Ye Chen rolled instantly, putting his body between Xiao Mei and the ancient cedar. His right hand dropped to the hilt of the curved saber at his belt. The metal felt ice-cold in the mountain drizzle.
"Who's there?" Ye Chen demanded, his breath frosting in the air.
From the cavernous hollow of the blackened cedar trunk, a figure leaned into the dim daylight.
The man looked ancient, his gray robes threadbare and patched with dried moss. A tangled white beard hung past his chest, but his eyes were bright, amber, and startlingly clear. In his gnarled fingers, he held a dry pipe carved from dark ironwood, tapping the rim against his knuckles.
"Put the butcher's knife away, boy," the old man rasped, his gaze flicking disdainfully to the stolen weapon. "If I wanted you dead, you'd have fed the river trout thirty breaths ago."
Xiao Mei scrambled up, steadying herself against a slick boulder. Her eyes narrowed as she studied the man's face, searching through old memories of market days and mountain lore.
"Elder Li?" she ventured, her voice tight with suspicion.
The old man snorted, a plume of aromatic herbal smoke rising from his pipe. "At least the girl has eyes. Your father owed me two jars of peach wine when he vanished, Ye Chen. I see you brought trouble instead of vintage."
Ye Chen lowered the blade an inch, though his muscles stayed coiled. "The Shadow Sect raided my homestead. They were hunting a courier carrying the coiled-viper crest—and then this happened." He gestured toward his torn collar.
Elder Li didn't look surprised. His amber eyes fixed directly onto the emerald light pulsing beneath Ye Chen's chest. The faint pattern of twin fish spun slowly beneath his pale skin.
"The Celestial Core doesn't wake for common scum," Elder Li murmured, his tone losing its casual bite. "Your father buried it inside that jade pendant to hide its resonance from the Grand Sects. But you cracked the seal, didn't you?"
"It broke on its own when the scout attacked," Ye Chen said.
"Nothing about that stone is an accident," Elder Li countered sharply. He stepped out of the tree hollow, his movements soundless despite the brittle twigs underfoot. He pointed the stem of his pipe at Xiao Mei. "And she was the one who kept your chest from detonating into a crater of Yang fire."
Xiao Mei stiffened. "How do you know that?"
"Because your fingertips are turning charcoal gray, little sparrow," Elder Li said plainly.
Xiao Mei froze. She looked down at her hands.
Beneath the wet soil smearing her palms, the veins along her wrists had darkened to an unnatural, bruised indigo. A dull, creeping ache was already inching past her forearms toward her elbows.
"The scout's curved saber," Ye Chen realized, horror seizing his throat. "When we fought in the mud—"
"The Shadow Sect coats their scouts' weapons in Corpse-Weeping Bile," Elder Li said, circling them like an old hawk evaluating injured prey. "Formulated specifically to corrode the meridians of unranked cultivators. The girl absorbed the miasma when she pulled the excess Yang out of your core."
Ye Chen spun toward Xiao Mei, grabbing her wrist. The skin was clammy, frigid, and vibrating with an erratic, unnatural tremor. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"It didn't hurt until we landed," she whispered, her lips pale, a defiant spark still flickering in her eyes. "And what was I supposed to do? Leave you to burn?"
"You foolish girl," Elder Li grunted, though a glimmer of reluctant approval showed in his weathered eyes. "A pure Yin physique is rare in these hinterlands, but without a core foundation, her body is just a sponge for foreign toxins. In four hours, the bile will reach her heart. She will freeze from the inside out."
Ye Chen's chest tightened violently. The green light inside his ribs flared in response to his panic, a wave of scalding heat washing through his blood. "You know how to cure it. That's why you're out here."
Elder Li raised an eyebrow. "I know how. But knowledge has a price, and herbs don't harvest themselves."
"Name it," Ye Chen said without hesitation.
"Behind this ridge lies the Frost-Bite Basin," Elder Li said, pointing his pipe toward the mist-choked peaks further north. "The only counter to the bile is the sap of a three-petaled Moon-Bloom Orchid. It only opens at twilight, and a pair of Shadow Sect hounds are currently sniffing around the lower ridge."
The old man leaned closer, his gaze boring into Ye Chen's eyes.
"You want to save her? You have two hours before the cold takes her legs. You'll have to cross into the sect's patrol line, harvest the flower, and guide your Yang Qi through her frozen meridians to burn the poison clean."
Xiao Mei swayed on her feet, leaning heavily against Ye Chen's side. Her teeth clicked together as a violent shiver racked her slender frame. Even through his shirt, the chill bleeding from her skin felt like packed snow.
"Don't... go alone," she breathed, her fingers twisting desperately into Ye Chen's collar. "It's a trap, Ye Chen. The spearman... he's waiting."
Ye Chen looked down at her pale, shivering face, then out toward the fog-drenched mountain pass. The pendant against his ribs pulsed with a steady, fierce rhythm, as if demanding he make a choice.
He wrapped one arm around her waist to keep her upright, his other hand tightening around the curved saber.
"He can wait all he wants," Ye Chen said softly, his voice dead and cold. "Stay with the elder, Xiao Mei. I'm bringing that flower back."
Before he could take a step, a low, melodic chime resonated from the mist behind the elder's hut—accompanied by the scent of night-blooming jasmine that didn't belong in the cold mountain air.
"Too late for the basin, young master," a woman's cool, mocking voice drifted through the pines. "The Shadow Sect already torched the garden."