They walked through the sect grounds in the dark.
Elder Han led. The outer disciple walked beside Di Yusheng, one hand on his shoulder steering him forward. The binding held his body stiff — arms locked at his sides, legs moving in short, careful steps.
His stomach was still empty.
"Grandfather."
Elder Han did not turn.
"It's really me. I'm not possessed."
Elder Han kept walking.
The outer disciple tightened his grip on Yusheng's shoulder.
"I knew something was wrong," he said. "When my binding spell didn't work on you. Turns out you were a possessed kid."
Yusheng turned his head as much as the binding allowed and looked at him.
"Really. So you'd rather believe I'm possessed than acknowledge you're incompetent?"
The disciple's jaw tightened.
"No wonder you're an outer disciple."
"You're not doing any better," the disciple snapped.
"I'm five. What do you expect and besides I'm not the one who lost to someone less than half my age."
"There are three-year-old direct disciples. Age isn't an excuse." The disciple's voice had gone hard. "You're either born a dragon or a frog here. We're both frogs."
Yusheng stared at him.
"What are you, some kind of poet?"
"Enough."
Elder Han's voice cut through without rising. He did not slow down. He did not turn around.
They walked in silence.
After a while, Yusheng spoke again.
"Where are you taking me?"
Elder Han said nothing.
Yusheng looked ahead at the old man's back.
"Oh. It's a surprise."
The peak master's hall was quiet.
Incense hung in the air. A single lamp burned on the table. The peak master sat behind it — a middle-aged man with calm hands and tired eyes. Golden Core. Not the highest authority on the mountain, but the highest one awake at this hour.
Elder Han stepped forward and bowed.
"Peak Master. I apologize for the disturbance. I bring a matter that requires your examination."
The peak master looked past him at the small, blood-covered child standing rigid in the binding seal. Then at the outer disciple. Then back at Elder Han.
"Speak."
Elder Han spoke carefully. He laid out everything — the missing child, the disciple's account, the clearing, the beast tracks, the blood, the herbs. The boy who could not speak or walk, now standing and speaking. The binding he had cast on his own grandson.
When he finished, the hall was very quiet.
The peak master looked at Di Yusheng.
Yusheng chuckled. Quiet. Almost to himself.
"The peak master?" he said. "What's he going to do, use mechanisms to perform an exorcisms?"
The outer disciple flinched.
Elder Han's expression darkened.
The peak master did not react to the disrespect. Instead, something shifted in his eyes. Not anger. Something closer to curiosity.
He leaned forward slightly.
"You're not scared?"
Yusheng looked at him.
"Of who?"
The silence that followed was different from the one before.
The peak master stood.
"Release his arms. Keep the leg seal."
Elder Han gestured. The binding on Yusheng's arms loosened. His hands dropped. He kept them at his sides.
The peak master walked around the table and stopped in front of him. He knelt to bring himself level with the child's eyes.
Then he placed two fingers against Yusheng's forehead.
The examination was quiet.
No light. No surge of energy. No dramatic pressure. Just two fingers and a long, careful search.
The peak master closed his eyes.
He moved through the child's spiritual body methodically. Meridians — clear. Dantian — empty but unobstructed. Spiritual sea — calm. Soul — one. Single. Whole. No second presence layered behind it. No foreign consciousness hiding in the margins. No demonic qi curled in the joints or the blood or the bones.
He searched deeper.
Nothing.
No traces. No residue. No scar where a possessor might have entered and concealed itself.
He opened his eyes.
He looked at the child in front of him.
A five-year-old. No cultivation. No foreign soul. No contamination of any kind he could perceive.
Just a boy.
The peak master stood slowly.
Elder Han watched his face.
"What did you find?"
The peak master was quiet for a moment.
"No foreign soul. No possession trace. No demonic qi." He paused. "No sign of anything abnormal."
Elder Han's expression did not change. "Then—"
"Then I do not understand what I am looking at."
The peak master turned back to Di Yusheng. The child looked up at him. Blood still on his face. Soil still around his mouth. Calm eyes.
"What you describe is real," the peak master said to Elder Han. "The clearing. The beast. The behavior. I do not doubt your account."
"Then why is there nothing?"
"Because I am Golden Core." The peak master's voice was even. Honest. "If something deeper is involved — something subtler, older, higher — I may not be able to see it. My sight has a ceiling. This may be above it."
He looked at Elder Han.
"This should go to the sect master."
Elder Han said nothing for a long time.
Then he nodded.
The peak master returned to his table. He wrote a short message on a talisman and handed it to Elder Han.
"Take this. She will see you."
Elder Han took the talisman and turned to leave.
The outer disciple moved to follow, guiding Yusheng by the shoulder.
Yusheng looked up at the peak master one more time.
The peak master looked back.
Neither said anything.
Then Yusheng turned and walked out, his stiff legs carrying him forward into the dark, toward whatever was waiting at the top of the mountain.