The courtyard still trembled.
Dust clung to skin and breath. No one spoke. Even the birds had fled.
The three figures stepped closer, robes stirring without wind. Their masks were smooth iron, shaped like calm, expressionless faces — one feature only: the withered eye etched into each brow.
The leading figure pointed to Kaifeng.
"You carry silence as a shield. But silence remembers."
No stance. No name offered.
Wei Qingzhao stepped forward again, between them and Kaifeng.
"This is Qingwu Sect. You won't take anyone."
"We didn't come to take," said the lead.
"We came to test."
His hand flicked — too fast for the eye — and one of the younger disciples behind Kaifeng dropped, unconscious before his body hit the ground.
No cut. No wound.
Just absence.
"You'll answer, or others will."
Kaifeng looked at the fallen disciple.
He said nothing. Only walked forward until the lead assassin could hear his breath.
Then stopped.
"Your technique," Kaifeng said quietly,
"relies on fear of what cannot be seen."
"Correct."
"Then it's already broken."
Kaifeng moved.
No buildup. No clash. Just shift.
A sleeve brushed the assassin's wrist. The man twisted backward instinctively.
But nothing had struck him.
He staggered a half-step — and when he looked down, the thread that tied his left bracer was missing. Cut so cleanly he hadn't felt it fall.
Behind him, his comrades tensed.
Kaifeng turned his back.
"You've seen what you needed."
"That wasn't the test."
"I know," he replied.
"That was the warning."
The sky had turned a deeper gray. The mountain wind was finally returning — slow, hesitant, like it too feared what had risen.
The masked men left. Without another word. Without turning their backs.
Wei stood watching them go, jaw locked.
"Why didn't you finish it?" he asked Kaifeng, once the crowd had dispersed.
Kaifeng didn't answer.
He was staring at the stake embedded in the dueling stone — the iron spike that broke their match.
He reached down and pulled it out.
Something was carved beneath the rusted emblem.
Not in ink. In blood-scorched grooves.
A name.
One that hadn't been spoken in years.
Shén Lüyun
Kaifeng's fingers tightened.
"They remember her."
Wei noticed the change. The sudden quiet in Kaifeng's breath. A moment where silence stopped being peace — and became something colder.
"Who is that?" he asked.
Kaifeng stood, stake in hand, eyes on the distant treeline.
"The reason I stopped speaking."
End of Chapter 4