“Baozi,” Zou Yan said, his tone dry as kiln lime. The clay pug, dozing beside a shimmering pond, twitched an ear. Its porcelain tail gave a slow thump against the flagstones. “It’s time to show them what a true Gatekeeper can do.” Baozi yawned, a wide, pink maw revealing tiny, sharp teeth, and then stretched, shaking off flecks of iridescent moss. Its dark, bead-like eyes glittered with ravenous relish. *‘Finally, Master! Less moping, more locking! My tummy rumbles for their arrogance!’* The distant gong of the ‘Molten Hearth Conclave,’ the Radiant Kiln Sect’s tournament for smiths, vibrated across the hidden sanctuary. It was a spectacle designed to showcase the Inner Sect’s prodigious talents, a grand display for visiting dignitaries from the Azure Cloud Peaks and the Jade Serpent Pavilion. Elder Luo Qixing presided from the upper platform, expecting Feng Mian to dominate the contest with an unblemished vessel. Zou Yan shifted his awareness outward. His perception, once chained to the mortar grit under his fingernails, unfurled through stone and mortar, latching onto every doorway, hinge, and warped boundary within the mountain. The Outer apprentices fretted in their sweltering perimeter trench, while the Inner ring competitors preened below the pavilion. Luo Qixing, seated on a raised dais adorned with gleaming jade, projected an aura of self-importance that nearly made Baozi sneeze from afar. Feng Mian stood by his assigned smelting tub, preening before the gallery. Bronze gongs bellowed the opening trial: cast a ‘Spirit-Sealing Bell’ of clear tone before a single incense stick burned to ash. A hundred contenders stepped up to their stone benches, each post fitted with a smelting pot, an array of elemental foci, and an interspatial band holding their shaping mallets and ore. Elder Luo Qixing declared from the dais, “Let the fires ignite! Let the metal sing! May the craft guide your hands!” One by one, the contenders reached for their firebox hatches, ready to wake the blaze beneath. From his mossy alcove, Zou Yan simply thought, *‘No.’* The foremost smith tugged at her iron hatch. The latch sat dead. She wrenched both wrists against the bronze lip, but the seam remained seamless granite, deaf to her circulation of Qi. Murmurs rustled among the visiting emissaries. Feng Mian strutted over to his own hearth, where a beast-maw relief guarded the opening, and yanked the handle. Nothing budged. He braced a boot against the plinth, veins bulging across his throat as he flooded the lock with raw spirit, but the seam had vanished into solid basalt. “What is this?” Feng Mian snarled into the quiet. He tapped the band on his thumb to draw his lava-tempered mallet. The rune stayed dark. The silver band sat on his skin like cold lead. Across the floor, apprentices slapped their palms against dead storage bands in frantic disbelief. Several fumbled at their sashes for water gourds to wet dry throats. Zou Yan murmured through the link, *‘Drink later.’* Feng Mian gripped the stopper of his obsidian flask and wrenched with both fists. The cork might as well have been welded shut. Veins swelled across his temples as he gnawed at the wooden cap, reduced to wrestling his own rations while chuckles broke out along the gallery. Elder Luo Qixing rose from his seat, knuckles white against the armrests. He knew this texture of blockage. It was no misaligned focal stone, but an absolute denial of thresholds that mocked his mastery. His gaze swept the stands, finding neither hidden formation flags nor stray spirit traces—only a floor of bewildered craftsmen and crumbling sect prestige. “Enough!” Luo Qixing roared, descending from the terrace. Crimson script burst from his knuckles, filling the arena with the stink of copper filings and fresh slaughter. These glyphs belonged to no kiln sect doctrine; they fed ravenously on the surrounding air, lashing out toward the hundred sealed fireboxes to rip their seams apart. The visiting elders recoiled. As the crimson ropes dragged at the hatches, the iron groaned against Zou Yan’s seals, giving voice to muffled, wailing undertones—not the ring of heated metal, but the smothered cries of trapped souls answering Luo's siphon.

Stealing the Spotlight