The amber dragon silhouette faded into the verdant mist, leaving behind only the rhythmic patter of the divine rain. Rin-Hua stood beside the cabbage plot, rainwater dripping from her cuffs into the churned mud. “He knows,” Elder Pang Su-Yin’s voice was a low rasp, thick with urgency. She scrambled over the muddy ground, her robes, usually pristine, now splattered with dark earth. Her gaze, however, was sharp, devoid of its usual weariness. “That downpour… it wasn’t ordinary weather. It was raw vitality, enough to rattle the upper peaks. Someone will descend the path. Soon. We need to hide this plot, child. Now.” Rin-Hua nodded, her mind already racing. Hide the thick cabbage patch, the newly sprouted roots, and the beasts sheltering by the eaves. Her haven, so recently birthed from barren rock, was now a shining target. “How?” she asked, her voice barely a breath. “It’s too bright, too alive.” Pang Su-Yin snatched up a handful of the rain-damp soil, rubbing it between her fingers. “My old studies… before my exile. A screening shroud. Not true concealment, but enough to blind an arrogant eye. We need a catalyst, a potent, Heaven-Tiered base. Something that can warp perception on a grand scale.” She glanced toward the cluster of yellow-leafed solar roots near Rin-Hua’s hut, their amber shimmer pulsing through the gloom. “The solar roots,” Rin-Hua said. “Are they potent enough?” “Potent enough to brew a masking decoction, yes. But it requires constant replenishment, and a stabilizing conduit. A sovereign presence, perhaps…” Pang Su-Yin looked toward the open doorway, where Jin-Hai’s basin still frothed faintly with residual mist. From the hut, a deep, rumbling sigh echoed. “You wish to use this sovereign’s grand aura to stabilize a paltry glamour?” Jin-Hai’s voice was a low growl, laced with his usual disdain. “The indignity! To cloak my magnificence in a shroud of dust and neglect.” “It’s for Rin-Hua’s safety, Jin-Hai,” Pang Su-Yin shot back, surprisingly bold. “And yours, if they find you. Do you wish to be tossed back into a dirty pond, or worse?” Silence from the basin, then a grudging grumble. “Fine. But make it quick, old woman. And ensure the glamour holds. I refuse to sponsor a sloppy deception.” The disgraced Elder wasted no time. She directed Rin-Hua to harvest several mature solar roots, their tubers pale and coiling like sleeping vipers. She then produced a small, battered ceramic mortar and pestle from a hidden pouch beneath her robes – relics of her alchemy past. She instructed Rin-Hua to crush the roots with precise, rhythmic motions, humming a low, almost forgotten chant that seemed to coax more vitality from the already potent herbs. The resulting mash, dense and pearlescent, was stirred into rainwater along with three drops from Jin-Hai’s basin. “This,” Pang Su-Yin said, holding up a chipped clay bowl of the liquid, “forms the base of the Array of Barren Visage. Spreading it will require haste.” The three-legged fox stepped across the threshold, copper fur sleek against the drizzle, and nudged Rin-Hua’s knuckles. Under the eaves, the blind crane stretched its neck toward the scent of crushed bark, while the shell-cracked river turtle dragged itself past the door-sill. “They know this soil,” Rin-Hua murmured, kneeling to stroke the fox’s flank. Pang Su-Yin nodded, wiping soot from her wrist. “Every creature helps. The array projects an image of decay. We must make this yard look worthless, exactly as it was at dusk. Scraggy thistles, blighted leaves, cracked slate. A ditch no inspector would bother entering.” The night became a blur of frantic, coordinated effort. Rin-Hua, following Pang Su-Yin’s directions, painted lines of the pale paste along the boundary stones. Where the smear coated the sod, a dull haze settled over the green, giving the leaves the brittle gray cast of autumn rot. Tender sprouts appeared as blackened stubble. The fox trotted along the low wall, pressing its nose against pockets where rich sweetness still seeped past the boundary. The crane dipped its bill into the bowl and flicked droplets onto the upper boughs of the stunted plum tree, veiling the swelling buds behind a film of dried bark. The turtle crept to the eastern corner, its carpace traced with charcoal characters from Pang Su-Yin’s stick to carry the array’s edge to the gravel ditch. From the hut, Jin-Hai maintained a low, vibrating hum in his cracked basin, steadying the false scent of decay across the enclosure. The dark thinned to slate-gray over the crags. Rin-Hua’s palms burned from smearing the grit into the clay, her tunic caked with cold mud. When dawn finally struck the limestone cliffs, casting brass light over the mountain terraces, the lower courtyard looked utterly barren. The crisp cabbage heads seemed limp and speckled with blight. The runnel along the flagstones showed only murky silt and brown scum. Even the air seemed heavier, stale, the faint scent of decay replacing the sweet fragrance of blooming qi. Jin-Hai let out a heavy breath from his basin. “It is set,” he grumbled, his voice rough. “A wretched disguise. I shall demand twice as many chopped leaves once this settles.” Pang Su-Yin, her sleeve caked in grime, wiped her forehead with a thumb. “The weave is brittle on the south ridge, but it holds. Enough to mislead anyone who does not dig into the loam.” Just as she finished speaking, a distant, muffled gong echoed through the still morning air – a sound that usually heralded the arrival of the Winter Tithe inspectors, but never this early. Then, the rhythmic clang of armored boots on the gravel pathway below the hut grew steadily louder, accompanied by the familiar, sneering voice of Shao Feng-Jiao. His words, though indistinct, carried a clear tone of malicious glee. He was here, three days ahead of schedule, undoubtedly looking for revenge.

The Disgraced Elder's Array