Liu Feng woke up vomiting blood.
The first thing he saw was the cracked pillar he'd been thrown into. The second thing he saw was the puddle of his own dignity spreading across the stone floor.
She flicked her sleeve at me.
Not a punch. Not a technique. Not even a full arm movement. Leng Bingxue had dismissed him the way you'd flick a fly off your dinner. And he'd flown thirty feet like a ragdoll.
His ribs screamed. His cultivation base—solidly at the peak of Foundation Establishment—had barely absorbed the impact. If she'd used even five percent of her true power, he'd be dead.
She chose not to kill me.
That was somehow worse.
"Young Master Liu!"
Two inner disciples rushed to his side. Wei Zheng and Fang Hao—his usual entourage. Wei Zheng was already pulling out a healing pill. Fang Hao was looking around nervously, as if Leng Bingxue might come back for round two.
Liu Feng slapped the pill away.
"Don't touch me," he snarled. Blood dripped from his lips. His perfect jaw—the one the outer sect girls swooned over—was already bruising. "Where did she go?"
"The trash," Wei Zheng hesitated. "She left with the trash. They walked out together. Toward the outer sect huts."
Together.
The word burned.
Liu Feng had spent three years trying to get Leng Bingxue to acknowledge his existence. Three years of bringing her rare spirit herbs. Three years of challenging her rivals to duels he knew she wouldn't watch. Three years of standing in her path just to hear her say "move" in that cold, beautiful voice.
And today, she knelt in the dirt. For Wei Chen. The dantian-broken orphan who couldn't even light an incense stick with spiritual energy.
"You will become the strongest sovereign in ten thousand years."
Liu Feng laughed. It came out wet and ugly.
"Wei Zheng. Fang Hao." His voice steadied. The anger was cooling into something sharper. Colder. "Tell me everything you know about Wei Chen's situation. His sister. His cultivation. His debts. His enemies. Everything."
Wei Zheng blinked. "Young Master, he's just trash. Why—"
Liu Feng grabbed his collar and yanked him close. Their noses almost touched.
"Because Leng Bingxue just publicly humiliated me for that trash. Do you understand what that means?" His whisper was venomous. "If I kill him now, everyone will say I couldn't take a loss. That I'm jealous of a cripple. That she chose down."
He released Wei Zheng, who stumbled backward.
"But if he dies another way? If he's caught stealing again? If his little sister's curse accidentally accelerates? If the debt collectors come knocking at the right moment?" Liu Feng smiled. His teeth were pink with blood. "Then I'm just a grieving young master who lost to a beautiful woman. And everyone understands how that feels."
Fang Hao nodded slowly. "The outer sect has a betting ring on when Wei Chen will finally die. Most bets say within the month."
"Good." Liu Feng stood up. His ribs screamed. He ignored them. "Double the odds. Then make sure the house wins."
---
Meanwhile, several li away, Wei Chen was trying very hard not to collapse.
Walking hurt. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt. His broken hand had been healed, yes—but the rest of him was still a patchwork of old injuries and newer bruises. Three cracked ribs. A twisted ankle from two days ago. Malnutrition that made his vision swim every time he stood up too fast.
And now, according to the glowing blue screen only he could see, his dantian was slowly rebuilding itself.
[Heavenly Shattered Meridian Reconstruction Art: 4% complete.]
[Estimated time to full dantian restoration: 11 hours, 47 minutes.]
[Current spiritual leakage: MODERATE.]
[Nearby threats detected: 12 spirit beasts, 8 starving cultivators, 1 debt collector, and Liu Feng (very angry).]
"System," Wei Chen thought. "Can you be less specific about my imminent death?"
[No. Accuracy is a feature, not a bug.]
Leng Bingxue walked beside him in silence. Her snow-white robes didn't touch the ground. Her feet—bare, he realized—left faint frost prints on the dirt path. She wasn't looking at him. She was scanning the treeline with those pale, predatory eyes.
"You're leaking spiritual energy," she said finally.
"I'm aware."
"It smells like ancient power. Like something that should have stayed buried." Her voice was flat. Not accusatory. Just… observant. "Every beast in a ten-li radius can sense it. They think you're wounded prey. Easy meat."
"Also aware."
"And you're still walking toward the outer sect huts? The least defensible location on the mountain?"
Wei Chen stopped. He turned to face her. It took effort—his body wanted to keep moving forward, to reach his sister's bedside, to do something—but he forced himself to meet her eyes.
"My sister is dying," he said. "She has maybe three days left. Four if I'm lucky. I don't care if a thousand beasts come for me. I'm not leaving her alone."
Leng Bingxue stared at him.
For a long moment, nothing happened. The wind stopped. The insects went quiet. Even the faint glow of her frost aura seemed to dim.
Then she smiled.
It was small. Barely a curve of her lips. But it transformed her face from a frozen statue into something almost human.
"Good," she said. "You have a heart. I was worried you'd be boring."
She resumed walking. Wei Chen stared after her, confused.
[Ding! Leng Bingxue's favorability has increased: 12 → 18.]
[Note: Frost Phoenix Princesses rarely smile. The last one who smiled at a man ended up marrying him. No pressure.]
System, what the hell does that mean—
"Wei Chen!"
A sharp voice cut through his panic. He turned.
A girl was running toward him. Maybe sixteen. Plain brown robes. A face smeared with dust and tears. His neighbor from the outer sect—the one who sometimes left bowls of rice at his door when she thought he wasn't looking.
"Xiao Cui?" he said. "What's wrong?"
She grabbed his arm. Her fingers were shaking.
"It's your sister," she gasped. "The curse. It's getting worse. She collapsed an hour ago. Her breathing—Wei Chen, her breathing keeps stopping. The healer won't come because you can't pay. I tried to find you but you were in the Punishment Hall and they wouldn't let me in and—"
Wei Chen was already running.
His cracked ribs screamed. His ankle twisted. His vision blurred with pain and fear and something darker—desperation. He ran anyway.
Behind him, Leng Bingxue moved like a ghost. Silent. Effortless. Keeping pace without seeming to try.
"System," Wei Chen gasped between ragged breaths. "Tell me the reconstruction art can heal curses."
[The Heavenly Shattered Meridian Reconstruction Art repairs dantians and meridians. It does not affect external curses.]
[However… the Phoenix Essence Drop in your inventory has mild purifying properties.]
"How mild?"
[At current refinement level? It might buy your sister an extra week. Maybe two.]
Wei Chen's heart sank. A week. Two weeks. That wasn't a cure. That was a delay.
But delays meant time. And time meant finding a real solution.
He ran faster.
The outer sect huts came into view—a cluster of crumbling buildings at the mountain's edge, reserved for the sect's failures and orphans. His hut was the smallest. The roof had a hole in it. The door hung sideways on a broken hinge.
He burst inside.
Wei Lian lay on a straw mat in the corner.
She was small. Too small for fifteen. The curse had been eating her for six years—stealing her height, her weight, the color from her hair. Now her skin was gray. Her lips were blue. Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven gasps.
"Wei Lian." He dropped to his knees beside her. His hands—still trembling from the run—cupped her face. Cold. So cold. "Lian. I'm here. Big brother's here."
Her eyes fluttered open.
They were the same dark brown as his. The same shape as their mother's. For a moment, she seemed to recognize him. Her cracked lips moved.
"Brother… you're bleeding…"
"I'm fine." His voice broke. He didn't care. "I'm fine. I have something for you. A medicine. It's going to help."
He reached for the Phoenix Essence Drop—but the system's inventory interface was clunky, and his hands were shaking, and nothing was working the way it was supposed to—
A cool hand touched his shoulder.
Leng Bingxue knelt beside him. Her frost aura had dimmed to almost nothing. Her pale eyes were fixed on Wei Lian's face.
"The curse is old," she said quietly. "Demonic in origin. A soul-binding hex. Someone wanted your family dead very badly."
"I know who." Wei Chen's jaw tightened. "The same people who killed our parents. The same people who burned our clan. I was ten. She was eight. She stepped in front of a blade meant for me."
"And you've been carrying guilt ever since."
It wasn't a question. Wei Chen didn't answer.
Leng Bingxue reached into her sleeve and withdrew a small jade vial. The glass was cold to the touch—colder than it should have been, even for her. Inside, a single drop of silvery liquid swirled like trapped starlight.
"Frost Phoenix Tears," she said. "One of the rarest healing agents on the continent. It won't break the curse, but it will stabilize her. Give her six months instead of six days."
Wei Chen stared at the vial.
"Why?" he whispered. "You don't know me. You don't owe me anything. Why are you doing this?"
Leng Bingxue looked at him.
Then she looked at Wei Lian.
Then she looked back at him.
"Because six years ago," she said softly, "I also had a little sister. And I wasn't fast enough to save her."
She pressed the vial into his hands.
"I won't make that mistake again."
[Ding! Leng Bingxue's favorability has increased: 18 → 35.]
[Hidden trigger discovered: Shared trauma of losing a sibling.]
[Quest Update: Your first bond is no longer just watching you. She's watching over you. This is either very good or very bad. Probably both.]
Wei Chen uncorked the vial.
The Frost Phoenix Tear slid onto his sister's lips like liquid moonlight.
And for the first time in six years, Wei Lian's breathing steadied.
---
Outside the hut, hidden in the shadow of a dead tree, Liu Feng watched through a borrowed scrying mirror.
He saw Leng Bingxue kneel beside Wei Chen. He saw her give away a treasure worth more than most small nations. He saw her smile.
His grip tightened until the mirror cracked.
"Wei Zheng," he said quietly.
"Yes, Young Master?"
"Spread the word. There's a new bounty in the outer sect." Liu Feng's eyes didn't leave the mirror. "Anyone who brings me Wei Chen's head gets a Foundation Establishment pill. Anyone who brings me Wei Chen alive gets three."
Wei Zheng hesitated. "But Senior Sister Leng—"
"Will never know it was us." Liu Feng smiled. It didn't reach his eyes. "The outer sect is full of desperate people. Desperate people do desperate things. And when Wei Chen dies in a 'random robbery' or a 'spirit beast attack' or a 'cultivation accident'…"
He crushed the mirror in his palm.
"Who's going to mourn a piece of trash?"