master?”
Li Weiji looked at Rongyu but did not reply. He did not have an answer to the question, or such an answer was simply too difficult to contemplate.