Chen Wuya's fingers still pressed against that half-line of incomplete characters, his fingertips slightly numb. Wind swept in from the eastern end of the camp, rolling scraps of grass from the muddy ground and lashing them against the tops of his feet. He did not move, only tucked the booklet deeper into his robes and tightened its cloth strap.
The figures around him dispersed, then gathered again. Disciples from the Green City Sect and the Cang Sect withdrew to the perimeter, leaving only the Heavenly Sword Sect elder standing atop a stone block three zhang away. The man's purple robes were still disheveled, the embroidered sword patterns on his cuffs swaying in the wind. He leaned on a purple-bronze staff, his gaze heavy as though weighed down by stone.
"Putting on airs with spirits and ghosts." The elder spoke softly, yet his voice crushed the clamor across the grounds. "You think waving around some tattered booklet as proof will make us believe you have comprehended the Heavenly Machine Scroll?"
Chen Wuya lifted his head. The dimple in his left cheek flashed, but he did not smile.
"I don't need you to believe me," he said. "I only need you to watch."
With that, he bent down and picked up a dead branch from the ground. It was dry and cracked, carrying the scorched yellow of last autumn and winter. No longer than a foot and as thick as his thumb, it lay in his palm as his five fingers slowly closed around it.
A current of energy spilled from the gaps between his fingers. It was not the warm, surging force of ordinary inner energy, but something twisted and coiling, like a snake crawling against the flow of the meridians. The dead branch trembled lightly in his grasp, then released