That night, Wang Lin dreamed.
He stood in a place with no sky and no ground. Not darkness, but absence. A space where direction had not yet been invented. The wooden pendant floated before him, no longer dull and worn, but whole. Its surface was etched with lines too fine to be carvings, too natural to be runes.
They moved.
Not shifting, not rearranging. Remembering.
A presence stirred.
Not a voice.
An awareness.
You are late.
The thought arrived without sound, without accusation. It carried neither anger nor relief. Only certainty.
"I did not know I was expected," Wang Lin replied.
The pendant pulsed once.
No apology is required. Only readiness.
Images unfolded around him.
Hands, gentle and scarred. Beasts kneeling willingly, not bound, not captured. Milk flowing like light, dense enough to bend the air around it. Cities rising where gardens once stood empty. A man standing at the center of it all, his body no longer entirely human.
Then fire.
Sects burning. Chains snapping. Blood was soaking the earth where contracts had been carved into flesh.
The vision snapped away.
Wang Lin gasped and woke, heart pounding, breath ragged.
The barn was dark. Mei Niu lay nearby, curled on her side, breathing evenly. The containers sat where he had hidden them, still faintly warm, their glow muted beneath cloth.
The pendant against his chest burned.
Not painfully.
Urgently.
He sat up slowly, careful not to wake her, and pressed his fingers against it.
The moment he did, something answered.
Not warmth this time.
Structure.
Information did not flood his mind. It settled, piece by piece, like tools being laid out within reach.
Divine Husbandry.
The words formed without sound.
Not a technique. Not a spell.
A role.
He understood without being told.
His hollow meridians were not broken. They were empty by design. Vessels meant to receive, refine, and return. Energy passed through him because it was never meant to stay.
He was not a cultivator.
He was a conduit.
A multiplier.
Wang Lin exhaled slowly, grounding himself against the rush of realization.
"So that is what I am," he murmured.
The pendant cooled slightly, as if satisfied.
Something else stirred within him.
His body felt different. Not stronger, not heavier, but aware. His skin tingled faintly, especially where Mei Niu had touched him earlier. Sensation lingered there, sharper than before.
He closed his eyes and focused inward.
For the first time in his life, there was something to feel.
Not qi gathering.
Response.
His muscles held tension differently. His heartbeat was steadier. His senses felt subtly heightened, as if the world had moved a fraction closer.
Chimera Body.
Stage One.
Skin.
Wang Lin opened his eyes.
He did not feel triumphant.
He felt responsible.
A small sound drew his attention.
Mei Niu was awake.
She watched him from the straw, eyes reflecting the faint light of dawn creeping through the gaps in the barn wall. Her expression was calm, but alert.
"You changed," she said.
He did not deny it.
"I think I know why," he replied quietly.
She sat up slowly, testing her shoulder. The movement was easier than before. The wound no longer pulled painfully. Her breathing was steady.
"You healed faster," she said. It was an observation, not a question.
"Yes."
She studied him carefully. "And you did not touch me again."
"No."
Her gaze softened.
"That matters," she said.
He nodded. "What I learned matters too."
She waited.
"I inherited something," Wang Lin said. "Something old. Something that should not exist anymore."
Her ears twitched slightly, a tell he was beginning to recognize.
"The pendant," she said.
"Yes."
Mei Niu took a slow breath. "In the old stories," she said, "there was a path meant for caretakers, not tamers. Those who worked with us, not over us."
Wang Lin met her gaze.
"Divine Husbandry," she said.
The name landed between them, heavy with history.
"You know it," he said.
"I know fragments," she replied. "The sects erased the rest."
She looked down at her hands.
"They said the last one built a kingdom," she continued. "Not with chains. With bonds."
Wang Lin said nothing.
"If that inheritance has awakened," Mei Niu said quietly, "then what happened last night was only the beginning."
She looked up at him again.
"And you will not be left alone."
The barn grew brighter as the sun rose fully, light spilling across the straw and the hidden containers alike. Outside, birds began to sing, ignorant of the danger quietly taking shape.
Mei Niu shifted closer.
"There is something else," she said.
"What?" Wang Lin asked.
She hesitated, then met his eyes steadily.
"If this path requires consent," she said, "then I want to choose it properly."
His breath caught.
"I do not want to be milked," she said carefully. "I want to be bonded."
The words settled into him slowly.
Bonded meant more than production. More than survival.
It meant connection.
"You do not have to decide now," Wang Lin said.
"I know," Mei Niu replied. "But I am deciding anyway."
She placed her hand over the pendant.
It was warm.
Steady.
Accepting.
A new sensation spread through Wang Lin, deeper than before. Not heat. Not pleasure.
Commitment.
Something invisible locked into place.
Not ownership.
Mutual recognition.
Mei Niu exhaled softly, as if a weight she had carried for decades had finally shifted.
"It feels different," she said. "Lighter."
Wang Lin felt it too.
A thread, thin but resilient, connecting them.
Divine Husbandry acknowledged.
Bond established.
The pendant pulsed once, then went still.
In the quiet that followed, Wang Lin became aware of something else.
A presence at the edge of his awareness.
Watching.
Listening.
Far away, in a place neither of them could see, someone noticed a fluctuation that should not exist.
And began to ask questions.