The silence did not break all at once.
It seeped back into the chamber slowly, like a hesitant breath returning after near suffocation. Sound crept in first—the faint drip of water somewhere in the darkness. Then light straightened, no longer bending toward the black stone at the center of the platform.
Xiao Li collapsed forward, both hands braced against the cold floor.
His lungs burned.
He gasped, drawing in air that felt thinner than before, sharper, as though it resisted being inhaled. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, each pulse echoing too loudly inside his chest.
"What… was that…?"
There was no answer.
The inscription before him looked unchanged—dark, deep, and impossibly empty. Yet Xiao Li felt certain of one thing:
Something had responded.
He wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his sleeve. His fingers trembled, not from fear, but from a strange aftershock rippling through his body. It was as if something fundamental had shifted slightly out of alignment.
He stood unsteadily.
The pressure was gone, but the absence remained. The air around the platform still felt wrong—muted, restrained, unwilling to move freely. Xiao Li took a careful step back.
Nothing happened.
Another step.
Still nothing.
Only then did he allow himself to breathe properly.
"I should report this…" he murmured.
Yet even as the thought formed, hesitation followed. How would he explain it? That the chamber had gone silent? That an inscription made his blood react? Elders would dismiss it—or worse, investigate.
And if they investigated…
Xiao Li looked again at the black stone.
Something told him it would not react twice.
He left the lower chamber before dawn.
The sky above the sect had begun to pale, faint streaks of gold stretching across the horizon. Disciples moved through the paths, some returning from night cultivation, others preparing for morning lessons.
No one looked at him.
That, at least, had not changed.
Xiao Li returned to the servant quarters, cleaned himself, and resumed his duties. Sweeping courtyards. Carrying supplies. Standing silently as cultivators passed by, their robes fluttering with spiritual light.
Yet the world felt… thinner.
When a disciple rushed past him, Xiao Li felt the disturbance before it happened—a subtle ripple in space, like fabric tugged too sharply. He frowned, turning his head a heartbeat before the disciple brushed by.
The young man paused, glancing back.
"…Did you move?" the disciple asked.
"No," Xiao Li said.
The disciple scowled, unsettled for reasons he could not name, then shook his head and walked away.
Xiao Li stared after him.
That sensation—anticipation without reason—lingered.
Later that morning, Xiao Li was summoned again.
Not to the testing hall.
To the storage pavilion.
Elder Qian stood beside a low stone table, three Spirit Stones arranged neatly upon it. The elder's expression was unreadable, but impatience crept into the set of his jaw.
"Xiao Li," Elder Qian said. "Step forward."
Xiao Li obeyed.
"You failed the Spirit Root test three times," the elder continued. "Yet the stones reacted… unusually."
Xiao Li said nothing.
Elder Qian pushed one of the stones forward. "Touch it."
The pavilion was quiet. Several disciples watched from a distance, curiosity thinly veiled behind discipline.
Xiao Li placed his hand on the Spirit Stone.
For a brief instant, nothing happened.
Then the stone crumbled.
Not explosively. Not violently.
It simply lost cohesion.
The surface dulled, fractures spreading like veins of decay, before the entire stone collapsed into a pile of gray dust beneath Xiao Li's palm.
A sharp intake of breath echoed through the pavilion.
Elder Qian's eyes widened.
"That's impossible," someone whispered.
Elder Qian snatched another stone and thrust it forward. "Again."
Xiao Li hesitated only a fraction of a second before touching it.
The result was the same.
Dust.
A third stone followed.
Dust.
The pavilion erupted into murmurs.
"That's not a lack of talent…"
"Is he absorbing it?"
"No, there's no Qi fluctuation!"
Elder Qian stared at the residue, his expression darkening by the second. He reached out, probing the air with his spiritual sense.
Nothing.
No absorption.
No circulation.
No trace of Qi.
The stones had simply… ceased to be stones.
Elder Qian withdrew his hand sharply, as if burned.
"You are not cultivating," he said slowly.
Xiao Li met his gaze. "I know."
The elder's face hardened. "Then explain this."
Xiao Li looked at the dust.
"I can't," he said honestly.
That answer sealed it.
By noon, the verdict had spread.
Xiao Li was not talentless.
He was wrong.
Formations malfunctioned when he passed too close. Spirit tools dulled. Low-grade talismans flickered and failed outright.
Cultivators began avoiding him.
By evening, the decision was made.
"He cannot remain near core sect assets."
"He's a destabilizing variable."
"Dispose of him quietly."
Xiao Li overheard none of this.
He was already walking back toward the lower formation chamber, summoned again under the guise of routine labor.
The sun dipped behind the peaks, casting long shadows across the stone paths.
As Xiao Li descended into the depths once more, he felt it clearly now—
That empty pressure welcoming him back.
And somewhere far above the sect—
A record failed to update.
End of Chapter 2