A Waste of Time

Chapter 109: Opalescent Gaze

Ping Xueling led the procession into the mountain pass, rain thinning to a mist that clung to stone and sleeve. Behind her, the ten Inner Disciples moved in two neat files, boots soft on the wet path, the yellow Sect Attires they wore showing the Sect Insignia bright as a warning brand. The line slipped from rock corridor to forest edge without a single creature stirring to challenge them.

They crossed the Myriad-Beast Forest under that quiet banner. Shapes watched from fern and bole and high, cabled limbs, but the gaze slid off the embroidered mark—a law older than any one beast’s hunger. Insects drummed. Wet leaves hissed. The procession kept its breath and its pace, each step measured, each glance forward.

Ping Xueling herself was not in grey robes—the uniform any Instructor or Outer Elder should wear when entering these woods. Instead she drew her Spirit Token, fed it a thread of Darkness Qi, and a Seal of Shadows settled over the group like a second weather: cool, lightless, muffling. Bark darkened where they passed. Colors narrowed to gradients of night. What needed to see them, saw the Seal; what might have tested them, chose to mind its own path.

No detours, she thought, eyes on the narrow ribbon of trail ahead. Deliver the offender. File the report. Be done with it.

They reached the first terraces without pause. House eaves glistened. Courtyards steamed faintly in the after-rain. Ping Xueling did not stop at her door. Without entering to rest, she rose with little Song—blue feathers beaded with water—angling straight toward the Disciplinary Hall. The colorful prison drifted in the bird’s talons, gleaming dully, and she let it lead their arc over the inner ring.

She still had the Elder Council to face. The thought drew a small line at the corner of her mouth. Before climbing to that hall of long sleeves and longer memories, she shrugged into proper grey robes, the fabric heavy with the Sect’s exacting etiquette. If they want appearances, they can have them, she told herself, sliding the last fold smooth. Better robes than another hour of their nagging.

Below, the six young men and four girls broke away as one understands a bell. No orders were needed. It was time to return to the Inner Quarters—to scatter like a necklace of pearls missing its string—each to a Cave, each to the personal quiet that heals quicker than medicine. Their steps turned inward toward familiar thresholds, to warmth and lamplight, to the work of mending: tending cuts, drying gear, setting bones of pride straight, and thinking back on the exact places where their edge had dulled.

Rain tapped out the last of its patience against tiled roofs. The mountain breathed, orderly as ever. And the day moved forward with the prisoner borne up the sky and the Disciples sinking into their own shadows to recover and reckon.

The caravan split before nightfall, each merchant peeling away with a private convoy—carriages creaking, guards and mercenaries in tow—fanning out toward different roads and different chances.

In her tent, Li Yue sat with a ledger open on her lap, ink drying in tidy columns she wasn’t really seeing. Her eyes moved, her mind didn’t. Numbers drifted like leaves in a garden; she was as absentminded as a child surrounded by toys.

Her servants had already set the camp, set the fire, set the last meal. The steam was gone; the bowls were stacked. Still she turned one more page, then let the book fall shut.

I guess there’s no sleep for me tonight. She rose, pushed aside the flap, and stood in the mouth of the tent. Night breathed cold across her cheeks. She gathered her cloak tighter and looked up. A moonless night, huh. As if heaven itself is grieving the kid’s fall into the hands of Beasts in human skin.

Scree.

The cry slashed the silence. Guards jolted to their feet; mercenaries reached for blades; even the paying civilians—who had bought safety with tickets and trust—stumbled into the open with wide, searching eyes. A shadow unrolled over the camp, enormous and exact—the spread of wings that could smother a village square.

“To arms!”

“We’re under attack!”

“Take cover, run!”

“Quickly now!”

Canvas snapped. Stakes rattled. Men who had run toward sabers in daylight now shook under the dark as the silhouette circled once, twice, slow and sure. Li Yue watched as the camp broke into panic, but her focus was fixed above. The shape rode the wind well within the reach of mortal arrows, but what could their weapons do against a body like that? Tickle it, maybe.

“Lady Yue. We meet again. Please excuse my abrupt visit so late at night.”

The voice fell like a bell struck soft—childish, clear. Her confusion evaporated. Fear and panic thinned to nothing. A smile climbed her wrinkled face and stayed there, warm and unashamed.

I guess my White-Moon Syndicate is in luck. He chose us after all.

She turned to the commander of the guards. “Prepare to set off immediately. Compensate those who won’t accompany us—double what we owe them.”

How did he escape the people of the Mountain?

The question rose—and she shook it away with a small tilt of her head. Who cares how he did it? Time to move. We make a run for it with this diamond in the rough, and we do it quiet.She looked past the torches to the black line of road beyond the wagons. We need to slip out of the Sect’s territory as fast as possible and as quietly as possible. No attention. No chatter. Straight home from here.

The commander snapped to it, voice low and brisk, and the camp—still shaking—began to turn its chaos into motion.

Ten-Thousand Beast Mountain. Main Hall.

A procession of Elders climbed the steps in ones and twos, more landing by the plaza with each breath of rain-thinned wind. Inside, the Main Hall’s ancient beauty pressed close: thick stone pillars shouldered the high ceiling; murals of Beasts crowded every wall, their painted eyes catching torchlight as if about to move.

Ping Xueling stood below the dais—grey robe neat, hands folded—facing the table where the Elder Council took their seats. Above that rank, the tier of Grand Elders waited: only one old woman occupied those nine places, eight seats sitting empty around her. Higher still, five seats crowned the hall; only the Chief of the Disciplinary Hall was present. And above them all, a single throne remained vacant—the Sect Master’s seat, lone and watching.

To the side, a Spirit Formation worked in steady silence. Curtains of light fell and rose; Formation-Runes and inscriptions wheeled in ordered spirals, glowing with sober, many-colored brilliance. At its center, suspended in the air, lay a boy’s body.

Daemon.

Wounds scored him. Globes and drops of his blood drifted like small, dark comets around a pale, still face; his eyes were shut, lashes wet, breath invisible.

“Ping Xueling.” The Chief of the Disciplinary Hall—an old, rough-hewn man with a voice that cut nonsense before it formed—looked from her to the Elders on the seats below his own, then flicked a side-glance downward toward the lone old woman seated beneath him. “Report the events of your mission while guarding the ten Juniors.”

He was Shen Duan—and he did not sound patient.

The old woman—Mo Qiuya—narrowed her eyes, lids moving with the slow disdain of someone unused to being made to wait. She did not voice her irritation at Shen Duan; she would not risk it, not when he held the power to deny her the prize that had fallen into her lap—When she least expected to see hope again! Mine, even if the rules don’t consent, she told herself, gaze sliding to the youth in the Sealing Formation. Her tongue wet her lips before she caught the impulse—predator’s habit, checked just in time.

Around the table, members of the Elder Council turned their attention to the beauty in grey. She was an Instructor, an Outer Elder—one among many—far below their rank and no danger to their seats. Yet they had been summoned here without notice, their personal affairs cut off by Shen Duan’s blunt call. Now they waited to hear why the Chief had rung the bell.

The answer hovered in plain sight, but the thought prickled anyway: Since when are we dragged from our caves to debate the fate of little kids? The murals did not answer. The rain beyond the eaves softened to a hush.

All eyes settled on Ping Xueling.

She bowed once, low and exact—and began.

Here's a link to my discord server if you want to talk - .gg/HwHHR6Hds