Night settled over the river-slum like a held breath.
Lanterns flickered to life one by one, their glow uneven and fragile against the encroaching dark. The river reflected broken lines of light, water moving slowly, deceptively calm. By day, this place was merely poor.
By night, it was dangerous.
Jin Yue moved with the current of shadows.
He had changed routes twice before reaching the alley behind the gambling den, slipping through narrow paths where the boards creaked just enough to hide his steps. The voices ahead were low, hurried...wrong.
Not drunk.
Not careless.
Afraid.
Jin Yue stopped at the corner and listened.
"…I told you not to bring him here."
"He won't last the night anyway."
A muffled sound followed. Pain, quickly silenced.
Jin Yue closed his eyes briefly.
He had told himself he wouldn't intervene again. The city was tightening. Patrols were watching. Cultivators were restless. Every unnecessary movement carried risk.
But some risks were quieter than others.
He stepped forward.
The alley was narrow, walls damp with moss and grime. Three men stood near the end, two blocking the exit while the third crouched over a figure on the ground. A boy...too thin, ribs visible through torn clothing, wrists bound with rough cord.
The cultivators hadn't noticed Jin Yue yet.
They would.
Soon.
Jin Yue let his presence surface...just enough.
The nearest man stiffened and turned.
"What..."
The word never finished.
Jin Yue moved.
No flare of light. No obvious technique. He crossed the space between them in two steps, hand striking the man's wrist at an angle too precise to be accidental. Bone shifted. A dull crack followed.
The man screamed.
The second cultivator reacted immediately, pulse flaring...fire, hot and uncontrolled. Jin Yue felt it rush toward him, heat biting the air.
He raised his hand.
Not to counter.
To redirect.
The fire bent.
It didn't vanish. It slid...twisted aside at the last moment, splashing harmlessly against the stone wall where it guttered out with a hiss.
The alley went silent.
The third man backed away, eyes wide. "That's not... You're..."
Jin Yue was already moving again.
He didn't draw power.
He guided it.
The water pulse from the nearby river answered instinctively, thin as a thread, wrapping around the man's ankles and pulling him off balance. The cultivator hit the ground hard, breath knocked from his lungs.
Jin Yue stepped back immediately.
Too much.
He had done too much.
He severed the water pulse at once, dispersing it before it could gather, before anyone else could sense it. The alley returned to stillness, broken only by the groans of the men on the ground.
Jin Yue knelt beside the boy and cut the cords binding his wrists.
"Run," he said quietly.
The boy stared at him, trembling. "Y-you..."
"Now."
The boy didn't hesitate again. He scrambled to his feet and disappeared down the alley, footsteps fading quickly.
Jin Yue turned back just in time to see one of the cultivators struggle upright.
"You...what are you?" the man rasped.
Jin Yue didn't answer.
He stepped into the shadows and was gone.
By the time the patrol arrived, there was nothing left to find.
Three injured men. No witnesses. No lingering pulse traces strong enough to identify. The alley smelled faintly of damp stone and extinguished heat.
"That's the third incident this week," someone muttered.
"Moon Ghost?"
"Maybe."
"Or something worse."
From the elevated walkway, the patrol leader watched the alley below, expression unreadable.
His gaze lingered on the stone wall...on the faint scorch mark that shouldn't have been possible given the trajectory of the fire pulse reported.
Fire didn't bend like that.
Unless someone made it.
Jin Yue reached the abandoned temple long before dawn.
His breathing was steady, but his chest felt tight. He sat against the wall and pressed two fingers lightly to his wrist, counting his pulse until the faint tremor beneath his skin eased.
He had been careless.
Not because he had acted...but because he had answered too easily.
Most cultivators were born with a single pulse. Water. Fire. Wind. Earth. Lightning, if they were rare and unlucky enough to survive its temper.
Some legends spoke of stranger pulses...shadow, sound, time, blood...but those were stories meant to frighten children and justify executions.
Jin Yue knew better.
Water listened to him. Fire obeyed when guided. Wind responded to the smallest shift in intent. Earth steadied beneath his feet when he asked.
Lightning...
He didn't think about lightning.
Lightning answered too quickly.
That was the danger.
And that was why he never allowed himself to use more than one at a time. Never let them overlap. Never let them resonate.
People noticed resonance.
They feared it.
Jin Yue closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.
The city was tightening its net. He could feel it now...not just in patrols and rumors, but in the way the world itself seemed to hold its breath around him.
A tournament.
A trial.
A way to force hidden things into the open.
Jin Yue rested his head lightly against the stone wall.
If he continued as he was, the city would find him.
If he stopped, others would suffer.
There was no safe path.
Only quieter ones.
Somewhere beyond the slum, a bell rang...deep, resonant, carrying across the water.
Jin Yue opened his eyes.
Moonlight slipped through the broken roof, pale and cold, tracing the worn stone beneath his feet.
The Moon Ghost rumor would spread faster after tonight.
He knew that.
And for the first time, Jin Yue wondered...not for the city, but for himself...
How long he could keep pretending he was ordinary.