Di Yusheng spent half the night sleeping and the rest of the night cultivating.
He sat cross-legged on the bed with his eyes closed and pulled qi from the air in slow threads. The meridians inside him were empty. His Qihai was dry. What had been there before had burned away when his body rewrote itself to break Ye Luoxue's binding.
So he started from nothing.
The first thread of qi entered his body and moved through him like water through a cracked channel. It found gaps. It found places where the structure had shifted. His meridians were not the same as before. They had rebuilt themselves along with everything else, and the paths the qi took were slightly different from what any standard diagram would show.
He did not have a manual. He did not need one. Su Xuanyi's knowledge filled in the gaps — not in words, but in instinct. He knew where to guide the qi. He knew how to circulate it. He knew when to stop and when to push.
The night passed.
By the time the sky outside his window turned gray, his Qihai had filled to a fraction of its former capacity. It was nothing compared to what a proper disciple his age should have. But it was there. The foundation was laid.
He opened his eyes.
The room was pale with early light. The bed, the table, the bare walls — all of it looked the same as it had the night before. Plain. Ordinary. A room someone had been told to use.
He stood up, washed his face, and left.
Mu Qing's quarters were higher on the peak, past a stone path that wound through two terraces of pine. The walk took Di Yusheng less time than it once would have. His legs were steady now. His breathing was even. The weakness that had defined him for years was gone, and in its place was a body that moved when he told it to.
He reached Mu Qing's door and knocked once.
"Come in."
Mu Qing was already seated at the table. A simple breakfast had been laid out — congee, pickled vegetables, steamed buns. Two sets of chopsticks. Two bowls.
Mu Qing was the direct disciple of the sect master. He had been told to take care of Di Yusheng while the boy remained on the peak, and he did so without complaint and without warmth. He saw to Yusheng's meals, his lodging, his basic needs. That was the scope of his responsibility, and he kept to it.
Di Yusheng sat down and began eating.
Mu Qing ate in silence for a while. Then, without looking up, he said, "You look better."
"I slept well."
They continued eating.
The congee was plain. The vegetables were salty. The buns were still warm. Di Yusheng ate steadily, without hurry, and set his chopsticks down when he was finished.
"I want to cultivate," he said.
Mu Qing looked at him.
"Alongside the inner disciples," Di Yusheng added.
Mu Qing set his own chopsticks down. He studied Yusheng for a moment, then said, "You're not a disciple."
"I know that's why I'm asking."
"Cultivating alone in your room will make people talk."
Mu Qing understood. A crippled boy who recovered overnight, cultivating in secret behind a closed door — it would not calm the rumors. It would feed them. But if he cultivated in the open, where others could see, where an elder could watch him, then at least it was visible. At least it was transparent.
"Finish eating," Mu Qing said. "I'll take you there."
Di Yusheng picked up his chopsticks again.
The inner disciples trained in a wide stone courtyard near the middle of the peak. It was open on all sides, paved with flat gray flagstones, and bordered by low walls and wooden weapon racks. A pavilion stood at one end where the overseeing elder sat during sessions.
When Mu Qing and Di Yusheng entered the courtyard, the session was already underway. Two dozen disciples were paired off across the flagstones, practicing sword forms in sets. The sound of wooden practice blades meeting each other came in sharp, irregular bursts.
Then the sound thinned.
A few disciples noticed Mu Qing first. Then they noticed the boy walking beside him. Voices dropped. Eyes moved.
Mu Qing did not slow his stride. He walked through the courtyard as if the silence meant nothing, and Di Yusheng followed a step behind him.
The whispers came in fragments.
"That's the possessed kid."
"He's here?"
"Why did Senior Mu bring him—"
"Shh."
Di Yusheng heard all of it. His face did not change. He kept his eyes forward and walked at the same pace.
Mu Qing reached the pavilion and stopped. An old man sat inside on a cushioned seat, watching the disciples with half-closed eyes. His hair was white, pulled back in a simple knot. A wooden token hung from his belt marking him as an elder of the peak.
"Elder Zhou," Mu Qing said.
Elder Zhou opened his eyes fully. "Mu Qing. What brings you here?"
"This is Di Yusheng. The sect master asked me to see to his needs. He wants to begin cultivating with the inner disciples."
Elder Zhou looked down at Di Yusheng. His gaze was measured, neither kind nor unkind. He took in the boy's age, his size, the steadiness in his posture.
"What is your cultivation level?" Elder Zhou asked.
"Qi Refining, first stage," Di Yusheng said. "Barely."
Elder Zhou's expression did not shift. First-stage Qi Refining among inner disciples who had been training for years was less than nothing. Most of the children in this courtyard were at the third or fourth stage. Some had reached the fifth.
"Today you watch," Elder Zhou said. "Observe the forms. Learn the rhythm. When you have a foundation, you will practice."
Di Yusheng nodded.
Mu Qing turned to leave. He did not say goodbye or offer any parting words. He had brought the boy, handed him over, and that was the end of his task. He walked back the way he had come, and the courtyard seemed to breathe again behind him.
Di Yusheng found a spot along the low wall at the edge of the courtyard and sat down.
The disciples resumed their practice. The sound of wooden swords returned. The pairs moved through their forms — thrust, parry, step, turn. The movements were structured and repetitive, built on a system that Di Yusheng could already read from Su Xuanyi's knowledge. He recognized the stances. He recognized the breathing patterns. He recognized the sword philosophy behind them.
But recognizing was not the same as doing.
He watched.
His eyes moved across the courtyard. He watched how the disciples placed their feet, how they shifted their weight, how some of them cut short their extensions and others overreached. He watched the ones who were sloppy and the ones who were precise. He watched the ones who corrected their partners and the ones who didn't bother.
He also watched the ones who weren't practicing.
Most of the disciples had glanced at him when he arrived and then looked away. A few kept stealing looks between forms. One boy near the weapon rack whispered something to the girl beside him, and she elbowed him quiet.
But one disciple was not practicing at all.
He stood at the far edge of the courtyard, near the corner where the wall met the tree line. He was older than Yusheng — not by much, maybe two or three years. His hair was dark and slightly unkempt. He wore the same inner disciple robes as the others, but he held no practice sword. He was not paired with anyone.
He was watching Di Yusheng.
Not the way the others watched — quick glances, curious or afraid, always pulling away. This boy watched steadily. His eyes were fixed and calm, as if he had found the one thing in the courtyard that interested him and had no reason to look at anything else.
Di Yusheng noticed.
He did not stare back. He let his gaze pass over the boy the way it passed over the others, without pause, without weight. But he marked the face, the posture, the stillness.
Then he returned to watching the sword forms.
The session continued for another hour. The sun climbed. The flagstones grew warm. Sweat appeared on the disciples' necks and foreheads. Elder Zhou called out corrections twice — once to a pair whose footwork was sloppy, once to a boy who kept dropping his elbow on the thrust.
Then Elder Zhou raised his hand.
The courtyard went quiet.
"That's enough for today," he said. "Review the third form on your own. Dismissed."
The disciples broke apart. Some sat down where they stood. Others moved toward the water barrels near the pavilion. A few glanced at Di Yusheng as they passed, then looked away quickly.
Di Yusheng remained seated against the wall.
He was about to stand when a shadow fell across him.
The boy from the corner was standing three paces away. Up close, he was thin and a little tall for his age. His eyes were very dark and very still. There was something in his expression that did not match the other disciples — no curiosity, no fear, no disgust. It was something else entirely.
The boy sat down beside him without asking.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then the boy said, in a voice that was quiet and unhurried, "His body is weak."
Di Yusheng turned his head slightly.
The boy was not looking at his face. He was looking at his hands, his chest, the general shape of him, as if assessing a container.
"He has no cultivation," the boy went on. "He's small. His body was broken for years. Even now, he's barely first-stage Qi Refining." He paused. "There's no reason for you to stay in a body like that."
Di Yusheng said nothing.
The boy continued. "I'm older. I'm already at the fourth stage. My meridians are clear and my constitution is solid. I've been cultivating for five years without interruption." He said all of this the way someone might list the features of a house they were trying to sell. Plain. Factual. "And I want it."
The last sentence was different. It carried a weight the others didn't. Not desperation. Not pleading. Just a simple, full certainty, as if he were stating the color of the sky.
"I'm not afraid," he added.
Di Yusheng looked at him.
The boy looked back. His eyes did not waver. There was no smile, no nervousness, no attempt to seem sympathetic. He sat with his hands on his knees and waited, as if he had said everything that needed saying and the rest was not his to decide.
Di Yusheng studied him for a long moment.
Then he said, "What's your name?"
"Lei Yan."
Di Yusheng looked away, back toward the empty courtyard where the last disciples were gathering their things and leaving.
"Why should I choose you?" he said.
Lei Yan did not answer immediately. He thought about it, which was strange, because the answer should have been ready. He had listed his qualifications already. But the question was different from what he expected. It was not a refusal. It was not acceptance either. It was something in between — a door left open, with a condition attached.
Lei Yan said, "Because I won't resist. And I'm not being watched by anyone."
Di Yusheng said nothing.
Lei Yan added, "And because he doesn't want you. I do."
The courtyard was nearly empty now. The flagstones held the heat of the morning sun. Somewhere above, a bird called once and went silent.
Di Yusheng sat without moving.
Then, after a long pause, he said, "I'll think about it."
Lei Yan nodded once. He stood up, brushed off his robes, and walked away without another word.
Di Yusheng watched him go.
The courtyard was empty now. The wooden weapon racks stood in neat rows. The pavilion where Elder Zhou had sat was vacant. The flagstones were warm and still.
Di Yusheng remained where he was for a while longer.
Then he stood and walked back toward his room.
Above the peak, the sky was clear and wide and held nothing that mattered.