Survival always had a cost.
Lin Ye learned that lesson long before fate decided to kill him the first time.
The sect learned it three days after the Grey Bone Valley incident.
The Hall of Judgment was silent.
Not quiet—heavy.
Lin Ye knelt at the center of the polished stone floor, his injured ribs bound tightly beneath his robe. Blood loss had left his face pale, but his posture remained straight, unbowed.
Above him sat five elders.
Among them—Elder Sun.
Their gazes weighed down like mountains.
"Outer disciple Lin Ye," one elder said coldly, "step forward and explain."
Lin Ye lifted his head.
He did not rush.
He did not act afraid.
That alone unsettled them.
"I acted to survive," he said. "And to complete the mission."
A murmur rippled through the hall.
"Survive?" another elder scoffed. "You slew a Bone Tyrant with outer-disciple cultivation. Do you take us for fools?"
Lin Ye met his gaze calmly.
"If I hadn't," he replied, "none of us would be here to argue."
Silence fell.
Elder Sun leaned forward slightly.
"You claim the beasts mutated mid-mission," he said slowly. "Yet you reacted faster than even the supervisors."
Lin Ye bowed his head.
"In the valley," he said, "hesitation equals death."
A perfect answer.
True.
Incomplete.
The elders exchanged glances.
There was no proof.
No formation interference detected.
No forbidden artifacts found.
No witnesses who could accuse him without condemning themselves.
At last, the sect master spoke.
"This mission's failure lies with unpredictable circumstances," he said. "However…"
His gaze sharpened.
"Lin Ye's performance cannot be ignored."
Lin Ye's fingers tightened slightly.
Here it comes.
He was not punished.
He was promoted.
Granted temporary access to inner-disciple resources.
Assigned to a cultivation mentor.
Placed under… observation.
Elder Sun's lips curved faintly as the decree was announced.
A cage made of silk.
Lin Ye accepted it with a bow.
"Thank you for the sect's trust," he said.
Trust.
If only they knew.
That night, Lin Ye returned to his room and closed the door carefully.
He sat.
Breathed.
Then coughed violently, blood splattering across the floor.
The backlash came late.
Fate always collected its debt.
His meridians screamed as pressure coiled inward, compressing, reshaping. His cultivation did not rise—but his foundation hardened painfully, like iron forged under relentless strikes.
Lin Ye gritted his teeth.
So this is the price for resisting.
He endured.
Because he knew what came after endurance.
Elsewhere, Chen Rui knelt in the rain.
The night was cold.
His hands were bleeding.
Before him lay a broken outer-disciple badge.
He had snapped it in half himself.
"You survived because of him," a voice said from the shadows.
Chen Rui looked up sharply.
A man stepped forward—thin, pale, eyes sunken like someone who had stared too long into darkness.
An outer sect rogue.
Someone who should not have been there.
"Lin Ye," the man continued. "He saved you. But saving doesn't last."
Chen Rui's jaw tightened.
"What do you want?"
"To offer you a way not to fall again."
The man extended a small vial—dark red, pulsing faintly.
"A forbidden blood art," he whispered. "Painful. Dangerous. But powerful."
Chen Rui stared at it.
Then thought of the ravine.
The emptiness.
The hand that had pulled him back.
"I won't be weak again," he said.
He took the vial.
Fate smiled.
Lin Ye felt it.
A shiver passed through his spine.
Good, he thought.
Walk that path.
Mu Qingxue could not sleep.
She sat by her window, staring at the moon, her chest tight with an unfamiliar unease.
Lin Ye's face surfaced in her mind uninvited.
Not as he was now—
But as someone older.
Colder.
Standing alone.
Why does he feel… important?
She pressed a hand to her heart.
Somewhere deep inside, something stirred.
A memory that did not belong to this life.
Lin Ye opened his eyes.
He smiled faintly.
Three threads had shifted.
One tightened.
One darkened.
One… began to glow.
"This is how it starts," he murmured.
Not revenge.
Rewriting.