The Ice Watcher

The morning sun felt colder than usual, as if the world had paused in a moment of silent judgment. Mo Han knelt in the stable, drawing invisible patterns into the damp straw with dirty fingers. It wasn't a conscious act—it was an anchor. A ritual to remind himself that he still existed, that he was still thinking, even when everyone else saw him as nothing more than human leftovers.

The pain from previous days still pulsed, but now it came as an echo. He had begun to control it. Small mental runes, repetitions of form and breath. Three seconds of relief, four of stability, and a rare instant of bodily silence. Each cycle was a crumb of progress.

The stable door opened. A sharp, elegant sound. No hesitation. The faint, icy fragrance that entered with it was unmistakable.

Mo Qing.

She appeared like a figure that didn't belong in that place, contrasting sharply with the rot surrounding her. Eyes like glass blades. A face too serene to be compassionate. Her hands hidden inside the sleeves of a pale blue robe, posture flawless, steps measured.

— "Still alive," she said, like someone observing a stubborn plague refusing to die.

Mo Han kept his eyes on the ground. The mental pattern unraveled under her presence. Her cold aura nullified any sense of progress. His body reacted like prey sensing a predator.

— "Most expected you'd be rotting by now. I came to confirm. Maybe fate has forgotten you."

Silence.

— "That there," she said, gesturing with disdain to the markings in the straw, "some beggar's spell? Think you'll summon power by scrubbing the floor like an old mutt?"

He said nothing. Let her read him as she always did: a fool who didn't even understand his own movements.

She crouched down. Her eyes met his.

— "You were a failure before. A laughingstock. A fool the servants didn't even take seriously." Her voice was low, but cruel. "Even the pigs in this stable are more useful than you."

Mo Han felt his throat tighten. His body reacted with a shame he didn't choose to feel. A memory inherited from a past that wasn't his—but which now defined him in everyone's eyes.

— "Even now, in this state, you cling to illusions. Still pretending it's not over." She laughed. Cold. Short. "I don't know what's more pathetic—your pain or your hope."

Mo Han lifted his gaze. Slowly. There was a shadow of something new there—not hatred, not rage. Just... clarity.

— "I'm not pretending. I'm just… breathing." His voice came out low, but firm. "As long as that's possible, it's still something."

— "Something?" Mo Qing echoed with disdain. "You're nothing dressed in rags. A worm that breathes out of stubbornness."

Mo Han hesitated. He wanted to say something. To reveal that she didn't understand, that the body she scorned was just a shell. That inside, there was something she could never imagine. But he didn't.

— "Maybe," he whispered. "But even the worm reshapes the soil. One day, it changes the earth."

She froze for a moment. That wasn't something the old Mo Han would say. But she dismissed the thought.

— "Words of a madman. Keep digging. In the end, you'll only find more mud."

She turned to leave. Mo Han lowered his eyes again, as if the conversation had never happened. But inside his mind, something turned. The mental runes glowed with greater clarity.

She still believes. To all eyes, I am still him. And that... is my greatest weapon.