The morning sun, usually a meticulous guest, instead splintered into a thousand shards across the polished jade floor of the Jade Cauldron Pavilion. Dust motes, disturbed from their serene slumber, danced in the sudden, violent light as the entire carved timber roof exploded inward. A shower of ancient cypress splinters rained down, followed by a human shaped impact crater where a moment before, only sky had been. “Su Wenji! Face me, you artisan worm!” The voice, raw and edged like a freshly whetted sword, vibrated through the very stones of the pavilion. Teng Shilong, his emerald cultivation robes billowing, landed with a concussive force that cracked the flagstones beneath his boots. His broadsword, the famed Skyrend Cleaver, pulsed with an oppressive amethyst aura, humming with enough sheer force to level a ridgeline. “Your little shack of teacups ends today! Every martial sect in the Crimson Peaks demands satisfaction for your insolence!” Su Wenji, however, did not flinch. His gaze remained fixed on the delicate ceramic thermometer floating in the silver-gilt kettle. He hummed, a low, melodic sound that seemed utterly out of place amidst the chaos. The gauge registered eighty-four point five degrees. “Insolence,” he murmured, not to Shilong, but to the water, “is serving water that’s too hot for Gilded Thread Oolong. It bruises the leaves, you see. Such a waste of potential.” Shilong’s face, already contorted with fury, darkened further. His aura flared, igniting a scattering of fallen wood into embers. “Are you deaf, scholar? I, Teng Shilong, prodigy of the Obsidian Blade Sect, challenge you to a death duel! Your tea-spirit formations have humiliated our elders for the last time!” Around the pavilion, the air shimmered with a faint, verdant glow. Hidden tea-spirit wards, usually dormant, thrummed with protective pressure. Petals of spectral camellia swirled, their soft edges sharper than any blade, deflecting the minor debris of Shilong’s arrival away from Su Wenji’s carefully arrayed tea implements. Su Wenji’s thin fingers, nimble and precise, adjusted the tiny flame beneath the kettle. A hair below eighty-five. “The weapon,” Su Wenji finally acknowledged, his voice soft, almost conversational, “is quite a magnificent piece of metallurgy, I will concede. But steel, even when infused with a ninth-realm cultivator’s aura, lacks the subtle grace required for true harmony.” He glanced up, his expression utterly serene, his eyes a calm, deep brown that held no hint of fear or even irritation. “It would be a pity to spill this water.” Shilong roared. “You mock me! You mock the martial way!” With a savage cry, he coiled, his body a living tempest of martial Qi. The heavy steel arced, gathering the raw essence of the peak itself. The amethyst radiance intensified, solidifying into a colossal blade of pure ruin that cleaved the air, screaming toward Su Wenji. This was the ‘Mountain-Splitter Divine Edge’, a technique capable of felling a lesser immortal with a single strike. Su Wenji’s gaze remained placid. The thermometer now read exactly eighty-five degrees Celsius. With an almost imperceptible nod, he lifted the kettle. The steam, fragrant with the delicate aroma of spring water and brewing tea, curled around his hand. He poured the water, an unbroken, precise stream, over the tightly rolled leaves of Gilded Thread Oolong in a pristine, white porcelain vessel. The tea, an ancient varietal he’d cultivated from memory, bloomed. Its leaves unfurled slowly, releasing a fragrance that was at once earthy and ethereal, a whisper of dew-kissed mountain peaks and silent monasteries. The purple edge of Shilong’s strike, now mere inches from Su Wenji’s chest, seemed to hesitate, its forward momentum momentarily quelled by the sheer, unexpected serenity. Su Wenji picked up the vessel, its porcelain warm against his fingers. He lifted the lid, inhaling the deep, complex aroma, a small smile touching his lips. Then, with an elegant, unhurried motion, he took a sip. The tea, warm and rich, coated his tongue, an exquisite balance of sweetness and astringency. It was, he decided, precisely as it should be. As Shilong’s ultimate attack descended, Su Wenji merely raised the empty vessel, turning the cup slightly so its smooth, white base met the edge of the descending blade. There was no grand explosion, no clash of auras. Instead, a sound like dry kindling snapping, then a high-pitched *crack*. The colossal conjured arc, the Mountain-Splitter Divine Edge, shattered into a million glittering motes of Qi. Following it, the steel, having tasted the blood of a hundred masters, fractured from pommel to tip, the pieces clattering to the jade floor with the hollow sound of broken glass. Su Wenji lowered the cup, completely unharmed. The cup itself bore not a single scratch. He frowned slightly, not at the destruction, but at a sudden, unwelcome sensation. A deep, rasping cough tore through him, sudden and sharp. From his lips, not blood, but a swirling, ethereal mist, an unnatural plum-black vapor, escaped. It hung in the air for a breath, shimmering with temporal rot, before dissipating, leaving behind a faint, metallic tang. He pressed a hand to his chest, the internal tremor settling as quickly as it had arisen. That damned curse. Each transcendent brew, each impossible feat, it sped up his decay. Teng Shilong stared blankly at the shattered fragments of his ancestral blade, then at the intact porcelain cup, then back to Su Wenji, who was now meticulously wiping a stray droplet of tea from the rim of the vessel. The prodigy’s world, built on steel and conquest, had crumbled in the face of an immaculate brew. His formidable martial aura, once a roaring blaze, flickered, dying to a pathetic ember. He dropped to his knees, his face pale with utter defeat, his voice a broken whisper. “The… the Way of the Leaf… I must learn it! Master, teach me!” Just as the words left his lips, an amber glare tore through the remaining roof, accompanied by a high-pitched, screaming hum. A magnificent, intricately carved gilded sword, wreathed in imperial draconic power, plunged into the courtyard, its hilt adorned with the blazing sun crest of the Huangfu Dynasty. It quivered, vibrating with an overt imperial summons, the unmistakable edict-blade of Emperor Huangfu Chuan himself.

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