The Weight of a Gaze

The Loom's demand for a "new Art" echoed in the silence of the Pavilion, a constant, low hum of pressure in the back of Wei Yuan's mind. A hunger. A terrifying symbiosis he was only beginning to comprehend. The knowledge that his other self had been following a path dictated by this parasitic entity was a cold comfort, framing his past actions not as pure madness, but as a kind of desperate, logical heresy. A madman with a purpose.

He spent the next few days in a state of controlled obsession. The investigation into the "screaming ghost" had hit a wall of cold, silent paper. No more annotations. No more hidden ledgers. The Artist, for all his meticulous research, had covered his tracks. There was no direct confession.

Wei Yuan was forced to turn his attention to the more immediate guillotine: the Branch Purge. Less than ten days.

His routine became a grim transaction. Wake. Endure the grinding pain. And then force himself to practice. He avoided the intensity of calligraphy, focusing instead on the lesser Arts—folding paper, arranging stones, contemplating a withered leaf. Each act was a careful negotiation with the stranger in his soul. Surrender a piece of himself, allow the cold focus to take hold, and in return, the Loom would weave a thread. A fleeting moment of respite. He stockpiled these moments of clarity, hoarding them like a miser, preparing for the judgment to come.

His only other activity was checking on Old Man Ji. The keeper remained locked in a deep, unnatural slumber, his breathing shallow, his face a mask of placid emptiness. The clan physician, a portly man smelling of dried herbs and self-importance, had clucked his tongue, diagnosed "Qi stagnation," and prescribed a foul-smelling broth that did nothing. Wei Yuan knew better. The wisp of black smoke was a soul-wound, a spirit seared by proximity to something it wasn't meant to witness. The old man was a living, breathing piece of evidence he had to protect, and a constant, guilt-ridden reminder of the power he was now trying to harness.

On the fifth day, the outside world finally breached his sanctuary.

He was in the courtyard, attempting to find the balance point of a jagged piece of slate, when a shadow fell over him.

"Still playing with rocks, cousin?"

The voice was slick with an arrogance that grated on the nerves. Wei Yuan didn't need to look up. Wei Tian. The Son of Heaven. The golden child.

Slowly, Wei Yuan placed the slate on the ground and rose, schooling his features into a neutral mask. He had seen Wei Tian from a distance—a radiant figure orbited by sycophants—but this was their first direct meeting since the amnesia. His memory of his cousin wasn't of a person, but of a concept: an oppressive weight, a benchmark he was born to fall short of.

Wei Tian was a living portrait of everything Wei Yuan was not. Broad-shouldered, robed in the finest silk, a jade pin holding his perfect topknot. His cultivation practically hummed in the air around him, a constant, arrogant broadcast of his power.

"It is a meditative discipline," Wei Yuan replied, his voice calm. He was performing. The quiet, eccentric scholar. Harmless.

Wei Tian sneered, a small, ugly twisting of his handsome face. "A discipline for the weak. The Branch Purge is in nine days. Planning to bore the Elders to death? Or will you just forfeit, as is your branch's tradition?"

The taunt was a baited hook. Wei Yuan felt a flicker of anger, a hot spark of the Waking Self's resentment. He stamped it out. A reaction was information, and he had none to spare.

"I will be there," Wei Yuan said simply.

"You will?" Wei Tian laughed, a sharp, barking sound. "To what end? To demonstrate how a cripple can sit on the floor? You are an embarrassment to the Wei name. My father says your father indulges you too much. This Pavilion should be given to a true scholar, not a deluded invalid."

He took a step forward, his spiritual pressure flaring—a deliberate, brutish act of intimidation. The air grew thick, pressing down on Wei Yuan's shoulders. The pain in his meridians, always simmering, coiled and twisted like a nest of snakes.

It was the pain, and the pressure, that broke the dam. The Waking Self's fear became a trigger. He didn't want this. He didn't want a fight. Just leave me alone. Please, just go. But Wei Tian was relentless, pushing, cornering him.

The shift happened without his consent. It wasn't a surrender. It was a reaction. A primal, defensive instinct from the part of him that would not be cornered.

Wei Yuan didn't move. He didn't speak.

He just looked at Wei Tian.

His gaze, which had been carefully neutral, became utterly flat. Utterly cold. It was the gaze of a master calligrapher looking at a poorly made brush, a flawed, worthless tool. All the will, all the intent of the "Raging River Style" that the Artist had been studying—the unstoppable momentum, the crushing weight of a thousand tons of water—was focused into that single, silent look.

Wei Tian, for all his power, trusted his senses. And what his senses screamed at him was wrong.

The boy in front of him hadn't released an ounce of Qi. He hadn't moved a muscle. Yet, for a terrifying, inexplicable moment, Wei Tian felt as if he were standing on the edge of a cliff with a roaring, thousand-foot waterfall about to crash down on him. A primal dread bypassed his cultivation, his pride, his logic, and struck directly at his soul. It was the instinctive, pants-wetting terror of a rabbit meeting the unblinking stare of a serpent.

His bravado shattered like glass. The sneer on his face was replaced by a flicker of pure, uncomprehending fear.

"You… what was that?" he stammered, taking an involuntary step back, his body acting before his mind could catch up.

But the moment had passed. The Artist had receded, its duty done, sinking back into the depths. Wei Yuan was back in control, his heart hammering, a cold sweat breaking out on his brow. He was left trembling, not from Wei Tian's pressure, but from the horror of what had just happened.

I didn't do that. I didn't want to do that. It acted on its own.

He looked at his cousin, at the genuine fear and confusion in the prodigy's eyes. He had won. He had driven him back without lifting a finger. It was a victory, and it felt like a horrifying defeat.

This other self, this Artist, wasn't just a well of skill. It was a predator. And it would protect its host, whether the host wanted it to or not.

"I don't know what you're talking about, cousin," Wei Yuan said, his voice quiet, the mask of the harmless scholar sliding back into place. "Are you feeling unwell?"

Wei Tian stared at him, his mind trying to reconcile the overwhelming terror he had just felt with the weak, pale boy standing before him. The logical fallacy was too great. It was impossible.

"Stay away from me," he finally snarled, a pathetic attempt to regain some semblance of dominance. He turned and practically fled, his hurried footsteps a stark admission of fear.

Wei Yuan watched him go, then slowly sank to his knees, his body shaking with the psychic backlash. The Loom flickered in his vision.

[Discord detected.]

No thread. Only pain. And a terrifying new piece of the puzzle. The monster inside him wasn't just a tool.

It had a will of its own. And it was getting stronger.