The moon was a silver blade hanging over the peaks, casting long, distorted shadows across the path to the Black-Cold Spring.
Long Chen's breath was no longer a frantic gasp; it was a rhythmic hiss, synchronized with the heavy crunch of his bare feet on the frosted gravel. He was on his eighteenth trip. His muscles felt like they had been forged in ice and then hammered flat. Every time he emptied the buckets into the great stone vat at the kitchen's rear, he felt a strange, hollow echo in his chest—as if his "Buried Heart" was a furnace that had finally caught a spark.
"Look at him," a voice sneered from the shadows of a jagged rock overhang. "Still crawling like a worm in the dark."
Long Chen stopped. He didn't drop the buckets. To drop them would be to show weakness, and his "Smart" intuition told him that tonight, weakness would be fatal.
Liu stepped out into the moonlight. His arm was no longer numb, but his face was twisted with a humiliation that had festered into pure hatred. Beside him stood a taller, older disciple with a sharp, bird-like face and a sword hilt bound in expensive green silk.
"That's him, Brother Han," Liu hissed, pointing a trembling finger. "That's the trash who used some foul sorcery to numb my arm."
Senior Brother Han didn't look like a bully; he looked bored. He was Level 2 Qi Sensing—someone who had successfully moved Qi from their eyes to their limbs. To him, a servant was less than a stray dog.
"A servant with hidden tricks?" Han stepped forward, his boots making no sound on the frost. A faint, greenish mist—his Qi—curled around his fingers. "The Sect rules are clear. A servant who strikes a disciple is to have his tendons severed and be thrown into the ravine."
Long Chen stood his ground. He felt Koda, the ferret, tensed like a coiled spring inside his tunic.
"I didn't strike him," Long Chen said, his voice low and steady. "I only showed him that the ground is slippery."
"Quiet!" Han's aura flared. The temperature around him seemed to rise, clashing with the natural chill of the spring. "Kneel. If you break your own arms now, I might let you live as a beggar."
Long Chen looked at Han. In the past, the pressure of a Level 2 disciple would have brought him to his knees. But now, he saw Han differently. He saw the Origin of Han's power—it was "Wind" based, but it was shallow. It was like a breeze blowing over a deep, dark lake.
Thump.
Long Chen's heart gave a massive, singular beat.
The frost on the iron buckets in his hands suddenly began to glow with a faint, blue light. He didn't realize it, but the hours of hauling the Black-Cold water had "tempered" his grip.
"I have thirty tubs left to fill," Long Chen said, his eyes locking onto Han's. "I don't have time to kneel."
Han's boredom vanished, replaced by a flash of genuine rage. "Die, trash!"
Han moved. To Liu, it was a blur of speed. But to Long Chen, it was a series of logical steps. Han's weight shifted to his toes; his shoulder dipped; his Qi gathered in his right palm. It was a "Gale Strike," a basic but lethal move for a mortal.
Long Chen didn't retreat. He stepped forward, swinging the heavy, water-filled iron buckets in a wide, low arc.
It was a clumsy, "dumb" move—unless you knew exactly where the Gale Strike's "eye" was.
The bucket slammed into Han's shins just as his palm was about to reach Long Chen's chest. The sheer weight of the water, combined with the momentum of Long Chen's "Ice-Tempered" muscles, acted like a battering ram.
CRACK.
The sound of bone meeting iron echoed through the canyon.
Han let out a choked scream, his green Qi shattering like a broken mirror. He collapsed into the frost, clutching his leg. Long Chen stood over him, the buckets still steady in his hands. He wasn't breathing hard. He looked like a statue carved from the mountain itself.
Liu fell backward into the dirt, his mouth hanging open. "B-Brother Han? How..."
Long Chen looked down at the "Genius" on the ground. He felt no joy, only a cold, growing wisdom.
"Your logic is flawed," Long Chen said quietly. "You think because you have more Qi, you own the world. But Qi is just energy. It follows the rules of the universe. And the universe... doesn't care about your silk robes."
He stepped over Han's groaning body and continued toward the spring.
"Wait," Han gasped, his face pale with pain and shock. "Who... what are you?"
Long Chen didn't look back. He just felt the rusted key in his pocket humming a deep, satisfied tune.
"I'm the one who has to finish the laundry," he replied.
That night, for the first time in seventeen years, Long Chen didn't feel like a servant. He felt like a Prince who had just found the first stone of his fallen palace.