The second floor of the Scripture Pavilion had never felt so crowded. Usually, the only company Han Zhao had were the silverfish and the occasional wandering ghost of a long-dead scholar. Now, there was a Core Disciple bleeding out behind a stack of maps, and Han Zhao could feel the "protagonist aura" radiating off her like heat from a furnace.
It was a dangerous heat.
In his experience, people like Su Lian were magnets for lightning, assassins, and dramatic monologues.
"Han Zhao," a voice whispered from the shadows.
Han Zhao stopped his sweeping. He didn't turn around immediately; he took a moment to ensure his expression was perfectly blank—the face of a man whose biggest worry was a leaky roof.
"Yes, Senior Sister?"
Su Lian was sitting upright now. Her face was still pale, but the acrid smoke of the Bitter-Heart Weed had done its work. She held a small, hexagonal jade pendant in her hand. It pulsed with a faint, rhythmic green light.
"If anyone comes... if they have a gold leaf embroidered on their collars... you tell them I went toward the Back Mountain,"
she said, her voice tight.
"Do not hesitate. Do not try to be brave. Tell them immediately."
Han Zhao bowed. "I am very good at telling people things, Senior Sister. Especially if it means they leave the library quickly."
She gave him a strange look—half-contempt, half-pity.
"You have no ambition, do you? You are content to rot here among these dead words."
"Dead words don't try to kill me, Senior Sister. They are very polite that way."
She snorted, a sound that turned into a wince as her wound flared. Before she could speak again, the heavy iron-bound doors of the first floor slammed open so hard the vibration traveled up the stone stairs and rattled the inkstones on Han Zhao's desk.
'Here we go,' Han Zhao thought. 'My longevity is about to take a hit.'
[System Warning: Multiple High-Energy Signatures Entering.]
[Target 1: Li Wei. Cultivation: Foundation Establishment - Level 1.]
[Target 2: Executioner Squad (4 members). Cultivation: Peak Qi Condensation.]
[Danger Level: Fatal if you interfere.]
Han Zhao didn't wait for them to come up. That would look suspicious. Instead, he grabbed a stack of dusty ledgers and hurried toward the staircase, looking exactly like a panicked servant trying to see what the noise was.
He met them halfway up the stairs.
The man in the lead, Li Wei, was the picture of "Minor experience villain." He had the gold leaf embroidery Su Lian had mentioned, and a sword that hummed with an aggressive, sharp Qi.
"Stop!" Li Wei barked, his eyes Narrowing as they landed on Han Zhao.
Han Zhao squeaked—a genuine sound of distress—and dropped the ledgers. They tumbled down the stairs, scattering yellowed paper everywhere. "E-E-Elder! My apologies! I... I was just coming to see... the doors... the noise..."
Li Wei stepped over a ledger, his boots crunching on the ancient paper. He grabbed Han Zhao by the collar and lifted him until the boy's toes barely touched the stone.
"Librarian. A woman came in here. Injured. Blue robes. Where is she?"
Han Zhao's eyes went wide. He began to hyperventilate—a trick he'd perfected using the 'Breath-Holding Art' to rapidly fluctuate his heart rate. "A woman? Blue robes? I... I saw someone! She was bleeding! She looked terrifying, Elder!"
"Where?" Li Wei gripped his throat tighter.
"The... the window!" Han Zhao pointed a shaking hand toward the far end of the second floor—directly opposite where Su Lian was hiding. "She didn't even stop! She broke the window and jumped toward the Back Mountain ravine! She said... she said something about the 'Cave of Thousand Echoes'!"
Li Wei looked toward the far window. It was closed, but the glass was old and brittle.
"She jumped?" Li Wei sneered. "She's more desperate than I thought. Search the floor anyway. If he's lying, kill him and burn the building."
The four lackeys fanned out.
Han Zhao stood by the stairs, trembling, his head bowed. Internally, he was working at a million miles per hour.
[System Task: Divert the Search.]
[Activating Passive: 'Aura of Insignificance'.]
[Effect: Targets will perceive you as 'Part of the world'.]
The lackeys moved through the aisles. One of them walked right past the stack of maps where Su Lian was curled, her hand over her mouth, her Qi completely suppressed. The lackey looked at the maps, saw a spider crawling on them, made a face of disgust, and turned away.
The 'Mist-Veil Silhouette' Han Zhao had been practicing wasn't just for himself; he had subtly influenced the ambient Qi of the room, making the shadows in that specific corner look deeper, colder, and utterly uninteresting.
"Nothing here, Brother Li," one of the men shouted. "The window latch is broken. It looks like she did head for the ravine."
Li Wei tossed Han Zhao aside like a piece of trash. Han Zhao hit the wall with a dull thud, groaning convincingly.
"Back Mountain! Move!" Li Wei commanded.
They vanished as quickly as they had arrived, leaving the heavy doors swinging in their wake.
Silence returned to the Pavilion, but it was a brittle silence. Han Zhao sat on the floor for a long time, listening to his own heartbeat.
[Task Complete: Deceived a Foundation Establishment Cultivator.]
[Reward: 1 Month of Longevity.]
[New Skill Unlocked: 'False Path Manipulation' (Minor).]
A few minutes later, Su Lian crawled out from behind the maps. She looked at Han Zhao, who was currently rubbing a "bruise" on his arm.
"You... you lied to them without blinking," she said, her voice filled with a new kind of wariness. "Why? You could have saved yourself by giving me up."
Han Zhao looked at her. He didn't use his "servant" voice this time. His voice was flat, tired. "Senior Sister, if I gave you up, they would have killed me anyway to ensure there were no witnesses. And if you survived, you would have killed me for betraying you."
He stood up and began picking up the scattered ledgers.
"In this world, the only way for a 'cobweb' to survive is to make sure the giants don't step on him. Helping you leave quickly was the shortest path to my afternoon nap."
Su Lian stared at him. She had spent her whole life around people who wanted to be heroes or villains. She had never met someone who was so calculated in their cowardice.
"The Back Mountain is a death trap at night," she whispered. "They'll be searching it for hours."
"I know," Han Zhao said, placing a ledger back on the shelf. "Which gives you exactly twenty minutes to leave through the servant's tunnel in the basement before they realize the window was never actually broken."
He pointed toward the stairs.
"Go, Senior Sister. And please... next time you want to bleed, find a nice, scenic meadow. My floors are very hard to clean."
Su Lian stood up, clutching her side. She reached into her robes and pulled out a small, heavy iron key. She tossed it to him.
"This is the key to the 'Forbidden Sun' collection on the fifth floor," she said. "I stole it months ago. Consider it payment. Don't let the Elders catch you with it."
Before he could protest, she vanished into the shadows of the staircase.
Han Zhao looked at the iron key in his palm. He looked at the bloodstains he'd have to scrub again.
[Current Life Expectancy: 74 Years, 157 Days.]
"A month of life and a key to a forbidden room," Han Zhao sighed, tucking the key into his innermost pocket. "This 'low-key' life is getting far too busy for my taste."
He picked up his broom. He had ten minutes to "break" the window himself to make his lie look real.
"The things I do for a quiet life," he grumbled, and the sound of the broom hitting the floor resumed its steady, immortal rhythm