Lin Shu and Ren Hao traveled in tense silence until they reached the first checkpoint—one of the security nets Lu Heng had laid around the mine to be sure no one trailed returning teams. An instructor waited in each of these posts; this one questioned them, inspected their tokens, scanned the surroundings for hidden pursuers, then finally waved them on.
Hours later the mine came into view, transformed since their last departure. Fortification walls were half-built, guard posts bristled with formations, and everywhere students labored: some lugging baskets of ore, stronger ones hefting boulders, others drilling combat forms under watchful seniors. The place looked less like a work site and more like a budding fortress—the sort of base that might endure even after the last Azure Crystal was pulled from the earth.
Inside, the two made straight for the largest command tent. Tao Mu, now second only to Vice-Dean Lu Heng, stood within, conferring with Wei Shan, the mine's former supervisor.
"Student Lin Shu greets Instructor Tao Mu." "Student Ren Hao greets Instructor Tao Mu."
Tao Mu turned, sank onto a low chair, and fixed them with a steady gaze. "I'm told you carry important news from your mission. Speak."
Lin Shu stepped forward first—determined Ren Hao wouldn't frame the story to his own advantage. "Sir, the operation proceeded as ordered…" He recounted every detail: entering Meiling, planting the bombs, the mis-timed detonation of Ren Hao's weapon, and—most crucial—seeing Instructor Jun Fen emerge from an upstairs VIP room speaking with Jiang-clan officials mere moments before the blast.
Tao Mu's expression remained stone-still; only the faintest flicker crossed Wei Shan's face. After a long silence Tao Mu said, voice low and flat:
"You will mention this to no one. Any loose tongue will be treated as treason. I will report directly to the Vice-Dean. Your rewards will be decided later—you will be compensated generously for results achieved. For now, rest. Dismissed."
The two students bowed and withdrew.
When the tent flap settled, Wei Shan exhaled. "Sir… do you think Jun Fen is the rat?"
"I don't know," Tao Mu murmured. "It is odd he'd appear there at all—let alone in public, with Jiang officials—if he were truly spying for them. Jun Fen is one of the sharpest minds in the Hall; recklessness isn't in his nature."
Wei Shan frowned. "Could the boys be mistaken? Or lying?"
"Unlikely." Tao Mu's eyes narrowed. "Ren Hao does resent Jun Fen, but he's not foolish enough to fabricate a story he knows we can verify. And Lin Shu's record speaks for itself—every mission shows disciplined judgment. He wouldn't support a lie, even for profit as he knows the amount of risk it involves far out ways whatever he can off lying. So I believe they saw something real. Whether it's treachery, misdirection, or some deeper ploy—we won't know until Jun Fen answers for it."
The puzzle hung between them: two bright students with little reason to deceive, and a veteran instructor too clever to be caught—unless he wanted to be.
Outside, torches crackled in the deepening night, and the mine-fortress kept building, stone by stone, into the heart of gathering war.
Lin Shu and Ren Hao pushed through the tent-flap together. Lin Shu paused just long enough to deliver a flat warning:
"For your sake, you'd better pray that bomb really was faulty."
Ren Hao only flashed a thin, amused smile—as if the threat were a child's scolding—then strode off. Lin Shu didn't bother watching him go.
He made his way through the bustling camp. Couriers raced toward new missions, servants bent under crates of stone, guards checked formation pylons along the earthworks. Yet every few steps someone's gaze snagged on him—then flicked away. Some held pity, others revulsion. Entire knots of students shifted aside as he passed.
Why…?
He ducked into the nearest barrack-tent. Two students inside, mid-conversation, glanced up, saw his face—and instantly fell silent. They slipped out without a word, as though the air itself had become foul.
Lin Shu turned, found a bronze mirror propped against a post, and understood.
One half of his face was a ruin: scorched flesh, blistered ridges, ugly scar tissue. The other bore a deep, raw gash that carved from jawline to ear. He looked like a corpse that had refused to lie still.
"I suppose I'd stare too," he muttered.
He sealed the entrance, sank cross-legged in the lamplight, and summoned Burning Vein Art. Heat blossomed beneath his skin; flesh knit, the worst rents closing by millimeters. Through the pain he stared at his reflection—at a visage no child of eleven should ever wear—and, for the first time in far too long, asked himself if any of this was worth it.
months of emotional solitude.
months of planning, killing, torturing, calculating every syllable for fear of leaking an advantage.
No friends. No mentor. No warmth. Nothing but the cold arithmetic of survival.
He shoved the thoughts aside, finished healing as far as the art allowed, and stepped back into camp.
Now he noticed things.
Two exhausted students laughing over a shared canteen. An instructor ruffling a disciple's hair after a clumsy sword form. A pair of guards who trusted each other enough to stand back-to-back, eyes half-closed, gossiping between patrol rounds.
Trust. Companionship. Simple affection.
Lin Shu felt none of it. Nor did he mourn the lack. Emotions, he told himself, were parasites—weaknesses that could pry his hands from the ladder he climbed.
Still, the whisper of absence followed him as he left the fortress walls and slipped alone into the forest. Night gathered between the pines; cicadas rasped; the sky above was a black mirror.
He sat on a moss-slick rock and closed his eyes.
Is it worth it?
The question formed in the darkness like a breath on cold glass.
A shape answered—a shadow without features, yet radiating sorrow. It had no mouth, yet he heard its muted sobs. Is it worth it?
Loneliness, given form.
Lin Shu watched the specter, unblinking. Then answered aloud:
"Power."
For what? the shadow asked.
"To survive."
Survive for what?
He took a long, aching breath.
"Long enough to be free."
Free from what?
Silence pooled. At last he spoke:
"From the chains of the strong. From being an ant crushed underfoot. I want power over my fate—power enough that no one can enslave me."
The shadow laughed a sorrowful laugh And then, quietly:
There are many chains. Many kinds of slaves: to happiness, to lust, to greed, to power itself. Men drink, drug, fight—fleeing a world that frightens them. They become beasts nipping at old wounds, testing rotten planks on a bridge above the abyss until one breaks and they fall.
The voice faded.
Lin Shu opened his eyes. Cool night air brushed the half-healed scars on his face.
"I will not be that beast," he whispered. "I do not serve power. I will own it."
His words vanished into the trees, but the resolve remained—sharp as bone blades, silent as lightning before the strike.
Lin Shu then looked up at the sky, fist clenched.
"There is nothing without a price. If I seek companionship, I will lose something. If I seek love, I will lose something. And if I seek power, I will lose many things.
But this is my choice. I have chosen to sacrifice those things—for power. I cannot obtain it without giving the others up.
I will not let the emotions I once buried, the chains I cast off, dare to alter my path. The only emotions I will allow are the joy when I achieve my goal, the resolve to reach it, and the rage I will unleash upon my enemies.
Any emotion that does not align with my purpose is a parasite—a weak link that must be destroyed.
I know I will fall. I know I will be tempted, again and again. But I will always rise.
My only choice is to move forward. Any other path is death—
the death of my dream,
the death of my goal,
and the death of myself.
I will not betray my ambition.
I will not become a traitor to myself."
Lin Shu then drew a sword from his pouch and looked into its polished surface. His reflection stared back at him—silent, waiting.
"And you will not trick me," he said coldly. "No matter how many times you whisper in my ear. No matter how many times I hear your cries and wails."
His gaze sharpened, eyes locking with his own reflection, as if addressing something other than himself—something that watched from behind his eyes.
"You're the weak link that must be destroyed."
He knew those emotions would return—again and again—clawing their way back each time he pushed them down. But until he found a way to destroy them completely, he would fight them without pause.
With that final vow buried in silence, Lin Shu turned and headed back toward the mine, his expression unwavering, carved from resolve.