The visitor took an aggressive step toward Lin Wanxiao, fingers stretching to grip her sleeve.
But before his fingers could even brush the delicate silk of her sleeve, a blur of shadow intersected his path. He Lianjue moved with the swiftness of a hunting falcon, his dark robes a ripple of night. He didn't speak, didn’t posture. His left hand seized the silk-clad arm, twisting the wrist outward until bone popped and the intruder yelped. His right hand, equally decisive, clamped around the royal collar.
He Lianjue leveraged his hip and hoisted the intruder clean off the flagstones. Embroidered yellow hem fluttering, the imperial heir hung suspended like a wet carp. Then, with a flick of He Lianjue’s wrist, the imperial figure was launched in a graceful, if undignified, arc. He landed with a resounding *sploosh* into the largest vat of fresh, bubbling Yin-Yang Mortar that sat conveniently nearby, awaiting the next batch of foundation stones.
Thick, grey paste splattered across the noble's silken topknot down to his boots. He hacked, spitting chunks of wet lime and aggregate as his robes turned foul and dripping.
“You… you *barbarian*!” the boy shrieked, skidding against the curved wood of the vat. “Do you know who I am? I am the heir to the Grand Xia Dynasty! You dare lay a hand—!”
Lin Wanxiao, meanwhile, surveyed the scene with a critical eye. “Excellent form, Demonic cultivator,” she commented, completely ignoring the spluttering prince. “The arc was clean, and the lime seems to be binding along his circulation paths nicely.” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully, addressing the flailing nobleman. “Your lower channels show calcification from limestone sediment. Try cold meditation and abstaining from company for three seasons; it clears blocks caused by grandstanding.”
The sodden royal froze mid-thrash. His jaw hung slack, speckled with drying aggregate. The suggestion of celibacy, delivered with such clinical sincerity, was perhaps a greater insult than the dunking itself. Young Master Jin, who had been gaping, barely managed to stifle a choked laugh, quickly turning it into a cough when He Lianjue shot him a withering look. He Lianjue himself simply folded his arms, a ghost of a self-satisfied smirk playing on his lips, his gaze fixed on Wanxiao as if she had just declared her undying devotion to him.
While curses rained from the mortar vat, Su Qingluo slipped silently to Wanxiao's flank. She carried a lacquer tray balanced with three porcelain cups of pale infusion. “My Lady,” she murmured, her voice a soothing counterpoint to the escalating chaos. “The day’s labors are arduous. A moment of respite, perhaps?” She offered one cup to Wanxiao, tilted a second toward He Lianjue, and extended the third toward the vat, where the dripping heir merely glared.
Wanxiao accepted the cup, the warmth seeping into her hands. She took a slow, appreciative sip, the earthy notes of the Sky-Bloom herbs a familiar comfort. But as the liquid flowed over her tongue, her brow furrowed, almost imperceptibly. A faint, metallic aftertaste lingered, subtle enough to be dismissed by most, but not by her. Her palate caught an ashen grit beneath the floral notes, chalky and dead. Rot in the subterranean marrow. The taste matched stale mineral runoff from poisoned granite.
She lowered the cup, her expression serene, though her mind raced. Someone had tampered with the deep runoff. And not in a sudden, explosive manner, but with a gradual, systemic decay. Was it in the water used for the tea? Or was the herb plot taking taint from spoiled soil? Her gaze flickered to Su Qingluo, whose gentle smile remained unwavering. No, this tea was prepared carefully. The Leyline Rot wasn't *in* the ingredients, it was *from* the water. From the bedrock itself.
“A fine brew, Qingluo,” Wanxiao said, her voice even. “I suddenly feel an urge to inspect the lower irrigation channels. Perhaps the new construction has affected the water flow.” It was a transparent excuse, but delivered with such earnestness that only He Lianjue looked at her with suspicion, probably attributing her sudden departure to some obscure romantic impulse.
Wanxiao set her cup aside and slipped away from the vat. She took the gravel track skirting the western ridge, picking her way down toward the sealed fault line. Beneath the granite roots lay the central fault chamber, where the ridge's azure veins normally pooled in deep subterranean silence.
Damp air smelled of cold copper and wet moss rather than kiln smoke. The passage was a split seam behind hanging bryophytes, masked by old ward-stones. She brushed past root tendrils into the dim rock hollow.
The hollow widened into a natural dome. Emerald bands laced the stone walls, pooling into an azure basin that rippled with unspent charge. But as she drew closer, the metallic tang from the tea became more pronounced. There, carved around the bedrock font, ran an interlocking lattice of black gouges meant to choke the natural flow. A sabotage array. And within its complex geometry, she recognized faint, almost erased etchings. The distinctive sigil of the Golden Crow Sect, faded but undeniable. Someone had traded sect layouts to rivals.
Bedrock groaned overhead. A tremor, more violent than any natural quake, ripped through the earth. Dust and pebbles rained from the ceiling, followed by larger chunks of rock. The sabotage array, pushed beyond its limits, was failing, destabilizing the very core of the mountain. Fractures split the luminescent stone veins, and the floor pitched violently underfoot.
A cascade of massive boulders detached from the ceiling, plunging towards the central node. Wanxiao cast an azure ward overhead, but tons of falling slate shattered it instantly. The entire hollow caved in. A heavy slab of rock slammed down, cutting off the light from the entrance, plunging her into utter darkness.
“Ah, a classic subterranean cave-in!” a voice echoed, surprisingly close in the sudden, echoing gloom. “Truly, the universe conspires to throw us into the most dramatic of predicaments, my fragrant lotus. A desperate struggle for survival, isolated from the world, in the arms of one’s destined protector…”
He Lianjue’s voice, a deep rumble against the groaning rock, was laced with an unmistakable, almost gleeful, romanticism. He was here. And tons of shale continued to rain into the dark.