Chapter 5: Patterns in the Dark
Day 13. The training blade catches my forearm before I finish the block.
Not deep—just enough to open skin. Blood wells up, warm and red, soaking into my sleeve. The sparring partner apologizes. I wave him off. Just another training accident. Happens to everyone.
Except it doesn't. Not to people paying attention.
"Medical tent," Instructor Mo Chen calls. "Get that treated, Mo Bei."
The medical tent smells like herbs and copper. Three students wait ahead of me, nursing their own injuries. I sit on a wooden bench and press cloth against the cut, watching blood seep through.
A girl approaches. Maybe seventeen, plain academy robes, hair tied back with practical efficiency. She kneels, examines the wound without asking permission.
"Not serious," she says. Her voice is quiet, clinical. "Clean cut. Won't need stitches."
She activates a Gu—I catch the flash of green light—and presses her palm over the wound. Warmth spreads through my arm. The pain recedes. When she pulls away, the cut has sealed, leaving only a thin red line.
"You flinch before impacts," she observes, already cleaning her hands. "Like you're expecting attacks that haven't happened yet."
My blood goes cold.
"Combat instinct," I say carefully. "Trying to develop it."
"Mm." She studies me for three seconds too long. "I'm Shen Cui. Healing path specialization. You flinch wrong, though. Not forward into defense. Backward, like you're remembering pain instead of anticipating it."
Then she's moving to the next patient, efficient and unbothered, leaving me sitting there with my pulse hammering.
"Subject Shen Cui: Age seventeen, Rank 2 cultivation, healing path primary focus. Observation capabilities: Exceptional. Pattern recognition: Above average. Threat assessment: Low. Interest level: Notable. Warning: Subject has identified behavioral anomaly. Recommend response calibration."
She sees too much.
I leave the tent quickly, avoiding eye contact.
Day 14. The merchant appears three times.
First sighting: morning, near the academy's eastern gate. Gray robes, carrying fabric samples. Standard traveling merchant.
Second sighting: noon, outside the dining hall. Same gray robes, same fabric samples. Different location, two li from the first sighting. Arrived within two hours.
Third sighting: evening, near my dormitory. Same merchant. Same samples.
"Analysis: Travel time between sightings one and two: Impossible without speed-enhancement Gu. Travel time between sightings two and three: Requires minimum Rank 3 movement technique. Conclusion: Subject is not merchant. Probability of surveillance: 73.8%. Recommend evasive action."
I start varying my routes. Take different paths to classes. Eat at different times. Skip the library twice, spend an evening in the practice yards instead.
Small changes. Enough to break patterns without drawing attention.
Day 15. I check my dormitory lock before bed. Scratches around the keyhole. Fresh ones—the metal's still bright where tools scraped.
Someone tried to enter while I was gone.
"Evidence: Lock tampering confirmed. Entry attempt: Unsuccessful but indicative of hostile intent. Items missing: None detected. Conclusion: Surveillance or assassination preparation. Recommend immediate security enhancement."
I wedge a chair under the door handle that night. Sleep with Moonlight Gu activated, casting pale illumination across the room. My dormitory mates complain about the light.
I don't care.
SHEN CUI
The boy Mo Bei was hurt in ways medicine couldn't fix.
Shen Cui had treated hundreds of training injuries. She knew the difference between fresh pain and old trauma. Mo Bei flinched like someone carrying scars that hadn't healed right—phantom wounds that made him expect violence before it arrived.
Cultivation deviation, maybe. Or something worse.
She made a note to watch him. Not because he was dangerous. Because people that broken either recovered or shattered completely, and she preferred her patients in one piece.
Day 16. My patrol route changes.
Academy policy requires all Rank 2+ students to rotate through security patrols. Standard procedure: assigned routes, three-hour shifts, basic perimeter monitoring.
My assignment for tonight: eastern forest edge, sector four. Safe area, well-traveled.
Then, an hour before my shift, an instructor finds me. "Route change. You're covering sector seven instead. Western cliffs. Another student fell ill."
"Sector seven?" That's the dangerous zone. Unstable ground, territorial beasts, poor visibility.
"Problem?" The instructor's tone makes it clear there's only one acceptable answer.
"No problem."
He leaves. I check with the other students assigned tonight. None of them had route changes. Just me.
"Probability of coincidence: 8.3%. Probability of deliberate redirection toward danger zone: 91.7%. Pattern confirmed: Host is under active threat. Source: Unknown. Methodology: Surveillance followed by manipulation of assignment protocols. Threat level: Escalating."
I report to sector seven. Spend three hours on high alert, watching every shadow, jumping at every sound. Nothing happens.
But someone wanted me there. Someone arranged it.
The patrol ends. I return to the dormitory, exhausted and wired.
My water flask sits on my desk. I'd prepared it this morning—clean water, sealed cap. Standard practice.
I'm thirsty. Reached for it before conscious thought.
Then stop.
Why?
No reason. Just... something. A wrongness I can't articulate.
"Query: Why is host hesitating?"
I don't know.
I unscrew the cap. The water looks normal. Smells normal.
Instead of drinking, I pour a single drop onto the plant on the windowsill—a small fern one of my dormitory mates keeps.
The drop hits the soil.
Five seconds. The fern's leaves darken. Ten seconds. They curl inward. Fifteen seconds. Black, withered, dead.
Poison.
Someone poisoned my water while I was on patrol.
"Toxin analysis: Insufficient data for identification. Lethality: Confirmed high. Delivery method: Direct contamination during host's absence. Security breach: Confirmed. Assassination attempt: Confirmed. Threat level: CRITICAL."
My hands shake. I set the flask down carefully, like it might explode.
Someone wants me dead. Not just watched. Dead.
UNKNOWN OBSERVER
The target had avoided the poison. Unfortunate.
The observer watched from across the courtyard, hidden in shadows. Mo Bei stood at his window, staring at the water flask like it was a snake.
Lucky. Or paranoid. Doesn't matter. Next time won't rely on luck.
The observer melted back into darkness. Plenty of time. Plenty of methods.
The Bai Clan paid well for confirmed kills. And this target—statistically anomalous, potentially dangerous—was worth the effort.
I don't sleep.
Can't. Every sound is a threat. Every shadow, an assassin.
Great Sage runs probability chains all night. Who? Why? How did they access my dormitory?
"Insufficient data for definitive identification. Potential actors: Bai Clan intelligence network (probability 47.3%), personal enemy (probability 12.8%), random targeting (probability 3.2%), mistaken identity (probability 8.4%), other (probability 28.3%)."
Nearly fifty percent chance it's Bai Clan. They're targeting promising students, preventing future threats. But I'm not promising. I'm deliberately mediocre.
Unless being deliberately mediocre is itself suspicious.
The thought sits in my stomach like lead.
Day 17 arrives. I attend classes on autopilot, watching everyone. Fang Yuan moves through morning assembly with his usual untouchable efficiency. Fang Zheng practices forms in the yard, earnest and focused. Shen Cui treats injuries in the medical tent, competent and observant.
Any of them could be the assassin. None of them could be.
My clone in Jade Moon Town sends fragmented awareness: Merchant network contact established. Old Wu, information broker. Greedy but useful. Bai Clan activity increasing. Troop movements confirmed.
The pieces connect. Bai Clan. Intelligence network. Targeting students.
But why me? I'm nobody.
"Quest accepted: Identify Assassin. Progress: 0%. Current leads: Merchant surveillance patterns, lock tampering evidence, route manipulation, poison delivery. Recommended action: Heightened security, information gathering, potential counter-operation."
I spend the day paranoid and exhausted. Trust no one. Touch nothing without checking. Vary every routine.
Survival isn't living. It's just not dying.
And someone out there is trying very hard to make me fail at even that.
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