The Leng ancestral cemetery had no lights.
It did not need them.
Moonlight covered the hillside in pale silver, falling across rows of black stone markers that descended towards the forest.
Leng Yao had not visited in months.
Too many dead people expected nothing from him.
That made them easier company than the living.
Feng Baoshu stopped the vehicle at the lower gate.
Doctor Ren had wrapped Leng Yao’s forearm during the drive.
The Rot Scripture had eaten through two layers of skin and damaged one meridian beneath it.
It still hurt.
Leng Yao preferred it that way.
Pain he understood.
Ji Xueyan stepped out of the second vehicle.
Duan followed with what remained of his wooden staff.
“You brought that?” Ji asked.
Duan looked at the shortened weapon.
“It survived.”
“Barely.”
“So did you.”
Ji stopped asking.
Four Houshan guards unloaded Gu Chen from the rear vehicle.
The Carrion Palace cultivator had been restrained with steel, spiritual suppression cuffs and enough sedative to kill an ordinary man.
He was awake.
Barely.
Leng Yao looked at him.
“Where?”
Gu Chen smiled.
“You buried your family here and never noticed?”
Feng hit him across the mouth.
Gu Chen spat blood onto the gravel.
“That memory came back quickly.”
Feng stared at him.
“No.”
“Then why are you angry?”
“I do not need memory to dislike you.”
Leng Yao walked past them.
“Location.”
Gu Chen lifted his chin towards the upper cemetery.
“Your parents.”
Leng Yao stopped.
The air around him changed.
Gu Chen noticed.
He enjoyed it.
That was enough reason not to give him more.
Leng Yao continued uphill.
His father and mother rested near the highest point.
Two graves.
One stone.
Leng Jian.
Xu Meilin.
The marker had been carved from black mountain jade recovered from the ruins of the original estate.
No titles.
His father had possessed enough titles to fill the stone twice.
His mother would have hated that.
Leng Yao stopped before them.
Feng remained several steps behind.
Something flickered across the old man’s face.
Not memory.
Pain without context.
Leng Yao looked at Gu Chen.
“Under the graves?”
“Between them.”
“There is nothing there.”
“You checked?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“You were poisoned.”
Leng Yao crouched.
The soil looked untouched.
So did the stone beneath it.
He activated his independent principle.
A few black lines appeared.
The graves.
The estate ruins kilometres east.
The Leng lineage.
Then another.
Very faint.
It descended beneath the earth.
Not Mandate.
Not Heaven.
Something older.
Leng Yao touched the ground.
“There.”
Feng stepped forward.
“I feel nothing.”
“You sealed it.”
That made him pause.
Leng Yao stood.
“Move the marker.”
The Houshan guards hesitated.
Feng did not.
He placed both hands against the memorial stone.
Dark spiritual energy entered his arms.
The stone shifted.
Soil cracked beneath it.
One of the guards joined him.
Then another.
Together they moved the marker half a metre.
A metal ring sat beneath it.
Ji looked at Feng.
“You really did hide something here.”
Feng stared at the ring.
His breathing changed.
“I remember digging.”
Leng Yao waited.
Feng closed his eyes.
Rain.
Mud.
Blood on his sleeves.
A younger Leng Yao unconscious beside the graves.
Three wooden chests.
One burning.
One already loaded onto a transport vehicle.
The third—
Feng opened his eyes.
“I put it underground.”
“What was inside?”
“I still don’t know.”
Gu Chen laughed quietly.
Feng turned.
“Do that again.”
Gu Chen stopped.
Duan smiled.
“I like him.”
Leng Yao pulled the metal ring.
Nothing happened.
He pulled harder.
A circular section of earth lifted.
Not earth.
Stone covered with a thin layer of soil.
Cold air escaped from below.
A staircase descended into darkness.
Ji drew her spear.
Duan gripped his broken staff.
Leng Yao went first.
The passage was narrow.
No modern formations.
No electric lights.
Feng had built it in one night with tools already prepared inside the cemetery.
That meant the hiding place had existed before the massacre.
His father had planned for something to be buried here.
The walls changed ten metres down.
Black stone became grey.
Carrion Palace symbols appeared.
White circles.
Three vertical lines.
Ji ran her fingers near one without touching it.
“This wasn’t built by the Leng family.”
“No,” Feng said.
“You remember?”
“No.”
Leng Yao looked back at Gu Chen.
Two guards dragged him behind them.
“You knew this place existed.”
“I knew there was a vault.”
“Who built it?”
“Your grandfather.”
Feng’s head snapped towards him.
Gu Chen continued.
“Not for the Leng family.”
“For Carrion Palace?” Ji asked.
“Yes.”
Leng Yao kept walking.
That answered one question and created worse ones.
The passage opened into a stone chamber.
Three platforms stood inside.
One was empty.
Another contained the remains of a burned wooden chest.
The third held a coffin-sized black box wrapped in iron chains.
Feng stopped at the entrance.
His face lost colour.
“This.”
Leng Yao approached the burned platform first.
Ash still covered it despite six years underground.
“What was here?”
Gu Chen said nothing.
Leng Yao looked at him.
The cultivator shrugged.
“You wanted direct answers.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know.”
Fair.
Leng Yao moved to the empty platform.
Scratches covered the stone.
Something heavy had once rested there.
Container Forty-Seven.
The chest stolen from Dock Seven had likely come from this platform.
That left the chained box.
Feng took one step towards it.
Then stopped.
His hand trembled.
“I remember the chains.”
Leng Yao looked at him.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
“Do not force it.”
Feng glanced at him.
“That sounds unlike you.”
“You remember enough to be annoying.”
A faint expression touched Feng’s face.
Then disappeared.
Leng Yao examined the chains.
No spiritual seal.
No Mandate.
Simple forged iron covered in old blood.
Duan crouched beside one link.
“Blood lock.”
Ji looked at him.
“Whose?”
Duan smelled it.
“Several people.”
“That works?”
“With old demonic techniques.”
Leng Yao drew his father’s sword.
Gu Chen laughed.
“You really don’t know.”
Leng Yao looked back.
“Know what?”
“That sword opened the first chest.”
Leng Yao lowered his eyes to the blade.
His father’s weapon.
Black steel.
No ornamentation beyond the Leng crest on the guard.
He placed the edge against the chain.
Nothing.
Then the sword began to vibrate.
The blood on the links dried instantly.
Iron cracked.
One chain fell.
Then another.
Feng backed away.
“Something is wrong.”
Leng Yao felt it too.
The air inside the chamber was becoming thinner.
Not oxygen.
Spiritual energy.
The sealed box was consuming it.
Duan stepped towards the door.
“Open it quickly or close it again.”
“Why?”
“Something inside is cultivating.”
Gu Chen smiled.
Leng Yao looked at him.
“You expected this.”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps we should kill him now.”
“No.”
Leng Yao cut the final chain.
The box opened itself.
Cold grey mist poured across the floor.
Ji raised her spear.
Duan took one step back.
Inside lay a man.
Young.
Perhaps twenty-five.
Bare chest covered in black script.
A steel spike passed through the centre of his sternum.
He had no eyes.
Only stitched skin.
His chest rose.
Once.
Feng whispered, “Impossible.”
The man inhaled.
The grey mist vanished into his mouth.
His body convulsed.
The steel spike shook.
Leng Yao moved.
His father’s sword stopped against the man’s throat.
“Do not sit up.”
The eyeless man smiled.
“You sound like Jian.”
Leng Yao’s grip tightened.
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“Name.”
“Yan Shuo.”
Duan swore.
Ji looked at him.
“You know him?”
“Everyone knew him.”
Leng Yao did not look away from Yan Shuo.
“Explain.”
Duan answered.
“Carrion Palace Saint Child.”
Gu Chen corrected him.
“Former Saint Child.”
Yan Shuo laughed softly.
“Still bitter, Gu?”
Gu Chen’s face twisted.
“You abandoned us.”
“You were eating children.”
“That was doctrine.”
“That was dinner.”
Duan blinked.
“I like him too.”
Ji gave him a look.
Leng Yao pressed the blade closer to Yan Shuo’s throat.
“You knew me.”
The smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
“As a child?”
“As an infant.”
Feng moved closer.
Yan Shuo turned his eyeless face towards the sound.
“Baoshu.”
Feng went still.
“You know me.”
“You stabbed me.”
“Did I?”
“Four times.”
“That sounds excessive.”
“You were upset.”
Feng looked at Leng Yao.
“Apparently I was.”
Leng Yao did not care.
“What was I doing in Carrion Palace?”
Yan Shuo’s head shifted towards him.
“You were born wrong.”
Leng Yao’s eyes hardened.
Yan Shuo sighed.
“Not like that.”
“Then speak clearly.”
“You had no usable core.”
Leng Yao stopped.
That contradicted everything he knew.
His core had been damaged six years ago.
Before that, it had been exceptional.
At fourteen, he had already surpassed cultivators twice his age.
Yan Shuo continued.
“You were born with a hollow centre.
Spiritual energy entered your body and disappeared.”
“Inverted core.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“We called it an Empty Womb.”
The phrase meant nothing to Leng Yao.
Duan’s expression changed.
“You are lying.”
Yan Shuo turned towards him.
“You are old enough to know better.”
“I know what Empty Womb bodies are.”
Ji looked at Duan.
“What?”
“Failures.”
Yan Shuo smiled.
“Most.”
Duan ignored him.
“Children born unable to retain spiritual energy.
They usually die before five.”
Leng Yao looked at Yan Shuo.
“I did not.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Your mother brought you to us.”
The room became still.
Feng’s blade moved.
Leng Yao stopped him without turning.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“You were dying.”
Leng Yao said nothing.
That made sense.
More than Gu Chen’s claim that his father had stolen him.
Xu Meilin would have gone anywhere if she believed it could save her child.
Even Carrion Palace.
Yan Shuo continued.
“Our physicians had studied Empty Womb bodies for generations.”
“For what?”
“To create vessels.”
There it was.
Not salvation.
Use.
“What kind of vessels?”
Yan Shuo moved one hand.
The steel spike in his chest rattled.
“Ones that could hold things normal cultivators could not.”
“Rot Scripture.”
“Among others.”
Duan’s expression turned grim.
“Authority.”
Yan Shuo smiled.
“Good.”
Leng Yao’s grip tightened around the sword.
Carrion Palace had experimented with bodies that could accept incompatible cultivation.
Foreign techniques.
Perhaps even things similar to Mandate authority.
His inverted core had not appeared from nothing after the possession.
The foundation had existed since birth.
“What did they do to me?”
Yan Shuo became quiet.
Leng Yao pressed the blade into his skin.
Blood appeared.
“Answer.”
“They opened the core.”
“How?”
“Ritual.”
“Details.”
“Seven children.”
Ji’s face changed.
Yan Shuo continued.
“Six died.”
Leng Yao understood before he finished.
“I was the seventh.”
“Yes.”
Feng’s hand tightened around his weapon.
Gu Chen spoke from behind them.
“You were our greatest success.”
Yan Shuo laughed.
“No.”
Gu Chen looked at him.
“He survived.”
“That did not make him yours.”
“You betrayed the Palace.”
“I learned to count corpses.”
Leng Yao looked between them.
“What happened after the ritual?”
Yan Shuo answered.
“Your core stopped consuming you.”
“And?”
“It began consuming everything else.”
A cold silence followed.
That matched his current ability too closely.
“Why did my father take me?”
“He found out what the Palace intended.”
“What?”
Gu Chen answered this time.
“To raise you.”
Leng Yao looked at him.
“That is all?”
“To maturity.”
“For what purpose?”
Gu Chen smiled.
“To open the Gate.”
Feng moved.
This time Leng Yao did not stop him.
The blade entered Gu Chen’s thigh.
The cultivator screamed.
Feng crouched beside him.
“Location?”
Gu Chen laughed through the pain.
“I don’t know.”
“Purpose?”
“I don’t know.”
Feng twisted the blade.
Gu Chen shouted.
Yan Shuo spoke.
“He is telling the truth.”
Feng looked at him.
Yan Shuo continued.
“Most of the Palace never knew what the Gate was.”
Leng Yao lowered his father’s sword.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
Yan Shuo turned his stitched eyes towards him.
“A barrier.”
“Between what?”
“This world and what sits outside its laws.”
Ji’s grip tightened on her spear.
“Heaven?”
“No.”
That answer landed differently.
Yan Shuo continued.
“Heaven is inside the barrier too.”
Leng Yao stared at him.
For days, every larger revelation had led upward.
Regional Chosen.
Central Court.
Mandate branches.
Now Yan Shuo was saying the Mandate itself was not the highest structure.
Leng Yao disliked that.
Not because it frightened him.
Because it threatened to become another endless ladder.
He cut the thought off.
“Why does this matter now?”
Yan Shuo smiled.
Good question.
“The Palace wants you back.”
“Why?”
“Because your core awakened.”
“How do they know?”
Gu Chen answered.
“The Jade Peak poison.”
Leng Yao looked at him.
Six years ago.
The attack that damaged his cultivation.
The poison everyone believed had shattered his core.
Gu Chen’s smile widened.
“It was never meant to kill you.”
“What was it meant to do?”
“Finish the ritual.”
The chamber went silent.
His destroyed core.
Six years of leaking cultivation.
The possession attempt.
Then inversion.
Perhaps none of those events were separate.
Leng Yao crouched.
“Who poisoned me?”
Gu Chen’s smile disappeared.
“Carrion Palace.”
“That was not the question.”
No answer.
Leng Yao looked at Feng.
The old butler moved the blade.
Gu Chen finally spoke.
“Your uncle.”
Leng Yao froze.
Feng did too.
The Leng family had no surviving uncle.
Not officially.
His father had one younger brother.
Leng Zhentao.
Dead twenty-eight years ago.
Before Leng Yao was born.
At least according to family records.
Feng’s face changed.
A memory struck harder than the others.
He staggered.
Leng Yao caught him.
“Baoshu.”
The old man stared at the floor.
“I saw him.”
“When?”
“The night of the massacre.”
Leng Yao went still.
“Zhentao?”
Feng nodded.
“He was there.”
Memory returned in broken pieces.
Flames.
Leng Jian bleeding beside the ancestral hall.
A man standing behind the attackers.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
Older than the portrait in the family archive.
Alive.
Leng Zhentao.
Feng whispered, “Your father called him brother.”
Leng Yao released him slowly.
His father’s younger brother had been alive.
Had joined Carrion Palace.
Had helped destroy the family.
And six years later, the Palace had returned for the chest beneath the graves.
“What was in the other chest?” Leng Yao asked Yan Shuo.
The eyeless man became still.
“A woman.”
“Name.”
“Mei Zhen.”
Xue’s mother?
Leng Yao’s expression changed.
“No surname?”
“None given.”
Feng looked at him.
Lin Meizhen.
Xue Lihua’s mother.
Too convenient.
Leng Yao hated convenient.
“Describe her.”
Yan Shuo did.
Older.
Dark hair.
Scar across the left palm.
Cultivator.
That was not Xue’s mother.
Good.
Different Mei Zhen.
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was she Carrion Palace?”
“No.”
“What was she?”
Yan Shuo leaned back inside the box.
“Tenth Vessel.”
Leng Yao stared at him.
“You said seven children.”
“That was your ritual.”
“There were others.”
“Many.”
Duan’s expression hardened.
“How many survived?”
Yan Shuo smiled without humour.
“Enough to start a sect.”
That answered too much.
Carrion Palace was not a sect built around one technique.
It was an organisation built around creating vessels.
Leng Yao had been one.
Yan Shuo another.
The woman from the missing chest another.
And somewhere, Leng Zhentao had survived for decades among them.
Leng Yao sheathed his sword.
“Remove the spike.”
Ji looked at him.
“You trust him?”
“No.”
Yan Shuo laughed.
“Good.”
Duan approached the box.
“That spike suppresses cultivation.”
“Yes.”
“If we remove it, what level are you?”
Yan Shuo thought.
“Currently?”
“Yes.”
“Hungry.”
Duan frowned.
“That was not an answer.”
Yan Shuo corrected himself.
“Spirit Sea.”
The room changed.
Everyone moved.
Ji’s spear rose.
Feng stepped in front of Leng Yao.
Houshan guards aimed their weapons.
Spirit Sea.
Above Mortal Ascension.
Far above everyone except perhaps Duan.
Yan Shuo sighed.
“I have been nailed inside a box for six years.”
“That does not make you harmless,” Ji said.
“No.”
“At least he is honest,” Leng Yao said.
Yan Shuo smiled.
Bai would have approved.
Leng Yao looked at the steel spike.
“Leave it.”
Yan Shuo’s smile vanished.
“Cruel.”
“Practical.”
“Your father said the same thing.”
“Then he was correct.”
Leng Yao turned towards the entrance.
“Move the entire box.”
Feng looked at him.
“To the estate?”
“No.”
“The Null Temple?”
Duan smiled.
Leng Yao nodded.
Yan Shuo sat up as far as the spike allowed.
“That place still exists?”
“Yes.”
“Zhou succeeded?”
“For a while.”
Something genuine crossed Yan Shuo’s face.
Relief.
Interesting.
“Why there?” Ji asked.
“Carrion Palace found him here.”
Leng Yao looked at Gu Chen.
“They knew about the grave.”
He looked back at Yan Shuo.
“They may know about the estate.”
“And Heaven cannot track the Temple,” Ji said.
“Yes.”
Yan Shuo leaned back.
“I agree.”
“No one asked.”
“You were about to.”
“I wasn’t.”
Feng looked at Leng Yao.
“You truly were like this before?”
“Yes,” Ji said.
“I have known him six days.”
Feng sighed.
The guards prepared the box for transport.
Leng Yao returned to his parents’ grave alone.
The marker had been moved back into place.
The cemetery was quiet again.
His mother had taken him to Carrion Palace to save his life.
His father had later stolen him back when he learned what they intended.
Then someone inside the Leng family helped Carrion Palace return.
Whatever else was true, his parents had died protecting him from something he had never known existed.
Leng Yao placed one hand against the cold stone.
No system appeared.
No authority reacted.
Good.
This did not need one.
Footsteps approached.
Feng stopped beside him.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Feng said, “I remember your mother.”
Leng Yao looked at him.
“How much?”
“Not everything.”
Feng stared at the grave.
“She made terrible tea.”
Leng Yao laughed once.
Actually laughed.
“She did.”
“She thought adding more leaves made it stronger.”
“It made it poisonous.”
“She served it to guests.”
“Only guests she disliked.”
Feng frowned.
“She served it to me often.”
Leng Yao looked at him.
“You irritated her.”
“That feels believable.”
Another small piece.
Not restored by Claim.
Not forced by Heaven.
Remembered.
Feng looked towards the grave.
“I remember promising her something.”
“What?”
“To keep you alive.”
Leng Yao said nothing.
Feng looked at him.
“I still don’t remember making the promise.”
“You do not have to keep it.”
“No.”
The old butler adjusted his cuffs.
“But I probably will.”
A thin black line formed between them.
Stronger this time.
Leng Yao did not touch it.
Behind them, Gu Chen screamed as the guards loaded him into the transport.
Feng glanced towards the sound.
“That part I am beginning to enjoy.”
Leng Yao turned towards the vehicles.
“We return to Shanghai.”
“And tomorrow?”
“We find Leng Zhentao.”
“What about the hearing?”
“Still in five days.”
“And Shen Mingzhi?”
The Mirror Opposition tightened faintly inside Leng Yao’s core.
Shen had broken through again.
Fortune was moving.
Leng Yao felt the corresponding pressure.
He kept walking.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “Shen Mingzhi can solve his own problems.”
For once, Heaven did not answer.