At daybreak, a sliver of gray-white light seeped through the crack in the woodshed door. When Chen Wuya opened his eyes, the chill from the straw mat still clung to his back, but he was no longer trembling.
He slowly sat up, folded the thin blanket over his shoulders, and placed it in the corner. His movements were sluggish, like those of an injured man who had yet to recover. His damp clothes were mostly dry now, so he put them back on. The cuffs still carried a smell of firewood mingled with the rank scent of mud. His pack leaned against the wall, the fragment hidden in its innermost layer and wrapped in several pieces of coarse cloth.
He pushed the door open, and a cold wind rushed into his face. The village was very quiet. Smoke had only just begun rising from the chimney of a house in the east. An old woman came out from behind a fence carrying a clay pot. When she saw him, she froze for a moment, then nodded. "You can get up now?"
"I'm not dead yet." He smiled. His voice was still hoarse, but much steadier than the night before. "Thank you for that bowl of soup."
The old woman said nothing more. She simply handed him the pot. "It's hot. Drink it and warm yourself."
He took it with both hands, his fingertips brushing the warmth of the clay. He lowered his head and took a sip. It was scalding, but bearable. From the corner of his eye, he swept a glance toward the window of the earthen house opposite. A middle-aged man stood inside, holding a half-split log, his gaze fixed on him.
Chen Wuya did not avoid his eyes. Instead, he met his gaze directly and asked with a smile, "Uncle, those logs still need splitting, right? I've got nothing else to do. Want me to lend a hand?"
The man paused, set down the firewood, and came outside. His tone was flat. "No need. You're sick."
"Not sick." He returned the empty pot to the old woman and casually patted his chest. "I only choked on some water. No broken bones, no pulled tendons. I can still move."
The man stared at him for two breaths, then turned and went inside. When he came back out, he had a bundle of freshly cut firewood slung over his shoulder. He set it down beside the millstone. "If you really want to work, do something useful."
Chen Wuya walked over and bent to pick up a log. The wood was dry, its cracks running along the grain. He did not use much force. With his palm pressed against one end, he secretly stirred a thread of Misaligned Force—not a full circulation, merely allowing his true qi to surge backward through the Belt Vessel Meridian, borrowing force to strike force with a jolt.
With a crisp crack, the log burst apart from the middle, splitting into several pieces as splinters flew everywhere.
He pretended to be startled and took half a step back, frowning at his palm. "How come it broke from just touching it?"
The doors of several nearby homes opened one after another, and a few villagers poked their heads out to stare. Someone muttered, "That peddler's stronger than he looks." Another said, "Maybe the wood was waterlogged and rotten."
The middle-aged man crouched down and picked up a fragment, examining it closely. The break was jagged, as though it had burst from within, nothing like the mark left by an axe or knife. He raised his head and looked at Chen Wuya, his expression changed.
Chen Wuya scratched his head, wearing an utterly bewildered look. "Strange. I only pressed it lightly just now... Could the wood really be that brittle?"
No one answered. The man stood up and carried the remaining firewood inside. Just before entering, he glanced back at Chen Wuya. There was no curiosity in that look, only scrutiny.
Chen Wuya did not follow him. He returned to the front of the woodshed and sat down, leaning against the doorframe to bask in the sun. He closed his eyes and regulated his breathing, deliberately slowing it so that Misaligned Force flowed through his meridians like a winding stream. The Kidney Meridian remained sluggish and clogged, but he no longer forced it open. Instead, he went against the usual path, allowing his qi to travel around the Foot Shaoyin, circle once by way of the Belt Vessel Meridian, and unexpectedly felt warmth return to his limbs.
He knew he was growing stronger.
But he also knew that someone had begun to grow suspicious.
That afternoon, he sat on the millstone and spread a corner of the fragment across his knees. He muttered, "Master said to 'move against the meridians,' but I feel... perhaps Yongquan beneath the feet is the starting point. If I drive upward from the soles, would it flow more smoothly?"
The moment he said this, the footsteps of several passersby slowed. The middle-aged man in particular had been on his way to draw water from the well. Upon hearing those words, he suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed on the writing on the fragment.
Chen Wuya looked up and smiled openly. "Uncle, have you practiced this before? Want me to teach you a couple of lines? I guarantee it works better than praying to the gods."
The man shook his head violently, flung his sleeve, and strode away. But Chen Wuya saw clearly that the cuff trembled faintly, as if the hand inside had clenched into a fist and then relaxed.
At dusk, the old woman brought him half a bowl of coarse rice porridge. He accepted it with thanks and ate very slowly, every mouthful seeming to store up strength. After finishing, he set the bowl on the stone block by the door, lay back down on the straw mat, covered himself with the thin blanket, and closed his eyes without moving.
The village gradually fell quiet. Even the dogs stopped barking.
He did not sleep. His ears twitched slightly as he used Misaligned Force to guide qi into his auditory orifices, amplifying his hearing to its utmost limits. The rustling of wind through the grass, the faint skitter of a rat darting through the woodpile in the distance—all of it was clear as day.
In the middle of the night, someone indeed came outside his door again.
Their footsteps were very light. They stopped outside the woodshed and stood there for a while before quietly retreating.
Chen Wuya waited a full quarter of an hour before opening his eyes and rising. He took off his shoes, placed his bare feet on the cold ground, and pushed the door open.
Moonlight spilled across the village road, and the dirt gleamed faintly. He crept along the base of the walls, keeping his body low, placing every step within the shadows. He headed east, circled around several houses, and finally stopped outside a dilapidated ancestral hall on the western edge of the village.
Most of the window paper had been torn away. He crouched at the corner of the wall and peered inside through a gap.
The middle-aged man stood in the center of the hall. Facing him were two Qingfeng disciples dressed in black and wearing swords, jade sect tablets hanging from their waists. One of them asked coldly, "Did you get the item?"
"Not yet." The man lowered his voice. "He's guarding it closely. The fragment has stayed on his person the entire time. But I tested him. His understanding of the cultivation method is completely wrong—saying things like 'begin from the soles of the feet.' It's utter nonsense."
The other disciple sneered. "Good that he's wrong. The less he understands, the easier he'll be to fool. The sect master said that once we have the fragment, we don't need to leave him alive."
"I'll find a way tomorrow." The man nodded. "He's weak now, and he's still splitting wood during the day. He probably won't last more than a few days. I'll make him hand the item over willingly."
"Don't drag it out too long." The sword-bearing disciple warned him, "Our superiors are eager for it. If it leaks to anyone else, neither of us can bear the consequences."
"Understood."
Chen Wuya heard every word from outside the window. His fingers slowly tightened, his nails digging into his palms, yet he made not a sound.
He slowly backed away, returned to the woodshed by the same route, gently closed the door, and lay back down on the straw mat.
He did not sleep all night.
Just before dawn, a rooster crowed. He heard whispers beneath the eaves of the house to the west.
"...He went to the ancestral hall again last night?"
"Mm. He met with those two men in black."
"Tell me, do we really have to help him?"
"The village head hasn't said anything, so we don't dare stop him. But that man... he doesn't look like a bad person."
"Shh! Stop talking. Careful—walls have ears."
The conversation cut off abruptly.
Chen Wuya turned over to face the wall, his breathing even, as though he were still asleep.
He remembered the look in the man's eyes when he had split the firewood yesterday. He remembered the secret conversation in the ancestral hall during the night. He remembered those words: "We don't need to leave him alive."
He was neither angry nor afraid.
He merely took the fragment hidden in his pack and quietly drew it out, gently spreading it across his chest as if it were an object of worship.
Tomorrow, he would place it on the table.
One corner of its yellow-brown edge would show past the table's corner.
He knew the prey would always come back.
Sunlight slanted through the crack in the door and fell across the back of his hand.
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