CHAPTER 9: THE CHOOSING OF FATES

The silence that followed Elder Lan's declaration was not merely an absence of sound—it was a living, suffocating force, thick enough to choke on. The air itself seemed to crystallize, as if the world had been plunged into the heart of a glacier. Every disciple, every elder, every attendant in the grand arena of the Celestial Sword Pavilion stood frozen, their breath caught between heartbeats, their very qi trembling under the weight of those six words:

"Lin Feng. My first and only direct disciple."

For a single, suspended moment, time ceased to exist.

Then—chaos.

A murmur rose from the gathered disciples, swelling like a tide, crashing against the stone pillars of the arena. Whispers slithered through the crowd, hissing like serpents.

"Did she just—?"

"Elder Lan? The Silent Blade? She's never taken a disciple before!"

"Who the hell is Lin Feng?!"

At the forefront of the aspirants, Feng Yan of the Vermilion Phoenix Clan—her flamboyant red-gold hair shimmering like liquid fire—blinked once, her ever-present smirk faltering for the first time in living memory. Her fingers, usually toying with the hem of her extravagant sleeves, clenched into fists, the knuckles whitening. The Phoenix Heir was not accustomed to being overlooked. And yet, in this moment, she might as well have been invisible.

Beside her, Jian Nian—the mute heir of the Rustless Blade Clan—remained still as a statue. His battle-scarred palms rested against the hilt of his sword, his dark eyes unreadable. But those who knew him might have noticed the faintest tightening of his grip, the subtle shift in his stance. His elder brother, Jian Heng, had been named by Elder Feng moments before—thunder and legacy ringing in his wake. But this? This was different. This was unprecedented.

Shui Daiyu of the Black Tortoise Clan did not react so openly. Her silver eyes merely narrowed, the faintest ripple of blue-green scales shimmering along the back of her neck. A predator recognizing another predator. Her tongue flicked out, tasting the air, as if she could discern the flavor of Lin Feng's sudden ascension.

And then there was Mu Xiaohua.

The clumsy alchemy disciple—her honey-blonde pigtails frayed, her oversized sleeves singed at the edges—let out a tiny, involuntary gasp. Her peach-colored eyes widened to the size of saucers, her fingers tightening around the singed ear of her plush tiger spirit, Master Huahua.

"She… chose him," she whispered, as if the words were too sacred to speak aloud. "Out of everyone…"

Even the elders were not immune to the shock.

Elder Tao, the Reclusive Alchemist—his wide-brimmed hat shadowing his face, his perpetually steaming teacup halfway to his lips—froze mid-sip. His lips parted, then pressed into a thin line. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He had been moments from stepping forward, moments from claiming Li Meixiu for his own alchemy division. Now, he exhaled through his nose, the steam from his tea curling like a displeased spirit.

Elder Bao, the Laughing Blade, let out a booming chuckle—but there was a new edge to it, a blade hidden beneath the mirth. His twin swords rattled against his back, as if eager to leap into his hands.

"Tch!" he barked, shaking his head. "My blades itched for this one too. But if it's you, Lan… even this laughing fool knows when to bow."

Elder Xiu, the Silk Phantom, said nothing. Her blindfolded gaze turned toward Lin Feng, her lips curving into a smile that never reached her eyes. A single silk ribbon, threaded with silver, coiled lazily around her fingers like a serpent considering its prey.

But it was Elder Yue Qingzhao—the Dreammirror Blade—who spoke next.

Their voice was soft, haunting, a whisper that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Had I known such a blade in human skin would appear today…" they mused, their mismatched eyes—one obsidian, one pearlescent—resting on Lin Feng with unsettling focus. "...I might have moved first."

A shiver ran through the crowd.

Elder Yue never expressed regret.

And they *never* admitted wanting something.

Lin Feng himself stood motionless, his black robes—embroidered with the faintest silver phoenix motif—utterly undisturbed by the sudden storm of attention. His amber eyes, cold and unreadable, met Elder Lan's obsidian gaze without flinching.

She was the second most powerful cultivator in the Celestial Sword Pavilion.

She had never taken a disciple before.

And now, she had chosen *him.*

The air between them seemed to sharpen, the weight of the moment pressing down like a blade against a whetstone.

Then—

A giggle.

Light, mischievous, utterly out of place in the tension-choked arena.

All eyes snapped toward the sound.

Li Meixiu—her twilight-colored robes fluttering, her black hair swaying as she tilted her head—beamed at Elder Lan, utterly unbothered by the suffocating aura of the woman who had just claimed her son.

"Ohhhh," she said, her voice singsong, her fingers idly stroking the ears of the ragged rabbit plush in her arms. "So you have good taste after all~!"

The silence that followed was *deafening.*

---

The moment the words left Elder Lan's lips—"Disciples will reside on their respective peaks"—Meixiu's fingers twitched.

Not a flinch. Not a startle.

A spider sensing the first tremor of its web.

Her grip tightened on Lin Feng's sleeve, the twilight silk of her robe whispering against his black phoenix-embroidered sleeve. She tilted her head, the picture of wide-eyed innocence, though the gleam in her dark eyes was anything but.

"A-Li~" Her voice was syrup over a dagger's edge. "What if I... 'accidentally' poison all your new senior brothers?"* A pause, perfectly measured. "Wouldn't it be safer if I stayed with you?"

The arena, still reeling from Elder Lan's unprecedented choice, now witnessed a second earthquake.

Lin Feng didn't hesitate. He stepped forward, his movement fluid as unsheathed steel. The crowd instinctively recoiled—not from fear, but from the sheer *weight* of his presence. When he spoke, his voice was low, calm, and utterly immovable.

"Where she goes, I go."

The air turned to glass.

Elder Tao—mid-sip of his perpetually steaming tea—choked so violently that a spray of amber liquid arced through the air. It froze before hitting the ground, suspended in crystalline droplets by the sheer density of qi suddenly crushing the platform.

Elder Bao's eyebrows shot toward his hairline. His ever-present grin didn't falter, but his twin swords rattled against his back like startled serpents. "Well I'll be a roasted duck," he muttered, loud enough for the entire assembly to hear.

Even Elder Xiu's silk ribbons, usually floating with ethereal grace, went taut as bowstrings.

Only Elder Yue Qingzhao seemed unperturbed. Their mismatched eyes gleamed—one dark as a starless night, the other pale as a winter moon—as they observed the scene with something akin to... amusement? Anticipation?

Elder Lan's response fell like a headsman's blade:

"She stays."

A beat. The arena trembled.

"Under my rules."

Another beat. The frozen tea droplets shattered against the stone.

"That is all."

Meixiu's smile didn't waver, but her fingers curled just slightly tighter around Mr. Bunbun's ragged ear. Lin Feng's gaze flicked to her—once, so fast most would miss it—before returning to Elder Lan. A silent understanding passed between them, sharper than any sworn oath.

---

The tension in the arena shifted like a sword's balance point—subtle, irrevocable. With Lin Feng's fate sealed, the other elders moved with the precision of a well-rehearsed killing formation.

Elder Tao was first.

The Reclusive Alchemist's gnarled finger—stained yellow at the tip from decades of pill refining—jabbed toward Meixiu like a dagger point. "You," he rasped, the smell of bitter herbs and overstepped tea rolling off him in waves. "The brat with the demon rabbit and poison fingers. You'll do."

Meixiu's smile could have melted glaciers. "Do I get to—"

"—Yes, yes, stay with your stone-faced boy," Tao interrupted, waving a hand that made the air shimmer with escaping medicinal fumes. "But!" His hat tilted just enough to reveal one bloodshot eye. "If I find one herb out of place in my gardens..." A pause. The steam from his teacup coiled into the shape of a skull. "...you'll drink your own poisons for a month. Starting with the one you slipped into my sleeve three breaths ago."

Meixiu blinked—once, twice—then burst into delighted laughter, even as Lin Feng's hand twitched toward his sword hilt. Mr. Bunbun's beady eyes seemed to glow with mischief.

Across the platform, Elder Xiu moved without sound.

A single silk ribbon—black as midnight, edged in silver—unspooled from her sleeve. It slithered through the air toward Yan Lihua and Mu Xiaohua, coiling around their wrists with the gentleness of a spider welcoming flies to its web.

Mu Xiaohua squeaked as her feet left the ground. "W-wah! It tickles!" Her peach-colored eyes widened as she floated toward Elder Xiu, Master Huahua clutched in a death grip. The plush tiger's remaining ear flapped wildly, its singed fur brushing against the silk.

Yan Lihua ascended with the serenity of a falling leaf. Her pupil-less white eyes never blinked, her lavender robes undisturbed by the motion. Only the faintest shimmer around her hands—a kaleidoscope of ever-shifting illusions—betrayed her silent analysis of the ribbon's spiritual threads.

Then came the moment that stilled even Elder Bao's laughter.

A second ribbon—this one shimmering like liquid mercury—unspooled from the shadows beneath Elder Yue's robes. It moved with eerie purpose toward the Phantom Twins, Jin Lei and Jin Mei, whose perfect symmetry made onlookers' eyes water. Their shared shadow pooled at their feet like spilled ink, darker than natural law allowed.

When the ribbon coiled around their joined wrists, they spoke—their voices overlapping in a harmony that raised the hairs on every neck:

"We accept."

Mu Xiaohua nearly dropped Master Huahua. "T-they share a shadow! And—and their voices—!"

Elder Yue's mismatched eyes gleamed. "Reflections need not stay trapped in glass," they murmured, as the twins' shadow stretched unnaturally toward Lin Feng—testing, probing—before snapping back like a rebuked hound.

Elder Ru's armored boots cracked against stone as she stepped forward next. The Iron Widow's gaze—cold as polished steel—raked over Shui Daiyu. The Black Tortoise heir didn't flinch when those merciless eyes paused at the blue-green scales peeking above her collar.

"You," Ru said, the word a hammer strike.

Shui Daiyu's tongue flicked out, tasting the air between them. "Will it hurt?" she asked, silver eyes gleaming.

Elder Ru's smile could have chipped ice. "Every day."

A beat. Then Shui Daiyu bowed, her scales rippling in something disturbingly close to anticipation.

Jian Nian needed no ribbon, no summons. The mute swordsman simply walked toward the elders when his name was called, his scarred palms resting on his sword's hilt. The blade pulsed—once, twice—a darkness seeping from the scabbard like ink in water. Elder Bao's ever-present grin flickered. "Now that's a cursed sword if I ever—"

"Bao." Elder Lan's voice cut through his chatter.

"Right, right." The Laughing Blade waved a hand. "Welcome aboard, silent killer."

Feng Yan stood apart, her vermilion robes a splash of color against the monochrome tension. The Phoenix heir's smile never wavered, even as elder after elder passed her over. "No takers?" she mused, twirling a lock of fire-gold hair around one finger. "How... illuminating." A hairpin—crafted to resemble a phoenix feather—crackled with barely-contained fire.

As the Phantom Twins glided past her toward Elder Yue, they turned their heads in perfect synchrony. "The phoenix sings alone," Jin Lei began. "But broken mirrors multiply voices," Jin Mei finished. Their shared shadow rippled, for a moment splitting into two before merging again—a display that made several disciples rub their eyes as if doubting their vision.

When the selections ended, seven stood apart:

1. **Lin Feng** - Elder Lan's blade

2. **Li Meixiu** - Elder Tao's poisoned apple

3. **Yan Lihua** - Elder Xiu's perfect canvas

4. **Mu Xiaohua** - Elder Xiu's accidental protege

5. **Jin Lei & Jin Mei** - Elder Yue's living mirrors

6. **Shui Daiyu** - Elder Ru's living fortress experiment

7. **Jian Nian** - Elder Bao's problem now

The rest—Feng Yan included—would enter the Inner Sect as unaffiliated disciples, left to claw their way up the hierarchy. The difference was palpable; direct disciples received private tutelage, access to restricted archives, and perhaps most crucially—the right to stand behind their masters during sect deliberations.

As the chosen moved toward their new mentors, Mu Xiaohua suddenly gasped. "W-wait! Miss Cooking Immortal!" She flailed toward Meixiu, nearly strangling herself with Elder Xiu's silk ribbon. "You forgot—!" With heroic effort, she hurled something through the air—a small sachet that smelled violently of ginger and misfortune.

Meixiu caught it one-handed without looking. "Aww! My favorite corrosive powder!" She patted her singed robes. "I was wondering where I'd left that~"

Elder Tao's teacup shattered in his grip.

---

The verdicts fell like autumn leaves—some carried gently to soft earth, others torn away by unforgiving winds. The grand platform became a living mosaic of human emotion, each face telling its own story of triumph, despair, or reluctant acceptance.

Jin Chen's frost-blue robes might as well have been chains. When the Outer Sect assignments were announced, his ancestral blade—the pride of the Frostblade Clan—grew heavier at his side. The delicate frost patterns along its scabbard darkened, as if mourning their master's diminished standing. Around him, the air grew thick with the salt of shed tears and the iron tang of bitten tongues.

Not all endings were equal.

Near the eastern pillars, a broad-shouldered disciple from the Steel Ox Sect roared with laughter when his name was called for Outer Sect training. "Ha! Still in the game!" He clapped a comrade on the back hard enough to stagger them. His hammer, slung across his shoulders, caught the sunlight like a promise of future glory.

Others weren't so fortunate.

A pair of sisters from the Whispering Willow Clan clutched each other's sleeves when no assignment came. The elder's face paled to the color of weathered parchment. "This... this can't be," she whispered, her once-defiant voice now crumbling like dry clay. Their delicate willow-leaf hair ornaments seemed to wilt in the gathering dusk.

The Outer Sect Administrator's voice carried no malice, only finality: "Those unnamed may collect their belongings from the western gate. The mountain paths will be cleared at dawn."

Some took the dismissal with eerie calm. The silver-haired woman from Moon-Crying Valley simply inclined her head and turned, her embroidered slippers whispering across stones still warm from the day's excitement. Others raged—like the Viper's Nest twins who left their daggers embedded in the platform as they stormed out, the blades forming a crude character that roughly translated to "unjust."

Yet amidst the turmoil moved the true survivors—those who had grasped the thinnest branch of hope. Like the round-faced girl from a minor herb-gathering clan who danced in place when assigned to Outer Sect herbology, her singed robes flapping like celebratory banners. "Alive!" she kept whispering, patting the medicinal pouches at her belt. "Still climbing!"

The nameless cultivator with only "Dust" embroidered on his sash stood perfectly still when his Outer Sect assignment was announced. As others around him either celebrated or despaired, he simply rewrapped his bloodied hand-bindings tighter and nodded once. His eyes, dark and unreadable, lingered on the retreating backs of the chosen before turning toward the outer peaks.

Jin Chen remained frozen long after most had dispersed. The fading light caught the intricate frost patterns along his blade, making them glow like ghostly veins. When he finally moved, it was with the precision of a man determined to make his own fate. His sword left delicate ice crystals in its wake—each one a tiny, perfect prison.

Elder Lan observed the exodus from her vantage point, the silver threads in her violet robes catching the last light. Her final pronouncement needed no amplification: "Fate has spoken. Honor its verdict."

The words settled over the departing disciples like snowfall—soft, inevitable, and utterly indifferent to whether it nourished new growth or buried dreams whole.

---

The choosing concluded like the final stroke of a master calligrapher's brush—precise, irrevocable. As disciples dispersed to their fates, the true weight of the elders' power hung in the air, invisible yet undeniable as mountain peaks shrouded in mist.

To the uninitiated, the Celestial Sword Pavilion's hierarchy might appear as simple ranks. But those who walked the path knew better—each elder represented a different law of existence, a separate axis around which the world might turn.

**Elder Lan**, "The Silent Blade," stood unrivaled at Mid Soul Ascension, or maybe even higher. Her Frozen Sword Dao had turned blizzards into blades and lakes into mirrors of killing intent. The swordpin in her hair was no ornament—it was the crystallized scream of a glacier that had begged mercy before submitting to her will.

**Elder Ru**, "The Iron Widow," anchored herself at Late Spirit Refinement. Her body cultivation defied mortal limits—during the Siege of Black Vein Valley, she'd stood unmoving for thirteen days as ten thousand arrows shattered against her skin like brittle reeds.

**Elder Xiu**, the "Silk Phantom," danced at Early Soul Ascension's threshold. Her Dreamweaver Arts could embroider a man's soul into tapestry—the infamous "Gallery of Vanished Voices" held three hundred such masterpieces, still whispering behind their silk prisons.

**Elder Tao's** Peak Spirit Refinement masked his heresies. The Reclusive Alchemist didn't break nature's laws—he bribed them. His "Twilight Elixir" had granted a dying man seven extra years... by stealing them from his unborn grandson.

**Elder Bao**, the "Laughing Blade," reveled in Peak Spirit Refinement's chaos. His twin swords moved to rhythms only drunken gods could hear—during his duel with the Blood Saber Patriarch, witnesses swore his blades curved *around* time itself to strike from yesterday.

Then there was **Elder Yue Qingzhao**.

The "Dreammirror Blade" existed in cultivated ambiguity. Their power hovered near Elder Lan's realm yet defied measurement—when pressed, the Sect Leader had only said: "Yue walks paths the rest of us cannot see." During the Moonrend Rebellion, they'd erased an entire battalion from history's memory... including, briefly, the rebels' own mothers' recollections of birthing them.

**Elder Feng**, "The Laughing Storm," thundered at Late Spirit Refinement. His lightning techniques weren't borrowed from heaven—they were stolen, the scars on his arms being the chains of celestial wrath he'd shattered.

These were not teachers. They were living calamities wearing human skin—and seven disciples now stood in their shadows.

---

The obsidian towers of the Royal Capital swallowed sunlight whole, their jagged silhouettes cutting into the dusk like knives. At their heart, in a chamber where the air smelled of ink and ambition, Crown Prince Jin Weilong sat amidst a constellation of floating scrolls—each one spinning lazily in the orbit of his will.

A teacup hovered at a perfect forty-five degree angle in midair, steaming jasmine pearls cascading in hypnotic slow-motion. The prince watched the falling liquid with the detached fascination of a god observing rainfall. His fingers—adorned with rings that whispered of forgotten dynasties—traced idle patterns above a map of the Celestial Sword Pavilion's mountains.

The minister kneeling at the chamber's edge trembled as he spoke. "Your Highness... the Pavilion's selections this year were... unusual." A bead of sweat traced the curve of his jaw before freezing mid-fall, caught in the prince's passive gravitational field.

"Unusual." Jin Weilong repeated the word as if tasting a new vintage. His golden eyes—the exact shade of molten imperial seals—lifted from the map. The suspended tea droplets shattered like glass.

The minister flinched. "The Silent Blade took a disciple. After decades of refusals. And the Dreammirror—"

"—Yes." The prince plucked a scroll from the air, its surface alive with moving ink portraits of Lin Feng, Meixiu, the Phantom Twins. "Tell me, Minister... do you believe in fate?"

Before the stammering reply could form, Jin Weilong rose in a whisper of black-and-gold silk. His shadow stretched unnaturally long, consuming half the chamber. With a nail polished to mirror brightness, he tapped a single mountain peak on the map—the one where Elder Lan's frost eternally lingered.

A black dot bloomed beneath his touch, spreading like ink in water.

"A pond ripples when stones are thrown." His voice was velvet over steel. Somewhere beyond the tower, a nightingale mid-song choked into silence. "But when a dragon stirs beneath..."

The dot darkened, consuming the peak whole.

"...the ripples become tsunamis."

A knock at the chamber door shattered the moment. The prince's shadow snapped back to human proportions. The floating scrolls settled like falling leaves. When the guards entered, they found only a benevolent ruler studying cultivation reports, his smile as warm as a harvest moon.

"Prepare gifts for the Pavilion's new disciples," Jin Weilong announced, hands folded in charitable grace. "We must celebrate our empire's rising talents."

The ministers bowed, murmuring praises for his generosity. None noticed the map behind him—where the inked blackness had begun creeping beyond its borders, tendrils stretching toward the capital's icon.

And none saw the prince's reflection in the window, where golden eyes burned with something far older than human ambition.

---