The voice rasped inside Qiao Yansheng’s skull, sharper than gravel ground between teeth. *‘Feed me, boy, or by the new moon, I will eat your soul instead.’* The fire-poker, still humming faintly in his grasp, dragged at his shoulder like wet lead. He swayed, the world tilting, but Mei Chulan’s steadying hand on his arm was a small anchor in the rising tide of panic. “Yansheng, your hands are bleeding again,” Mei Chulan murmured, her voice soft now, her earlier fury banked. She reached for him, but he flinched, pulling back the hand clutching the poker. He couldn't let her see the strange, dark energy that pulsed from the crude weapon, nor the tremors that wracked his body. He was already a burden; he wouldn't drag her into this chilling new abyss. He wanted to speak, to explain, but his throat seized. The syllables tangled behind his teeth, dry and useless. He simply shook his head. Mei Chulan frowned, her brow furrowing with concern, but before she could press, Yuwen Zhan’s voice, a dry rasp against the edges of his consciousness, cut through Yansheng’s fear. *‘The ambient qi in this decaying sect is a joke. Even the outer ranks’ training gear would sate the Cleaver for a night. Seek the Reliquary of Worn Steel. An annex south-east of the Grand Hall, meant for broken armaments. Swiftly, boy! Time runs thin.’* Yansheng gave a tight nod, glancing toward the southern flagstones. “I… I need to… to finish sweeping, Senior Disciple Mei,” he muttered, cheeks burning as he stared down at the moss. Mei Chulan studied him, her sharp eyes missing nothing. “Your duties can wait. Your face… you need the healing salve. Come with me.” “No, I… I will be fine. I… I really must,” he insisted, syllables catching in his throat. He bowed awkwardly, iron rod masked against his thigh, then turned and limped past the courtyard archway before picking up his uneven pace. The Reliquary of Worn Steel sat forgotten beneath creeping ivy, its single iron door sagging off its iron pegs. Motes hung suspended in the gray light piercing the broken roof tiles. Rotten timber racks, laden with tarnished hilts and splintered spearpoints, stretched into the gloom amidst the sour reek of decaying iron. *‘Ah, a true graveyard,’* Yuwen Zhan mused with dry sorrow. *‘Start with the lower shelves. The Cleaver will not waste its appetite on slag, but it hungers.’* Yansheng moved with desperate haste, his fingers brushing over a chipped dagger, a broken spearhead. The rod pulsed against his palm, heat prickling his skin. He reached for a nicked broadsword bearing a faded serpent crest, only for a harsh scoff to shatter the quiet. “Well, well, what have we here? The lame sweeping boy, moonlighting as a thief?” Yansheng froze, his blood chilling. Two figures emerged from behind a towering stack of dented shield-bosses. The first, a broad youth with a flattened nose, was Jiang. Beside him slouched Tao Geng, sharp-nosed and smirking, another outer flunky infamous for shaking down junior sweepers. “Looking for a replacement broom, Yansheng?” Tao Geng chuckled, tapping the grip of his sect-issue steel. Jiang rested a heavy spiked cudgel across one thick shoulder. Cold sweat broke along Yansheng's collarbone. His tongue turned to dry wood. He pressed the rod deeper into the fold of his tunic. “He’s hiding something, Geng,” Jiang grunted, chin jutting toward Yansheng’s grip. “Face is red as a boiled crab.” “That’s the fire-poker from the courtyard, isn’t it?” Tao Geng raised an eyebrow in mock astonishment. “Did you steal it, lame-leg? Sect property isn't for scavengers.” He stepped closer, his smile predatory. “Perhaps you could pay us a small… consultation fee. We could forget we saw you here.” “I… I… no, I…” Yansheng stammered, his body rigid with fear and humiliation. He was trapped. “Speak up, dog-boy!” Jiang snarled, hefting his cudgel. “Or we crack your good knee.” The cursed blade in Yansheng’s hand suddenly vibrated violently, a low growl echoing in his mind. *‘Insolence… a feast! These weaklings dare impede the Starving Heaven Cleaver? A trivial snack, but a snack nonetheless!’* Before Yansheng could pull back, the fire-poker tore forward, wrenching his elbow with terrible force. It slammed Jiang’s cudgel in an arc of dull crimson. A crack cracked like splitting dry pine. The heavy spiked head sheared free and spun across the flags, leaving Jiang clutching a jagged splinter of ash wood. The tip whipped back, guided by a savage pull. Tao Geng’s half-drawn steel shattered against it like dry ice, throwing jagged shards across the flagstones. A draft of gray vapor rushed straight from the fragments into the pitted poker, settling into Yansheng’s marrow with numb, aching frost. Jiang and his companion stared in dazed horror at the ruin of their sect-forged gear. “What… what was that?” Jiang gasped, taking half a step back. “My… my sword… it’s… gone!” Tao Geng stammered, staring at the useless hilt in his hand. Yansheng stood rooted, staring down at the dull iron. The rod had pulled him like a puppet. Gray soot curled from the tip, leaving his tendons trembling with hollow fatigue. A booming voice shattered the quiet. “Hah! Did you see that? Jiang’s clumsy club smashed like a dried melon, and Tao Geng’s fancy sword turned to toothpicks! Pure martial genius!” Yansheng’s head snapped towards the sound. From behind a rack of moldering polearms waddled Pang Dalong, round-bellied and chewing vigorously on a dried plum, notorious throughout the lower courts for betting his lunch money on cricket bouts. His wide eyes, usually fixed on food, were now shining with an almost manic glee. “Qiao Yansheng! Brother Qiao! I knew it!” Pang Dalong cheered, paying no heed to the gape-mouthed bullies. He rushed forward, nearly tripping over a broken sword hilt. “I saw the whole exchange! Secret clan moves! You flattened both these hounds with a bent fire-poker!” He smacked Yansheng’s shoulder so hard the sweeper nearly dropped the iron rod. “P-Pang Dalong… I…” Yansheng stammered, mortified. “Don’t you ‘I’ me, brother! This changes everything! The preliminary duels are next week! I’m betting my entire month’s food allowance on you! Every last steamed bun, every candied fruit, every crispy roast duck! You’re going to shock the entire Obsidian Swallow Institute!” Pang Dalong declared, his voice echoing through the dusty hall. Before Yansheng could respond, a soft voice cut through Pang Dalong’s excited pronouncements. “What in the spirits is going on here?” Mei Chulan stood at the entrance, her expression a mix of bewilderment and alarm, her gaze sweeping from the shattered weapons to the trembling Yansheng. Her gaze dropped to his fingers, which were raw and peeling from the violent suction of the weapon. Pang Dalong, his enthusiasm briefly deflated, tried to explain. “Senior Disciple Mei! You won’t believe it! Yansheng here, he just…” “Qiao Yansheng, your hands,” Mei Chulan interrupted, her voice gentle but firm. She knelt, ignoring Pang Dalong, ignoring the fuming bullies, her focus entirely on Yansheng. She took his blistered hands in hers, her touch cool and soothing. A soothing jade luminescence leaked from her palms, knitting the torn flesh along his knuckles. “It’s… it’s nothing, Senior Disciple Mei,” Yansheng mumbled, trying to pull his hands away, embarrassed by her closeness, by the warmth of her touch, by the very public display of his weakness. “Nothing?” she chided softly, her fingers tracing the angry red marks. “This is the toll of raw recoil, Yansheng. Feeding broken scrap takes flesh as payment.” She looked up into his face, ignoring Pang Dalong and the two terrified ruffians behind him. “I never believed it, you know,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “That your meridians were truly beyond repair. That your spark had vanished. I always believed… you were still the prodigy beneath the dust.” A surge of emotion, raw and potent, threatened to overwhelm Yansheng. Hope, shame, longing, all intertwined. Her words were a balm to his scarred soul, a fragile flame against the chilling curse. He wanted to lean into her touch, to tell her everything, but the whisper returned, cold and insistent. *‘More… I need more! That was barely a mouthful!’* Just as he was about to speak, a shrill, piercing wail echoed through the entire Obsidian Swallow Institute. The alarm! A deep, resonant gong began to toll, signaling a sect-wide lockdown. Mei Chulan straightened, alarmed. “The defensive wards? But how?” She looked from the iron shards littering the flagstones to the dark rod in Yansheng's hand. The sudden vacuum of stolen essence had tripped the hall's old wards. “An Elder! Quick, hide!” Pang Dalong hissed, suddenly sobered, his eyes darting frantically towards the entrance. The heavy door slammed back against the stone, framing a towering figure. A voice, deep and venomous, thundered, “Who dares desecrate the Reliquary of Worn Steel? Who tripped the precinct wards?” Elder Ruan Hu, cheeks drawn tight over sharp cheekbones, glared through the dust. He took one heavy stride across the threshold, his cultivation pressure locking the chamber in suffocating stillness.

The Gluttonous Blade