The Warden's Mercy

The victory over Wei Tian was a hollow, bitter thing. The Loom's condemnation—[Discord achieved.]—was a stark reminder of the cost. No harmony. No relief. Only the grim satisfaction of survival and the painful psychic backlash that followed. Wei Yuan spent the rest of the day in agitated exhaustion, the grinding pain in his meridians a punishment for his brief, terrifying alliance with the Artist.

He couldn't continue down this path of reactive violence. The Artist was a weapon of last resort, a blade that cut both ways. He needed a different kind of strength. An intellectual foundation. He retreated once more to the damp chill of the lower archives, immersing himself in the Artist's heretical library, not for power, but for understanding. He needed to build a profile of the stranger who lived in his skin.

He learned the Artist wasn't just a heretic, but a master strategist. The notes on "The Unspoken Art" were cross-referenced with treatises on Go, applying principles of board control and psychological pressure to the weaponization of will. His other self hadn't just sought power; he had sought to perfect its application with terrifying, cold logic.

This quiet, obsessive routine of study and pain was shattered three days later. The heavy, deliberate footsteps on the stone path outside were a familiar, unwelcome sound.

His father was back.

Wei Yuan's heart gave a single, hard thud. He quickly hid the heretical scrolls beneath a pile of mundane records and ascended from the cellar, his face a carefully constructed mask of scholarly weariness just as the door to the Pavilion opened.

Wei Feng did not bring soup. He did not bring words of encouragement. He entered with the grim, unyielding presence of a judge entering a courtroom. His face was stone. His eyes were cold and hard.

"The Elders have heard rumors," Wei Feng began, his voice flat, devoid of any warmth. "They have heard that you humiliated Wei Tian. That you made him flee in terror. Twice."

So, the whispers have become a roar. Wei Yuan had expected as much. Wei Tian's pride would have demanded he twist the story, paint Wei Yuan as a mad dog, a dangerous deviant.

"He was… aggressive," Wei Yuan said, choosing his words with the care of a man walking on rice paper. "I merely defended myself."

"Defended yourself?" A bitter, humorless smile touched his father's lips. "Wei Tian is at the peak of the Spirit Channeling realm. You are a cripple. How, precisely, did you 'defend yourself'?"

A direct interrogation. No pretense. No fatherly concern. Just the cold demand for an answer.

Wei Yuan felt a familiar flicker of the Artist's cold confidence rise, ready to meet the challenge with a lie, a performance. He beat it down. He had a different strategy, one born of his own cautious nature. The truth. Or a piece of it.

"I do not know," he said, meeting his father's gaze, allowing a flicker of his genuine fear and confusion to bleed into his eyes. "I… something happened. When he pressed me, I felt a… a coldness. A clarity. I only looked at him, and he ran. I do not understand it myself, Father. It frightened me."

He laid the piece on the board, testing, watching.

Wei Feng stared, his face unreadable. The silence stretched, thick and heavy. Wei Yuan thought he would call him a liar, demand more. Instead, his father's gaze drifted to the spot on the floor where the iron box still sat. A silent, black accusation.

His father's shoulders seemed to slump, just for a moment, a barely perceptible admission of defeat. The stern patriarch was gone, replaced by a man drowning under a weight Wei Yuan could only guess at.

"You have been studying the First Ancestor's seal formations," Wei Feng stated. It was not a question.

Wei Yuan's blood ran cold. How? How could he know?

"The scrolls you requisitioned," his father continued, his voice a low, tired murmur. "Resonance. Spiritual anchors. Karmic debt. I thought… I thought it was just a scholar's foolish, dangerous curiosity. I never imagined you would actually try it."

The mystery of his father's fear unraveled. He hadn't just been afraid of the box. He had been tracking the Artist's research all along.

"What did you do, Yuan'er?" Wei Feng asked, his voice now laced with a raw, desperate pain. "What did you unleash?"

"I don't remember," Wei Yuan said, and it was the most honest thing he had said to his father since he'd woken.

Wei Feng closed his eyes, a pained grimace crossing his face. "Of course you don't. The backlash… The histories say it scours the mind clean." He opened them again, and the look within was one of profound, soul-deep dread.

"You must stop," he said, his voice a low, urgent command. "Whatever you think you have gained, it is not worth the price. This path leads only to madness and destruction. For you, and for this entire clan."

"What path, Father?" Wei Yuan pressed, seeing his chance. "What history? Tell me why."

"I cannot," Wei Feng said, shaking his head. "To speak of it is to give it power. It is a forbidden knowledge, sealed for a reason." He took a step closer, his hands clenched into tight fists. "The Branch Purge. You will participate. But you will not win. You will not use… that again. Do you understand? You will go to the first round, put up a token resistance, and you will lose. You will show them the rumors were exaggerated. You will perform your failure, and you will do it convincingly."

A chilling clarity dawned. This wasn't about protecting him. This was about containing him. His father wasn't afraid for him; he was afraid of him. He was a warden, not a guardian. His primary concern was keeping the monster locked away.

"And if I refuse?" Wei Yuan asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Wei Feng's face hardened, the brief flicker of pain gone, replaced by the cold authority of the clan head.

"Then I will have no choice but to report your 'deviation' to the Elder Council myself," he said, his voice flat and final. "They will confine you to the Ancestral Hall for a… re-education. They will break you, Yuan'er. They will scour your mind until nothing is left of this heresy. They will do it to protect the clan. And I will let them."

The threat was absolute. A choice between a public, feigned failure and a private, soul-crushing destruction.

His father saw the horror dawn in his eyes. He seemed to soften, a final, fleeting glimpse of the parent beneath the patriarch.

"This is a mercy, son," he said, his voice strained. "It is the only way to save you from yourself. From… from what the First Ancestor sealed away."

He turned and left, closing the door behind him with a soft, final click.

Wei Yuan was left alone, the air thick with the ghosts of his father's words. The mystery of his past was now eclipsed by the terrifying certainty of his future. He was a prisoner, and his own father was his jailer.

The path the Artist had chosen—the path of a forger, a heretic—was no longer just a means of survival. It was his only path to freedom. The Branch Purge was not a judgment to be survived. It was a cage he had to break.

And to do that, he would need more than just a gaze. He would need the power of a screaming ghost.