The sect master's hall stood at the highest point of the mountain.
No guards at the door. No disciples in attendance. Just the building, the cold air, and the sky behind it.
A talisman floated out from inside. Elder Han caught it, read it, and turned to the outer disciple.
"You stay here."
The disciple opened his mouth, then closed it. He bowed and stepped back.
Elder Han walked in. Di Yusheng followed, his legs still stiff under the binding seal, his steps short and careful.
The hall was clean. A low table. Two cushions. A single window looking out at the clouds below. Incense burning in a bronze holder, the smoke rising in a thin, straight line.
The sect master sat behind the table.
She was a woman. Not old. Not young. Her face was calm the way stone is calm — still because nothing is moving it. Her eyes settled on Di Yusheng the moment he entered and did not leave.
She did not speak.
Elder Han bowed. "Sect Master. I bring a matter requiring your judgment."
She nodded once.
Elder Han reported. He was thorough. The missing child. The disciple's account. The forest. The clearing. The blood. The beast tracks. The herbs. The boy who could not speak or walk, now standing and speaking. The peak master's examination — nothing found. His own binding. His suspicion.
He laid it out the way a man lays out evidence at a trial. Orderly. Complete.
When he finished, the hall was quiet.
The sect master looked at Di Yusheng.
"What do you make of this situation?"
Yusheng looked back at her.
"I'm myself. I'm not possessed."
He said it simply. No urgency. No pleading. Just a flat statement.
The sect master watched him. Her expression did not change. But something in her attention sharpened — a narrower focus, like a blade turning to catch light at a different angle.
She was listening to his heartbeat.
Yusheng had no cultivation. No way to regulate his pulse, steady his breathing, or mask the small involuntary responses the body produces when it lies. He was an open book written in a language she could read without effort.
His heartbeat during that answer was steady.
She noted it.
"How did you go from being technically a cripple to being able to escape a cultivator?"
Yusheng was quiet for a moment.
"I'm not very sure," he said. "It must have been a gift from the visitor."
"What visitor?"
"There was a visitor in the shed after Grandfather left. He looked at me really weird. Then he left." He paused. "After that I was able to walk."
The sect master did not react. She held the words for a moment, turned them over.
Then she looked at Elder Han.
"Is there someone you know who could do that?"
Elder Han shook his head. "No one."
"What about his parents?"
Elder Han's voice was smooth. Practiced.
"His parents entrusted the child to me. They were about to die. None are alive."
Yusheng heard that.
He did not react. His face did not change. But behind his eyes, something turned over — slow, quiet, like a stone shifting in deep water.
But he remembered the crater.Yusheng remembered the sky. The smoke. The old man's face looking down into the hole in the earth.
Elder Han didn't know he remembered that.
Yusheng didn't think about it long. He filed it away the way someone shelves a tool they might need later. Not now. Now was not the time.
He read the room instead.
Elder Han was anxious. The kind of stillness that comes from holding your breath. His hands were at his sides and they were too still. His eyes kept moving to the sect master's face, searching for something.
He wanted a specific answer from this conversation. He was waiting for it.
Yusheng understood.
They weren't going to believe him. The peak master had found nothing, and it hadn't helped. Elder Han was still here, still pushing, still sure. The old man was more difficult than he thought. For reasons Yusheng didn't understand yet.
So the truth wasn't going to save him. He had to give them what they could work with.
He sighed.
"You really are stubborn."
He let the words land.
"Fine. You've got it right. I've possessed this kid."
Elder Han's breath caught.
"But leaving is going to be difficult." Yusheng continued. His voice was flat. Practical. "He was already crippled. Wasting body. Barely holding together. Why don't you give me a chance? I'll even make the sect vows."
The hall went still.
The sect master did not move.
But she heard it. The shift. His heartbeat during the denial had been steady. His heartbeat during the confession was not. It skipped. Not much. Not enough for anyone without her ability to notice. But she noticed.
She looked at Elder Han.
The old man's face had changed to something like relief.
"Dream on, demon." Elder Han's voice was hard. He turned to the sect master. "Please. Remove this monster from my grandchild."
The sect master looked at Elder Han for a long time.
Then she looked back at the five-year-old standing in front of her, covered in dried blood, soil on his mouth, speaking like a man negotiating terms of surrender.
She put it together.
The denial — heartbeat steady. The confession — heartbeat irregular. Elder Han anxious in a way that did not match concern. Elder Han lying about the parents. Elder Han hoping for the possession answer so badly his voice shook when he thought he'd gotten it.
The child came up with the lie because he thought the truth wouldn't save him. He gave them the answer they wanted and tried to negotiate from inside it.
She was right.
She stood.
"His soul and body are one. He is not possessed as far as I can tell."
Elder Han's mouth opened.
"But," she continued, "that does not mean this matter is closed. If there is a hidden demonic practitioner in this child, there will be signs. Over time, those signs will surface. The child will stay with me. I will observe him."
Elder Han stared at her.
"Sect Master—"
"That is my judgment."
She said it without raising her voice. Without hardening her tone. She said it the way someone states a fact that has already been decided and will not be reconsidered.
Elder Han stood there for a moment. His face was doing something complicated and none of it was relief.
He bowed. Stiffly. Turned. Walked out.
The door closed behind him.
The hall was quiet again.
The sect master sat back down. She looked at Di Yusheng.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then the sect master gestured. The binding on his legs released. His posture loosened. He almost stumbled, then caught himself.
"Can I eat?" he said.
"I'll have food brought."
Yusheng stood in the middle of the quiet hall, free to move, free to speak, and not free at all.
He didn't mind.It was still better than not being able to get up at all.