Poison still grinding in his abdomen, Lu Feng reached the Elder Council Hall as afternoon light entered through two narrow windows in the south wall. The high openings divided the sun into pale vertical bars across the finished stone floor. Twelve spirit-lamps burned beneath the ceiling, bright enough for reading documents, their steady radiance reaching into the spaces untouched by daylight. The air smelled of old paper, stone dust, faint incense, and the trace ozone left by the hall's map formation.
Lu Feng crossed the western threshold alone.
The poison ground through his abdomen with every step. His damaged meridians narrowed the thin circulation of qi he could maintain, and his cracked dantian answered each careful breath with dull pain. He kept his pace slow, his shoulders level, and his hands loose at his sides. The tremor in his fingers remained small enough to hide if no one looked too closely.
He moved east across the open floor, then north in a measured line toward the vast council table. No servant announced him. No guard stood within the room. More than two hundred tax scrolls waited in their places, filling the hall with the dry scent of aged ink and paper. The locked diplomatic cabinets stood silent beneath the spirit-lamps.
The council table dominated the center of the room. Fifteen zhang across, ancient and immovable, it reduced the people around it to temporary things. The stone surface held the dormant projection formation. At the table's north position, the ancestor shrine breathed incense into the still air.
Lu Zhennan stood beside the shrine with one hand resting on the table's edge.
The Patriarch of the Lu Clan turned when Lu Feng approached.
For an instant, Lu Feng saw only the eyes.
They were hollow. Not unfocused, not blind, but emptied by years of use. They looked at him from a face worn down past ordinary age, past grief, past the dignity expected of a clan patriarch. Lu Zhennan's formal robe hung from shoulders that seemed too sharp beneath the cloth. His fingers pressed against the stone table as if he needed its mass to remain upright.
The man was a ruin.
Lu Feng stopped at a respectful distance and bowed. Pain tightened low in his body. He controlled the sound of his breathing and rose.
"Father."
Lu Zhennan's gaze moved over him. The scrutiny was slow, but not dull. It traveled from Lu Feng's face to his hands, then to the careful placement of his feet. Nothing warm entered the patriarch's expression. Nothing hostile did either.
"Lu Feng."
His voice sounded scraped thin.
Lu Feng studied him in return.
Twenty years of attrition marked the man. Two decades of watching the Lu Clan bleed, losing people, strength, and ground until survival became a matter of payment and restraint. The Patriarch stood before him as a commander whose army diminished no matter which order he gave. He paid tribute to a warlord who could erase the clan with a thought, and the knowledge lived in the rigid line of his neck and the exhaustion around his eyes.
A broken commander.
Not weak in the simple sense. Weakness could be removed, replaced, or challenged. Lu Zhennan's condition ran deeper. He carried authority without the power to use it freely. He knew something was deeply wrong. Lu Feng could see that knowledge in the way the patriarch's gaze lingered too long on his son's face, searching for signs no ordinary illness should leave.
Knowledge without proof trapped him.
Lu Feng recognized the shape of that prison. Suspicion offered no protection when the suspected enemy stood beyond reach. An accusation without evidence could become another weapon in the wrong hand. Action without certainty could give the clan's enemies the excuse they wanted.
His hand tightened against the council table.
"You can stand," he said.
"For a while."
The honest answer cost little. Lu Feng's body already announced part of its condition through its careful balance and shallow breath.
Lu Zhennan's eyes dropped to his son's hands.
"You are hiding a tremor."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because it is small enough to hide."
The patriarch's mouth moved, though no smile formed. The faint change vanished before it reached his eyes.
"Straighten your shoulders."
Lu Feng obeyed. The motion pulled through his injured abdomen, and the poison pressed back. He kept his face still.
Lu Zhennan watched him for several breaths.
The hall remained quiet around them. Distant sounds from the manor did not enter the stone chamber. The spirit-lamps burned without flicker. Incense rose from the ancestor shrine in a narrow line, bent once in the still air, then thinned toward the high ceiling.
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"Your body is damaged," Lu Zhennan said.
"Yes."
"Can it recover?"
Lu Feng considered the question. His dantian remained cracked. His meridians remained impaired. The poison still occupied his body in dangerous quantity. Recovery existed as a possibility, not a promise.
"I do not intend to die from it."
Lu Zhennan's fingers lifted from the table, then returned to the stone.
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only answer worth giving."
The patriarch looked toward the south windows. Afternoon light cut across the lower half of the hall without reaching the shrine. For a moment, his face appeared almost gray.
"Answers worth giving are not always answers a father wants."
Lu Feng found no immediate reply.
The word father settled strangely within his fused consciousness. Lu Feng's fragmented memories supplied recognition, duty, and a sense of blood connection. Alexander Vance's longer life supplied distance enough to question all three. The man before him was his father by the measure of this world. He was also the Patriarch of a weakened clan, a commander who spent lives and treasure to delay destruction. Neither truth canceled the other.
Lu Zhennan turned back to him.
"If you fall again, do not do it where no one can reach you."
"I will consider the order."
"It was not advice."
"No, Father."
The patriarch's gaze sharpened. Some remnant of command moved behind the ruin, not strong enough to restore the man, but enough to show what years of attrition consumed.
Lu Feng lowered his head slightly.
Lu Zhennan accepted the gesture without softening. His attention returned to Lu Feng's face, and the silence lengthened until even the chronodial's faint ticking became noticeable.
A door opened along the eastern side of the hall.
Lu Feng did not turn immediately. He marked the sound first: the controlled release of the latch, the smooth movement of the door, the unhurried steps entering from the direction of the Grand Elder's chambers. The pace belonged to someone who expected the room to make space for him.
Only then did Lu Feng look.
Lu Tieshan, the patriarch's uncle, came through the eastern doorway with a smile already prepared.
The Grand Elder wore his years with deliberate grace. His back remained straight. His steps were steady. His robe settled around him without a crease out of place, and his hands rested comfortably before him. Where Lu Zhennan appeared worn down by every burden he carried, Lu Tieshan appeared polished by them.
Even without reaching toward Lu Tieshan's qi, Lu Feng felt the difference in the room. Lu Zhennan's unstable power seemed contained by effort. Lu Tieshan's presence carried the calm certainty of a man who knew no one in the clan could challenge him directly.
The smile widened when he saw Lu Feng.
"Zhennan," Lu Tieshan said. "You should have told me our boy was awake and walking."
Our boy.
The words came wrapped in grandfatherly warmth. Lu Tieshan's voice carried gentle reproach, familial pride, and relief in careful proportion. His gaze settled on Lu Feng with open concern.
Lu Feng's threat assessment triggered at once.
This man is lying.
The warmth stopped at Lu Tieshan's eyes.
They remained clear and steady, measuring the distance between Lu Feng and the Patriarch, the angle of Lu Feng's shoulders, and the labor hidden beneath his controlled breathing. Concern shaped his mouth. Concern softened his voice. Nothing in his eyes changed when he smiled.
Lu Feng lowered his head before his own expression could settle.
"Grand Elder."
Lu Tieshan crossed the floor toward them. His path remained smooth and direct, neither hurried nor slow. He stopped near the council table, close enough to speak as family and far enough to preserve the dignity of his office.
"Look at you," he said. "Still pale. Still unsteady. You should not force yourself to stand for ceremony."
His tone invited gratitude. It invited a weakened young man to accept protection, confess pain, and lean on the elder who came at the proper hour with the proper concern.
The timing was too perfect.
Lu Feng let his shoulders loosen. He allowed the tremor in his right hand to become visible for a moment before curling his fingers against his palm. He softened his breathing and let the poison's weight show in the small delay before he answered.
"This nephew did not wish to seem disrespectful."
Lu Tieshan's smile grew warmer.
"Disrespectful? You nearly frightened your father and me beyond reason. There is no disrespect in surviving."
The concern was practiced.
Lu Feng watched the old man's eyes while the words flowed around him. Lu Tieshan came to check on a boy who should be dead. He arrived after Lu Feng reached the hall, after the Patriarch saw him standing, after the first private exchange between father and son. He arrived early enough to observe, late enough to appear considerate.
Too perfect.
Lu Feng bent his head again.
"Thank you for your concern, Grand Elder."
Lu Tieshan lifted one hand, palm open in a reassuring gesture.
"You must not exhaust yourself. Your body has suffered enough. Has your qi settled?"
The question sounded natural. A concerned elder asking after a young cultivator's condition.
Lu Feng let his gaze fall toward the floor.
"It moves a little."
"Only a little?"
"Yes."
"Does it hurt when you circulate it?"
Lu Feng hesitated. The pause required no acting.
"Yes."
Lu Tieshan's expression filled with sympathy.
"Then do not force it. Young cultivators destroy themselves through impatience. Rest and allow your body time."
Lu Zhennan remained beside the ancestor shrine, silent. His hollow gaze moved from Lu Tieshan to Lu Feng, then back again. He did not interrupt. The stillness around him deepened, and the hand against the council table became pale at the knuckles.
Lu Feng raised his head enough to meet the Grand Elder's eyes.
"I am grateful for your guidance."
"Guidance is what family provides," Lu Tieshan said. "Especially when a child has suffered."
The word family came easily from him. So did child. Both carried warmth without weight. Lu Tieshan looked at Lu Feng as a benevolent elder might look at an unfortunate junior, but his attention continued to test each response. The concern never faltered. Neither did the cold steadiness behind it.
Lu Feng allowed his mouth to form a tired, grateful smile.
"I will remember Grand Elder's kindness."
"There is no need to remember kindness between family."
Lu Tieshan turned toward Lu Zhennan.
"He needs rest, Zhennan. This hall is no place for a wounded boy."
Lu Zhennan's gaze rested on Lu Feng.
"He stood on his own."
"Standing once proves little."
"It proves he can stand."
A trace of amusement entered Lu Tieshan's expression. It vanished almost at once.
"Of course. The Lu blood is stubborn."
He looked back at Lu Feng. Grandfatherly affection settled over his face again, complete and seamless.
"Go slowly when you leave. Do not let pride carry you faster than your body allows."
"Yes, Grand Elder."
Lu Feng's voice remained weak. His posture remained slightly bowed. He gave Lu Tieshan the image of a grateful nephew, damaged, vulnerable, and relieved to receive an elder's protection.
Inside, the assessment hardened.
The visit was not comfort. It was inspection. The warmth was not affection. It was an instrument. Lu Tieshan's concern arrived complete, measured, and ready for use before he entered the room.
Proof remained absent.
Lu Feng gave him nothing but gratitude.
In the private order of his mind, Lu Feng filed Lu Tieshan under SUSPECT ALPHA.