The Taste of Rotting Truth

In the shadowed heart of Mount Celestial, where even immortals feared to tread, Li Zhe Ran crawled through the forgotten catacombs of the Crypt of Whispers. Once, he had been the Celestial Sword Sect's brightest star, a prodigy whose meridians shone like rivers of liquid jade. Now, those same channels of spiritual energy were jagged fissures and shattered veins, leaking a slow, septic rot that left a trail of putrid mold in his wake. 

Pathetic, he thought.

The stench of decay clawed at his throat, a miasma of lichen and ancient death. Zhe Ran's tattered robes, once resplendent azure silk, now hung from his frame like a shroud, darkened by the ichor of his own corrupt essence. Each movement sent shards of pain rushing through his ruined body, a constant reminder of his fall from grace.

A wayward beam of moonlight slithered through a crack in the vaulted ceiling, casting sickly shadows across the ancient stone. Zhe Ran's fingers, once calloused from sword drills, now oozed a viscous black fluid as he dragged himself forward. Each breath rasped like sandpaper in his lungs, the air thick with the musty odor of forgotten secrets.

A glint caught his eye—something wrong beneath a shroud of cobwebs, reflecting the quicksilver brilliance of the moon.

There, atop a crumbling altar, lay a book unlike any Zhe Ran had ever seen. It wasn't jade slips or bamboo scrolls, the usual vessels of immortal wisdom. No, this tome was bound in something far more unsettling: Skin. 

Human skin, stitched with what could only be sinew, its cover embossed with a title that squirmed under his fevered gaze: 

"Tome of Ten Thousand Truths"

A laugh escaped Zhe Ran's lips, brittle and raw as shattered porcelain. "What's one more curse?"

He reached for the tome, his hand trembling. The cover pulsed beneath his touch, warm and disturbingly alive. With a sickening tearing sound, he ripped a page free. It clung to his fingers like wet silk, characters writhing across its surface.

Before reason could stay his hand, Zhe Ran crammed the page into his mouth and swallowed.

The taste was salt and decay—sweat, blood, and something unnameable. It was the flavor of forbidden knowledge, of truths that mortal minds were never meant to comprehend. Words slithered down his throat, burning like swallowed sewing needles. They burrowed into his flesh, seeking purchase in the putrefying caverns of his soul.

First Truth: "To know yourself is to rot from within."

Agony unlike anything Zhe Ran had ever known ripped through his body. His ribs cracked with sickening pops, sprouting jagged thorns that blossomed into orchids as black as the void between stars. Their petals rustled, whispering in a voice that sounded disturbingly like the ancient philosopher Zhuangzi:

"Are you a man dreaming of rot, or rot dreaming of a man?"

Before Zhe Ran could even begin to grapple with this paradox, a chain erupted from his chest. Crimson links seared into his flesh, each one etched with sneering axioms that reeked of Nietzsche's nihilism: 

"God is dead… and you killed him."

Zhe Ran collapsed, clawing at the crypt floor. Visions assailed him—forests of screaming trees, their bark weeping philosopher's ink; cities dissolving into paradox, buildings twisting into Möbius strips of stone and flesh; a shadowed figure wearing his face, smiling with teeth made of truth and lies.

He retched, but instead of bile, chrysanthemum petals spilled from his lips, each one inscribed with a fragment of cosmic despair.

"You."

The voice cut through his delirium like a cold blade. Zhe Ran's gaze snapped to the crypt's entrance, where a familiar figure stood silhouetted against the faint starlight. She was resplendent in white robes embroidered with Confucian edicts, her hair bound in a severe topknot. Her gaze, sharp as midwinter frost, traced the flowers bursting from his collarbone, the chain drilling into his heart.

Mei-Xing , the Frost Lotus of the Celestial Sword Sect, regarded him with eyes that held equal parts disgust and fascination. Her sword—Frost Sutra—cast a glacial blue glow over his writhing form. "So," she said, voice devoid of emotion, "the rumors were true. The prodigy has fallen."

Zhe Ran tried to speak, but only managed a wet gurgle. Black pollen sprayed from his lips, hanging in the air like a cloud of nihilistic stars.

Mei-Xing's nose wrinkled in disgust. "The Sect Elders were wrong to simply exile you. I see now that more... drastic measures are required."

She raised her sword, its edge humming with righteous qi. For a moment, Zhe Ran thought she might grant him the mercy of a swift death. Instead, her next words froze his rotting blood.

"Marry me," she said.

Zhe Ran spat blood and petals. "You'd... bind yourself to this?"

Her blade pressed against his blooming ribs, drawing a line of sap-like blood. "The sect wants you dead. I want you controlled." She leaned closer, her breath scented with sandalwood and order. "Marry me, or I'll carve the rot from your bones and scatter the ashes to the four winds."

The orchids growing from his flesh whispered seductively of chaos, offering paradoxes that could shatter a will of iron. The chain around his heart tightened, urging him to embrace the abyss of truth that yawned before him.

But deeper still, in the moldering ruins of his soul, a flicker of his old self remained—the part that had once blazed with righteousness, that had defended the weak and defied corrupt masters. It now spoke with a voice like crumbling autumn leaves:

What have you become?

Zhe Ran's gaze met Mei-Xing's, and for an instant, he saw not judgment in her eyes, but a reflection of his own despair. Had she come here not out of duty, but a misguided attempt to save him from himself?

"Why?" he croaked. "Why not let me die?"

A shadow passed over Mei-Xing's face—so brief he thought for a moment that he might have imagined it. "Because," she said, her voice softer now, almost sorrowful, "even a monster deserves the chance at redemption. And you, Zhe Ran, were once the brightest star in our firmament. I would see you shine again, even if I must bind your broken pieces together with the chains of my own making."

The Tome pulsed on the altar, hungry for his reply. The crypt itself seemed to hold its breath, ancient dust swirling in eddies of anticipation.

Zhe Ran paused in contemplation… and decided.

"Then bind me," he said, "and let us rot together."

Mei-Xing nodded, a grim smile touching her lips. She sheathed her sword, turned away, and spoke curtly: "Follow, quick."

…

Somewhere beyond the crypt, beyond the mountain that housed it, a forest began to scream. Trees twisted into screaming faces, their roots burrowing deep into the virgin soil of the earth. 

The First Truth had been spoken. The Philosopher's Bloom had begun.