The reward was announced the morning after the trial. It came without ceremony, without drums or proclamations. Names were posted on a jade board near the inner hall, written in an elder's neat, impersonal script.
Lin Feng's name stood alone at the top. Below it, a single line read: Granted provisional entry to the Inner Disciple Grounds.
The courtyard buzzed the moment the characters were read. Some voices expressed admiration, others disbelief, and a few were sharpened by something quieter and more dangerous. Mei Yun found him standing off to the side, reading the board as if it were a weather report.
"You're not surprised," she said.
He shook his head. "I am. Just not in a pleasant way."
She followed his gaze downward. Her own name was not there. Instead, she had been assigned to assist at the Formation Annex, a practical posting—respected but distant from the inner grounds.
"You should be happy," she said after a moment.
"I am," Lin Feng replied. Then, more softly, he added, "I just wish it hadn't been decided for me."
She smiled, small and steady. "Nothing important ever is."
Elder Xian arrived shortly after, his steps unhurried, and his presence drew respectful bows as easily as breath.
"Lin Feng," he said, greeting him as though he were a favored student. "A rare honor, especially for one so new."
Lin Feng inclined his head. "I didn't ask for it."
Xian chuckled. "No one ever does. Heaven has a habit of placing stones in our path and calling them steps."
His gaze shifted briefly to Mei Yun—not unkindly, but not warmly either.
"A pity," he added, "that inner cultivation requires isolation. Attachments can… complicate clarity."
Mei Yun lowered her eyes. Lin Feng felt something tighten in his chest.
"I cultivate better when I remember who I am," Lin Feng said evenly. "Not when I'm reminded who I should be."
For a heartbeat, the air felt thinner.
Then Elder Xian smiled, serene as ever. "An admirable sentiment. Let us hope the inner grounds agree."
The inner disciple quarters lay higher on the mountain, where the mist thinned, and the stone paths narrowed. Lin Feng was given a modest room overlooking a sheer drop, the world below reduced to drifting clouds and distant greens.
It should have felt triumphant. Instead, it felt quietly wrong.
That evening, he unfolded the parchment. It did not glow. It did not pulse. Instead, a single new line of script appeared, faint and deliberate: Power grows fastest where warmth is scarce.
Lin Feng stared at it for a long time.
"I don't want that kind of speed," he murmured.
The parchment did not answer.
Below, in the Formation Annex, Mei Yun traced sigils into stone with careful precision. Her hands did not shake, but her thoughts wandered despite her effort.
Around her, senior disciples spoke in low voices.
"So that's the one Heaven favors."
"They say Elder Xian recommended him personally."
"Dangerous, that sort of attention."
Mei Yun pressed her palm flat against the cool stone, grounding herself.
Let them talk, she told herself. He's still the same.
Yet when she looked up toward the higher terraces, the mountain seemed steeper than it had the day before.
That night, a bell rang once in the inner grounds. Lin Feng stepped outside to find Elder Xian waiting near the railing, moonlight silvering his flute.
"The inner grounds can be lonely," Xian said casually. "Especially for someone accustomed to… company."
Lin Feng said nothing.
"I would advise focus," the elder continued. "The girl will be safer if she remains ordinary. Heaven is far less interested in ordinary things."
Lin Feng's voice was calm when he replied, but something hard had settled beneath it.
"Then Heaven should look elsewhere."
Elder Xian studied him for a long moment, his eyes thoughtful.
"We shall see," he said at last.
He turned and walked away, his footsteps fading into the mist.
Later, as Lin Feng sat alone, the parchment stirred again—not with warmth, but with resistance. Far above, unseen and unrecorded, a scrying mirror clouded for the second time since Cloudspire's founding.
In that blurring vision, Heaven missed something small but crucial: a mortal who had begun to understand that separation, when imposed by others, was not refinement. It was a blade.