Chương 58: The Sect Must Not Know (3/3) [Bonus 4/6]

Her slender fingers rested lightly upon the tabletop, pale and composed as carved jade against the blood-darkened grain of the mahogany. The flickering amber glow from the spirit-lamps cast shifting patterns across her knuckles, emphasizing the deliberate stillness of her hands.

"The matters recorded in this jade slip also explain certain rumors my pavilion has heard in recent months. We knew Cloud-Mirror Sect had recalled many of its disciples and sealed its mountain gates. At first, we believed they were only guarding against hostile movements from outside factions."

She glanced toward the jade slip at her side, the smooth surface still faintly warm from where it had pressed against her brow. A single strand of ink-black hair slipped forward across her cheek as she tilted her head, but she made no move to brush it away.

"But now it is clear that this was not the true reason."

Her fingertip descended with deliberate precision, tapping the jade slip once—a soft click of nail against stone that somehow carried the weight of certainty. The sound seemed to echo in the incense-thick air between them.

"The Yin miasma they seek to cross is not in some distant forbidden land. It lies within the depths of their own ancestral grounds. That place is most likely still sealed by remnants of the ancient heavens."

A strange light rose in her eyes, half anger, half solemn expectation—like the cold gleam of a blade catching firelight before it falls. Her breathing remained measured, but the pulse at her throat quickened ever so slightly, a betrayal of the calculation churning beneath her porcelain composure.

"To put it in simple terms, they are trying to open a secret realm," Su Yin said slowly, each word shaped with the careful weight of one naming a coming catastrophe.

"A ruined inheritance left behind from ancient times."

The room seemed to grow quieter. Even the steady drumming of rain against the windows faded into the background, as if the world itself held its breath. The incense smoke coiled upward in lazy spirals, undisturbed, weaving between the two figures seated across the table like ghostly threads binding them to this shared understanding.

So it's really a secret realm.

Shi Yan's expression remained hidden beneath the bamboo hat, unmoving as ever. Water still dripped steadily from the woven brim, falling in fat droplets onto the sodden carpet beneath him with muted, rhythmic taps. He let her explain clearly, his calloused fingers resting loosely on his knee, the other hand motionless near the edge of the desk.

Then Su Yin exhaled softly—a controlled release of breath that carried the faintest tremor at its tail.

If Cloud-Mirror Sect truly obtained such a thing, the balance of power in Skycloud City would inevitably be overturned. Once their Sect Master advanced further, the first to be suppressed would naturally be the rival factions around them.

Her gaze drifted momentarily toward the scattered wealth strewn across the tabletop—the glittering spirit stones, the jade bottles sealed with wax, the fine azure robes edged in silver thread. All of it plundered from men who had died guarding secrets worth far more than mortal treasure.

But compared to that distant storm, there was one matter before her eyes that she still could not understand.

She lifted her gaze toward Shi Yan once more, her dark eyes narrowing with the sharpness of one peeling back layers of deception to find the truth beneath.

"But let's skip that. Before explaining further, there is a greater matter," she said, her voice dropping to a quieter register, though no less incisive.

"There is one thing I still do not understand."

Her eyes fixed on the shadow beneath his hat, searching for the face hidden within the darkness—searching for any flicker of emotion, any telltale tightening of jaw or shift of posture.

"If these records are true, then the purpose of that group entering Black-Ash Marsh was only to silence Physician Li and retrieve the Crimson Pearl. Their coming should have had nothing to do with you."

She paused briefly, allowing the weight of her words to settle into the air like sediment sinking through water.

In the cultivation world, any wandering cultivator with a little sense knew to avoid entanglement with the great sects. To cross such a line was to invite annihilation—not merely death, but the erasure of one's name, one's lineage, every trace that one had ever walked beneath the heavens.

"Since you are so skilled at concealing your traces," Su Yin continued, her tone sharpening like a whetstone drawn slowly along steel, "then when you sensed their arrival, why did you not simply withdraw? With your methods, leaving unseen should not have been difficult." This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Her gaze sharpened further, her pupils contracting as though focusing on a distant target.

"Why choose instead to kill an Inner Elder of Cloud-Mirror Sect, and all those who followed him?"

Her voice was quiet, but the weight within it was clear—heavy as iron, cold as winter frost settling over a grave.

"To form such enmity with an orthodox sect is no small matter. Was it truly worth it?"

Shi Yan stood completely still. Beneath the dripping brim of his hat, his pale eyes reflected nothing—no guilt, no hesitation, no regret. His breathing remained shallow and even, each inhale measured, each exhale controlled. Only the faint tension in his jaw, barely perceptible even to one watching closely, betrayed the calculation running beneath his stone-like exterior.

Right... Why did I kill them?

On a purely mechanical level, his Sieve had basically demanded it, or the system itself had. With the Elder yielding an astronomical 25, 000 Dao Embers, fuel necessary to enforce his physical survival in this godforsaken world, how could he refuse?

But deeper than that... he had a feeling, a lingering feeling, that there had been a flicker of genuine malice.

When he had laid eyes on their white robes, a phantom ache had blossomed in his chest—the lingering, hateful grudge of his original body. A memory not his own, yet seared into his flesh like a brand: the cold smile of elders in white, the flash of a blade carving through living meridians, the agony of a spiritual root torn free while he screamed and begged and received only contempt in return.

Perhaps... the young disciple who had been betrayed, whose spiritual root had been brutally carved out by the very elders of this "righteous" sect.

So in the end, I acted on the hostility of a ghost, Shi Yan admitted to himself. But "revenge for a dead soul" is a poor excuse for taking on strategic risk. I must frame it within the logic of survival.

To sum up, the temptation of the kill, the rewards, and the brief malice he sensed from the original body were the true reasons he killed them.

But... let's frame it properly... There's no way I would say I need Dao Embers.

Shi Yan drew in a slow breath of cold air, pulling it deep into his lungs until his ribs expanded beneath the sodden layers of beast-hide and waxed canvas, then let it out in a controlled stream that misted faintly in the cooler air left behind by the Spirit-Clearing Formation's work.

"Hope is not something one can entrust one's life to, Deaconess Su," he said, his voice low and hoarse, like metal scraping against stone—each word deliberate, stripped of flourish or sentiment.

Su Yin's eyes flickered slightly, the muscles around her gaze tightening as she absorbed the weight of that statement. Her fingers, still resting on the tabletop, curled inward just a fraction—a barely visible flinch of recognition.

"In a place like Black-Ash Marsh," Shi Yan continued evenly, his tone as flat and unyielding as iron hammered cold, "when an unknown group suddenly appears, they are not something you can simply avoid."

He shifted his weight slightly in his seat, the faint creak of wood beneath him punctuating his words.

"They are a threat."

The words hung in the air like a pronouncement of natural law—immutable, undeniable.

"In addition, I saw that one of them carried something that seemed able to observe everything."

His calloused fingers drummed once against his knee, a single measured tap that conveyed neither nervousness nor impatience—only the rhythm of a mind moving through tactical considerations.

"Once that formation was set in motion, even if I had turned and fled into the mist, I would only have yielded the advantage and exposed my back to their pursuit. The one leading them was no ordinary cultivator either."

He stepped closer to the table, his boots squelching softly against the sodden carpet. Marsh water trailed in his wake, darkening the already damp fibers further. But then he paused mid-stride, his pale eyes narrowing slightly beneath the shadow of his hat.

He had gone too far around the point. Shi Yan saw Su Yin tilt her head, a faint crease forming between her brows as if the matter did not connect, so he stopped and spoke plainly.

Shi Yan gave a slight gesture toward the jade slip on the table, his mud-streaked fingers extending in a short, economical motion before returning to rest near the edge of the mahogany surface.

"Think of it this way, Deaconess Su," he said calmly, his voice stripped of all pretense.

"If they had arrived and found a stranger standing within that demonic ritual, after Physician Li had already refined the Crimson Pearl, would they first stop to ask who that stranger was?"

He answered his own question without pause, his tone as matter-of-fact as one reciting the properties of steel or stone.

"They would not."

His voice remained low and even, carrying the certainty of someone who had seen men kill for far less—who had himself killed for far less.

"Then consider the matter from another side. If, after months of scheming, they arrived only to find Physician Li dead and the Crimson Pearl already taken, would they simply swallow the loss and let the one responsible leave?"

Su Yin's expression darkened. The amber glow from the spirit-lamps cast her face in sharp relief—the smooth curve of her cheek set against the hollow shadow beneath her jaw. Her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.

"They would not."

The words fell from her mouth with the finality of a door slamming shut.

"Exactly," Shi Yan said, leaning forward slightly, his voice dropping to a quieter register that somehow carried more weight than any shout.

"Even if I had killed Physician Li and withdrawn into the marsh at once, they would still have pursued the matter. At the very least, they would search the village and use some tracing method to uncover what had happened—"

"The Echo-Seeking Art," Su Yin said suddenly, her voice turning cold as winter iron. Her eyes widened fractionally, pupils dilating as realization crystallized in her mind like frost forming on glass.

"Or the Eye of Clear Sky."

She looked at Shi Yan, her gaze sharpening into something dangerously close to respect—the kind one offered to an opponent who had survived where others would have perished.

"These are secret arts often held by orthodox sect enforcers. They would not need the villagers to speak at all."

Her slender fingers curled against the tabletop, nails pressing lightly into the wood as if grounding herself against the implications spiraling outward from this revelation.

"They could search the lingering traces left at the scene, or even forcibly draw out what the survivors had seen. In a short time, they would know your appearance, your garments, and even the direction in which you fled."

Shi Yan was slightly surprised inwardly—he hadn't expected her to name the specific techniques so readily—but he still gave a faint nod, the motion barely perceptible beneath the dripping brim of his bamboo hat.

"In the end, the result would have been the same," he said, each word falling with the inevitability of stones sinking into deep water.

"They would hunt down the outsider first, and only afterward decide what charge to place upon him."

Su Yin went silent. Her breathing slowed, deepening as she turned the logic over in her mind, examining it from every angle like a merchant appraising a flawless gem. The incense smoke coiled lazily between them, carrying the mingled scents of sandalwood and cassia, undercut by the faint, clinging stench of marsh rot and old blood from Shi Yan's cloak.

She could not deny it.

Given the secrecy of what had happened in Black-Ash Marsh, even if Shi Yan had spoken no word, yielded no resistance, and shown no enmity, that elder of Cloud-Mirror Sect would still have killed him without hesitation.

Only the dead kept secrets.

Her fingers uncurled slowly, spreading flat against the tabletop once more as if releasing the tension coiled within her.

Shi Yan's gaze remained as still as cold water, unblinking, unyielding—the eyes of a man who had long since stopped measuring his actions by the moral yardsticks of others.

"To leave a living mouth behind is to leave behind future trouble," he said flatly, his voice devoid of emotion, as clinical as a physician describing the necessity of amputation.

"A dead man cannot send word. A dead elder cannot return to his sect and report what he has seen."

He paused for a breath, letting the weight of those words settle into the space between them like sediment sinking through murky water.

"If someone comes for my life, I do not wait for him to tighten the net."

His voice dropped lower still, each syllable edged with cold finality.

"I kill him first."