The stone steps were uneven. Nine thousand of them, carved directly into the spine of the Qinghe Mountain Range. The edges were worn smooth by centuries of boots, sandals, and bare, bleeding feet.
Wei Tian wore cheap cloth shoes. The soles were already wearing thin.
He didn't mind. He stopped on step four thousand and twelve, adjusting the plain wooden box strapped to his back. Inside the box were twelve books and one spare change of white clothes. That was the entirety of his worldly possessions. Or at least, the entirety of the possessions he had brought down to this specific speck of dirt in the cosmic void.
He pulled a worn, blue-covered book from his sleeve. He cracked it open. The binding made a dry snapping sound. He read a paragraph while standing perfectly still on the steep incline, ignoring the biting wind that whipped his plain scholar's robe against his legs.
"Hey. Move."
The voice came from above. Two disciples wearing the silver-trimmed white robes of the outer sect stood on the landing. They held spears. The steel tips caught the mid-morning sun.
Wei Tian finished the sentence. He marked his place with a dried leaf. Closed the book. He looked up.
"White Jade Sect," the guard on the left said. He didn't bother masking his aura. Layer 4 of the Mortal Realm. Barely a spark, but enough to kill a normal man with a heavy slap. "No beggars. No peddlers. Turn around."
Wei Tian reached into his robe. He bypassed a lint ball and withdrew a folded piece of parchment. It was heavy, stamped with a wax seal the color of dried blood. He held it out.
The second guard snatched it. He broke the seal. His eyes tracked over the calligraphy. Once. Twice. He stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. Then he looked at Wei Tian. He looked at the cheap cloth shoes, the complete, absolute void of qi in the man's body, and the book clutched in his left hand.
The guard burst out laughing.
It wasn't a polite laugh. It was a loud, ugly bark that echoed down the stone steps. He shoved the paper into the chest of the first guard.
"Read it," he gasped.
The first guard read it. The smirk drained from his face, replaced by a deep, offended scowl. He stepped forward, putting his face inches from Wei Tian's. The smell of stale garlic and sour wine drifted from his breath.
"Is this a joke?" the guard asked. His knuckles tightened on his spear shaft. "We have three thousand disciples across four peaks. Twelve elders who can crush mountains. And the Sect Master marries a mortal with zero qi? A reader of books?"
Wei Tian looked at the spear. Then at the garlic-breathed guard.
"The ink is fading on the bottom left corner," Wei Tian pointed out. "You should probably be careful with it."
The guard stared at him. He searched Wei Tian's face for sarcasm, for fear, for anything. He found nothing. Wei Tian's eyes were like still water in a shallow cup. There was no ripple.
"Escort him to the Main Hall," the first guard spat, throwing the document back. "Let the Elders deal with this trash."
The walk took twenty minutes. Wei Tian did not hurry. He observed the White Jade Sect as they passed through the grand outer gates. Disciples trained in the courtyards. Swords flashed. Qi crackled in the air, smelling faintly of ozone and burning pine.
Every head turned as they passed.
A mortal. Walking toward the inner sanctum.
Whispers started before Wei Tian even reached the second courtyard.
"Who is that?" "No aura. A servant?" "I heard the guards. The marriage document. That's him." "The husband? The Sect Master's husband is a mortal?" "He looks like he'd snap if the wind blew too hard."
Wei Tian ignored them. He was busy looking at the paving stones. Specifically, the stones near the central spirit vein of the sect. As he stepped over a crack in the jade tiles, his right foot paused. Just for a millisecond.
A faint vibration hit the soles of his cheap shoes. Not physical. Deeper. The realm-fabric itself was frayed here. A microscopic tear, bleeding dead ambient energy.
Wei Tian didn't change his expression. He just started walking again, his footfalls perfectly even. So it's exactly where I left it, he thought.
They arrived at the Main Hall. The doors were massive, carved from thousand-year-old ironwood. The guards shoved them open.
"The... the individual claiming the marriage contract has arrived," the guard announced, his voice tight with barely suppressed disgust.
Wei Tian stepped over the threshold.
The hall was freezing. Not from the weather. From the sheer, suffocating pressure of a Saint Peak cultivator sitting at the far end of the room.
Bai Qian.
She sat behind a low wooden desk, a brush in her hand, a stack of sect reports piled to her left. She wore pristine white robes. A single silver ornament held back her ink-black hair. A jade pendant rested against her collarbone.
She did not look up when he entered. She finished the stroke of her brush. Set it down on the inkstone. Only then did she raise her eyes.
Wei Tian stopped ten paces away.
Her eyes were sharp. Calculating. They swept over him, dissecting his stance, his breathing rate, the dirt on his shoes, the calluses on his fingers. She was using a soul perception technique. It hit Wei Tian's chest like a physical breeze.
It passed right through him. It found nothing. An absolute, impossible void.
"You are Wei Tian," she said. Her voice belonged to someone who handed out death sentences before lunch.
"I am," he said.
"You have no cultivation."
"None."
She leaned back slightly. The temperature in the room dropped another degree. "Do you know why my father signed this contract before he died?"
"I imagine he owed a debt."
"A massive one," Bai Qian corrected flatly. "To a family that no longer exists, save for you. The Elder Council spent the last three weeks demanding I tear the document up. They said marrying a mortal invalidates the dignity of the White Jade Sect."
Wei Tian said nothing. He waited.
"I refused," she said.
She stood. The movement was perfectly fluid, entirely devoid of wasted energy. She walked out from behind the desk, stopping five paces from him. She was slightly shorter than him, but the way she held her chin made her seem taller.
"Do you know why I refused?" she asked.
"Because I have no cultivation," Wei Tian said.
Bai Qian paused. Her eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch. "Explain."
"A husband with a strong cultivation background, backed by a powerful family, would demand a seat at the table. He would try to influence the elders. He would threaten your authority over the four peaks," Wei Tian said. His voice was completely monotone. He might as well have been reading a grocery list. "I have no family. I have no qi. I am entirely useless. Therefore, I am perfectly safe."
Bai Qian stared at him. The silence in the grand hall stretched until it felt brittle.
"You are not as stupid as you look," she said finally.
"I try not to be."
"This marriage is a political shield. Nothing more. You will be provided with a pavilion in the eastern courtyard. You will receive three meals a day. A junior disciple will be assigned to manage your basic needs. In return, you will stay out of the way. You will not embarrass this sect. You will not attempt to interfere in sect business. Understood?"
Wei Tian looked at her.
He didn't just look at her face. He looked through it.
For exactly three seconds, Wei Tian stopped performing. He went completely still. It wasn't the stillness of a man holding his breath. It was the stillness of a mountain watching a cloud pass by.
His vision shifted, peeling back the layers of her physical form. He bypassed her Saint Peak core. He bypassed the second layer of her spiritual sea. He looked at the third layer of her soul.
There it was. A faint, glowing pattern etched into the metaphysical fabric of her existence.
A Heavenly Lineage anomaly.
Wei Tian remembered seeing that pattern. Centuries ago. In a civilization that had burned itself to ash trying to reach the sky. It didn't belong in this lower realm. It certainly didn't belong inside the Sect Master of a regional mountain sect.
Three seconds passed.
Wei Tian blinked. The stillness vanished. He slumped his shoulders slightly, looking back down at the polished wooden floor. His expression returned to an unreadable, lazy mask.
"Understood," he said.
Bai Qian frowned. For a fraction of a second, her instincts had screamed at her to draw her sword. The hairs on her arms had stood up. But the feeling was gone before she could even process it. The mortal standing in front of her was just a mortal. She categorized the spike of adrenaline as fatigue from the recent trade disputes.
"Take him to the eastern pavilion," she told the guards. She turned her back on him, returning to her desk. "Do not let him wander near the training grounds."
Wei Tian turned and walked out. The book in his hand felt heavy.
A quiet place to read. That was the goal. It seemed the universe had a terrible sense of humor.
Halfway across the sect, in the highest peak of the mountain range, a teacup shattered against a stone wall.
Elder Shen Mu breathed heavily, his chest heaving under his green and gold robes. The messenger disciple knelt on the floor, shivering, keeping his forehead pressed firmly against the stone tiles.
"He is actually here," Shen Mu hissed. The ambient qi in the room spiked, causing the remaining teacups on the table to rattle violently. "She actually brought that mortal trash inside our gates."
"Yes, Elder," the disciple whispered. "He is being escorted to the eastern pavilion now."
Shen Mu's hands clenched into fists. He had spent ten years positioning his own nephew to take the seat beside Bai Qian. Ten years of bribes, political maneuvering, and carefully placed alliances. All of it ruined by a dead man's piece of paper and Bai Qian's paranoid refusal to share power.
"She thinks she can use this garbage to secure her absolute authority," Shen Mu said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, raspy whisper. "She thinks the Council will just swallow the humiliation of calling a crippled scholar our equal."
He stepped over the shattered porcelain, walking toward the grand window that overlooked the sect below. Far in the distance, a small white speck was being led toward the eastern quarters.
"Call the inner circle," Shen Mu ordered without looking back.
"Elder?"
"Convene an emergency meeting of my faction. Tonight." Shen Mu's eyes narrowed into slits. "If the Sect Master wants to play with a useless toy, we will simply have to show her how easily toys break."