The Mist-Locked Courtyard
Three days of confinement.
The Archive Tower lay buried beneath the mist like an old, abandoned beast, motionless in its decay.
Shen Jin sat cross-legged within.
Before him, the oil lamp flickered low over a scroll long forgotten, ink dried into silence.
His breathing was slow, his fingertips resting lightly on his knee — as if he had become another fragment of this forgotten ruin.
Outside, patrol boots echoed faintly — soft, sporadic, like the breath of something on the verge of death.
The mist seeped in through cracks in the walls, thick with the stench of wet rot, wrapping the tower in damp quiet.
Shen Jin opened his eyes.
The calling had returned.
Low and strange — not a voice, not quite a whisper — something that rose from the marrow of his bones, or from the fog itself.
He stood without a word and opened the heavy wooden door.
Mist surged in like water through a broken seal, curling around him, brushing his skin with unseen fingers.
He stood still, listening.
The call lingered — like a lure, like a thread.
Behind him, soft footsteps.
Shen Jin turned.
A young man stood by the doorway, tall and relaxed in pale-blue robes. His face was calm, almost carelessly handsome, framed by a kind of deliberate laziness.
But at his waist, half-hidden by the mist, hung a silver-threaded cord — and from it, a small badge of dull, greyed bronze, patterned with broken glyphs.
A Wuxing Token.
Rare. Quiet. Authoritative. It marked him as someone who could cross sealed lines without permission.
The man raised the badge with a flick of his fingers and grinned.
"Shen Jin. Orders from the Division. You're coming with me."
He winked.
"Don't worry. I'm technically certified."
Shen Jin's gaze lingered on the token, unreadable.
It was valid — unofficial, but real.
After a moment's pause, he turned, reached for his cloak, and followed.
They moved together across the broken stone path of the outer courtyard. The mist coiled thickly, and from the distant slopes of the Forbidden Ridge came a weight like pressure — like thunder with no sound.
Halfway down the path, the young man — Yan Jiuyan — turned his head, smiling.
"Word is they dug something up.
Big enough to wake Elder Qi."
He chuckled lightly.
"Now even we bottom-feeders get to play dress-up."
Shen Jin said nothing.
Ahead, the mist parted for a moment, and a flicker of pale green-blue light shimmered in the distance.
It pulsed like a heartbeat.
Underneath his collar, the burn on his left shoulder — the mark of fire — began to stir.