The rain continued to hamr against the high, stained-glass windows of the West District Library, its steady drumming the only sound left in the cavernous lobby.
Five elite enforcers of the Flowing Jade Chamber lay groaning on the floorboards, their breathing shallow and uneven. Elder Qi was long gone, his terrified, blood-spattered retreat leaving a trail of watery crimson footprints that quickly dissolved into the muddy puddles outside the threshold.
Shen Jin remained curled on the floor, tucked tightly against a fallen shelf of geographical charts. He kept his thin arms wrapped securely around his head, whimpering rhythmically.
"Don't shoot... please don't turn into a pincushion..." he muttered into the damp fabric of his sleeves, keeping his eyes wide and vacant to mimic the shell-shocked state of a baseline mortal.
From behind the heavy mahogany counter, a low, dry scraping sound broke the silence.
Old ng did not rush down from his elevated platform. He slowly slid his unadorned iron sword back beneath the lip of the desk, the cheap tal sheath clicking softly against the wood. He reached into his wide, ink-stained sleeve, pulled out his long bamboo pipe, and spent a deliberate minute cleaning the bowl with a small silver wire.
Finally, the old archivist stood up. His gnarled hands gripped the edge of the desk as he climbed down the small wooden steps, his boots thudding softly against the floorboards. He walked past the unconscious enforcers without sparing them a single glance, stopping right in front of the pile of charts where Shen Jin was hiding.
"Get up, brat," ng said, his voice flat, dry, and entirely devoid of the raspy tremor he usually projected to the common custors.
Shen Jin let out a loud, shuddering gasp. He uncovered his face slowly, letting his dark hair fall over his eyes in ssy tangles. He looked at Old ng’s worn boots, then up at the old man’s face, ensuring his chest heaved with a perfectly fabricated layer of hyperventilation.
"Are they... are the green demons gone, Master ng?" Shen Jin stamred, his teeth clicking together as he dragged himself up by gripping a wooden shelf, intentionally letting his knees buckle once before standing. "The sky... the sky just opened up and started throwing sewing needles! I tried to run to the counter to hide behind your chair, but then I tripped over my trousers and everything went white!"
Old ng didn't answer imdiately. He struck a small sulfur match against his thumbnail, lighting the dried tobacco in his pipe. A thick, blue cloud of pungent smoke billowed from his lips, rising toward the dark wooden rafters where the shards of Elder Qi's wood needles were still embedded.
The archivist’s single clear eye bored straight through Shen Jin's dusty face. Thanks to the absolute, flawless containnt of [Absolute Obscurity], the old master’s deep spiritual senses swept across the boy's fra and found absolutely nothing—no erratic heartbeat, no residual Qi fluctuations, and no sign of opened ridians.
Yet, Old ng was a man who had survived eighty years in the bloody currents of the Nine Heavens Domain. He didn't need to see Qi to understand the terrifying mathematics of what had just occurred.
"Five elite enforcers, all trained in the secondary iron-body cultivation layer, neutralized without a single broken bone," ng murmured, tapping the stem of his pipe against his chin. "And Elder Qi—a man who has spent thirty years refining the Vine-Braid Bind—suffers a catastrophic ridian reversal the exact millisecond a clumsy apprentice falls onto his elbow node."
ng leaned closer, the faint scent of old ink and ancient, resting steel wafting from his grey robes. "The city guards would call it a miracle of ancestral intervention, Shen Jin. What do you call it?"
Shen Jin dropped his head imdiately, burying his expression in the shadows. He allowed his shoulders to shake slightly, playing his role with unyielding discipline. "I call it a curse, sir! My mother always said I was born under a jinxed star. Back at the transit docks, the overseer fell on his own shovel when I slipped, and the enforcers fell into the porcelain crates when I tried to run away. I don't want to be a jinx, Master ng! I just wanted to buy the Soul-Calming Grass!"
He reached into his pocket, his hand trembling violently as he pulled out the cheap copper token ng had given him earlier, offering it back like a child handing over a broken toy.
Old ng stared at the copper token for a long, silent mont. Then, a faint, incredibly rare chuckle cut through the old man's throat—a dry, raspy sound that turned into a quiet cough.
"A jinxed star," ng whispered, shaking his head as he took the token back. "Grandmaster Yu always said the most dangerous weapon in the world isn't a sword that can cleave mountains; it's a shield that looks like a pile of common dirt. I see what the old dog saw in you now."
The archivist turned around, walking back toward his mahogany desk. "The Flowing Jade Chamber won't return tonight. Elder Qi’s core lines are shredded; it will take him three months of deep ditation in the Inner Ring’s dical houses just to re-align his wood paths. When he wakes up, his first report to the syndicate masters won't be about a hidden grandmaster—it will be about a cursed archive that breeds unnatural, demonic bad luck."
ng climbed back up to his high-backed chair, picking up his calligraphy brush once more. "Grab these five pieces of at by their collars and throw them into the rear drainage ditch before the rain stops. Then, scrub the floorboards again. The wood is starting to rot from the mountain mud."
"Right away, Master ng! Right away!" Shen Jin yelped, putting on an expression of imnse relief as he scrambled toward the nearest unconscious enforcer.
As he grabbed the heavy, leather-armored shoulders of the first thug and began dragging him toward the side door—taking care to let his boots slip and slide across the wood to look like he was using every ounce of his weak mortal strength—the pale-blue screen of the system flashed faintly within his mind.
[PING.]
[System Ledger Updated.]
Notice: The Host has successfully maintained an uncompromised civilian profile in front of an Ally with high-level deductive capabilities (Old ng). True strength remains safely obscured.
Current Balance: 45 Vanguard Points (VP).
Forty-five points, Shen Jin’s mind calculated, his pulse completely flat and relaxed beneath his simulated exertion. I am five points away from Volu Three of the Scripture. The Flowing Jade Chamber is temporarily blinded, but the silence won't last forever. When the syndicate masters realize their West District collections are dropping, they will look beyond Elder Qi.
He dragged the final enforcer out into the pouring rain of the rear alley, letting the heavy body slide into the stone drainage ditch with a loud, muddy splash.
Standing beneath the dark, heavy clouds of the city’s Outer Ring, Shen Jin wiped a layer of white plaster dust from his brow. He looked up at the distant, glittering spires of the Inner Ring rising into the misty sky like golden spears.
In his past life, those spires had been populated by the very tyrants who watched his ho burn without a single word of pity. This ti, they wouldn't even see the shadow that was climbing up from the dirt. He adjusted his ragged grey collar, slouched his back, and stepped back into the ink-stained warmth of the library.
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