Fractured Mandate of Heaven II

The crypt's dank walls dissolved into chrysanthemum-scented mist that stung Mei-Xing's nostrils with memories of funeral incense. Reality reshaped itself through a lens of decaying parchment, the very air puckering like paper left too long in monsoon dampness. She gasped as solid stone flowed beneath her feet into sun-warmed granite, the sudden light stabbing her spore-clouded eyes.

They stood atop a wind-lashed cliff where the air itself seemed honed to a blade's edge. Below sprawled a valley of obscene fertility—rice paddies glistening like emerald scales, peach orchards heavy with fruit that pulsed like embryonic hearts. The Twin Peaks of Dawn rose in jagged splendor, their snow-capped summits forming a perfect taijitu symbol that made Mei-Xing's golden core ache with recognition. This was the sacred heart of the Celestial Sword Sect's territory, rendered in the Tome's cruel hyperclarity.

"Three summers past," Zhe Ran's present-day voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, each word dripping bitter resin. "When my meridians still shone like jade filigree beneath unblemished skin."

The air before them coagulated into a younger Zhe Ran, his form shimmering with the dangerous beauty of lightning trapped in human shape. Azure robes billowed around him untouched by wind, embroidered with silver cranes that seemed to preen under Mei-Xing's gaze. The prodigy's eyes held the terrible brightness of unsullied conviction, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut the sect's lies into palatable portions.

Mei-Xing's hand rose involuntarily, fingers brushing empty air where his incorruptible silhouette stood. "I remember you like this," she whispered, words reminiscing childhood reverence. "We burned juniper incense before your training portraits. Wove our hair in the style you favored."

The memory convulsed. They stood suddenly in the village's central square, the sacred peaks looming like disapproving magistrates. Peasants cowered around young Zhe Ran's pristine form—skeletal figures with eyes gone milky from staring at empty rice pots, their ribcages pressing through threadbare tunics like ceramic shards wrapped in burlap.

An elder emerged from the huddle, his back bent like a question mark carved from kindling. Milky cataract eyes spilled tears that cut tracks through decades of grime. "Young immortal," he rasped, knobby fingers clutching Zhe Ran's sleeve with deathbed strength, "the tax collectors took even our seed grain. We only borrowed from the sect's storehouse to..." A coughing fit bent him double, bringing up phlegm streaked with sorghum husks. "To survive the winter."

Behind him, a child's swollen belly protruded from rags like some malformed fruit, her fingers worrying at a bark-stuffed doll. The stench of poverty hung thick—unwashed flesh, urine-soaked loam, the metallic tang of blood coughed into trembling hands.

Young Zhe Ran's hand tightened on Luminous Cicada's hilt. The blade sang its pristine song, its quillion shaped like cicada wings frozen mid-beat. "I'll make this right," he vowed, his voice cracking with the strain of containing celestial fury. "The Celestial Sword Sect exists to protect, not to—"

A horn's cry split the air.

Three sharp blasts that echoed the sect's motto: Duty. Discipline. Destiny.

The sky birthed shadows. Forty disciples descended on sword-gliders, their formation a perfect murder of razor-edged cranes. White robes fluttered in synchronized menace, each sleeve embroidered with the eight-petaled lotus now twisting in Mei-Xing's gut. At their heart flew Elder Shu, his beard braided with condemnation scrolls of those deemed unworthy.

The peasants' wails rose in discordant counterpoint—mothers crushing infants against bone-thin breasts, men kowtowing until foreheads split on sun-baked earth. A young girl scooped maggots from a rotting log, shoving the wriggling mass into her mouth without chewing.

"Elder Shu!" The young Zhe Ran's voice rang with the tonal perfection of Nine Yang Temple bells. Luminous Cicada glowed like captured moonlight, its edge humming in harmony with the sacred mountain's heartbeat. "These people starve while our sect's granaries overflow. By the Mandate of Heaven itself, I demand—"

"Demand?" Elder Shu's laughter cracked like a bamboo whip across bare flesh. The old cultivator's eyes held all the compassion of frost-etched steel, his gaze sweeping over the villagers like a scythe assessing wheat. "You mistake charity for weakness, little dragon." A condemnation scroll unraveled from his beard, its characters burning crimson as it named the village elder Huang Bo: Debtor. Thief. Blight. "The weak earn their fate. Shall we spit in Heaven's mouth by overturning its divine judgment?"

Young Zhe Ran's golden core flared—a sunburst through pristine skin—as Luminous Cicada slid free with a sound like guqin strings snapping. The ground trembled, sending peach blossoms showering down like bleeding snowflakes.

Mei-Xing staggered as present-day Zhe Ran's rot-riddled breath washed over her neck. "Watch," he hissed, fungal spores blooming where words struck air. "See the moment your precious sect chose this decay."

Through the vision's haze, Mei-Xing's fingers found the festering veins beneath her collar—pulsing in time to the memory's approaching calamity. Her lips moved soundlessly, reciting the Eightfold Path to Purity even as her eyes drank in the scene that continued to crack her world's foundations.

The Tome's laughter rumbled beneath their feet, hungry for another course.