The scent of ash and a faint, acrid tang of ozone clung to the air, thick enough to taste. Bai Ruhai, crouched beside a rough-hewn coffin of splintered pine, dabbed at his eyes with a corner of his threadbare tunic. His sobs were loud, ragged affairs, punctuated by gasps that sounded more like a pig snuffling for truffles than a man overcome with grief. Around him, the Terraced Fields of Mount Wuwang lay fallow, save for a solitary patch of brassica greens near the burial mound, their leaves a vibrant, defiant jade against the dusty grey soil. Three figures, clad in the pristine jade-green robes of the Heavenly Enforcers, stood an arrogant distance away. Their leader, a broad-shouldered man with a scar bisecting his left eyebrow, watched Ruhai with thinly veiled impatience. This was Protector Jin, known for his unyielding adherence to the Sacred Edicts. Beside him, a younger guard idly nudged a stray clod of earth with the toe of his boot. “My master, oh, my poor Master Lian!” Ruhai wailed, his voice cracking with an almost theatrical despair. He wrung his hands, then suddenly, his wailing ceased. He straightened, irritation twitching his brow as his gaze landed on a broken vegetable head, its outermost leaves crushed and torn. “Hold on a moment!” he snapped, his voice losing all its sorrowful quality. “You, with the fancy boots! Did you just step on my produce?” Jin’s brow furrowed. “Peasant, show some respect. We are here to oversee the disposal of an anomaly. Your ‘master’ was an unregistered heretic, his very existence a disruption to the Heavenly Harmony. Your paltry garden is of no concern.” “No concern?” Ruhai’s eyes, still wet from his performative tears, narrowed. He pointed a trembling finger at the damaged plant. “That, Jin, is a prize-winning crop of the Verdant Heart strain. Each head fetches three low-grade jade tokens in the market, even after the tithe. You’ve trampled a third of its yield, right there!” His loyal farmhand, Chu Da, a hulking man whose slack face rarely changed, shuffled closer, his shovel clutched in a calloused hand. “He’s right, boss. That one had good qi.” The younger guard scoffed, a sneer twisting his lips. “Three jade tokens? For a head of greens? Your insolence is as boundless as your poverty. Be grateful we allow you even this rudimentary burial for an agrarian deviant.” He took a step forward, his jade-green robes rustling, and deliberately crushed another crisp head under his boot. “Hey!” Ruhai exploded, scrambling to his feet. “That’s four tokens now! Are you trying to bankrupt me, you pampered brute? Do you know the labor that goes into tending such robust leafy greens? The precise application of nightsoil, the careful channeling of mountain run-off, the early dawns, the damp evenings… Every crisp vein proves honest sweat and back-breaking work!” Jin sighed with dry boredom. “Enough of this farce. The old man is dead, and his chaotic qi can no longer pollute the land. We have duties elsewhere. Consider the crushed stalk a levy for our trouble.” “A levy?” Ruhai’s ears flushed red with indignation. “You think you can just march onto my terrace, stomp my livelihood, and call it a tax? I haven’t seen one sliver of jade from the last harvest you so graciously assessed, and now this? For ruined crops, Jin, I demand compensation. Or, at the very least, a bow!” The swordsman’s hand flew to the hilt of his weapon, the polished jade scabbard reflecting the weak sunlight. “Insolent peasant! You dare demand an apology from an Enforcer of the Heavenly Dao? I’ll sever that hand before you sprout another syllable!” His blade shimmered as he drew it, its tip aimed directly at Ruhai’s wrist. Ruhai didn’t flinch. Instead, with a motion too fluid to follow, he bent, plucked something from the earth, and tossed it. It was a radish, still coated in dark soil, no bigger than a child’s fist. It arced lazily through the air, spinning end over end, before landing squarely in Feng’s open palm. The swordsman, caught off guard by the bizarre projectile, instinctively closed his fingers around it. For a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then, the radish glowed with an internal, searing white light. The enforcer's sneer froze as pure horror took its place. A low hum shuddered through the dry soil. The air crackled, the atmosphere bending violently around the swordsman. *BOOM!* The sound was not a mere explosion; it was the roar of a nascent star, the shattering of stone, the rending of the very heavens. A blinding flash engulfed the enforcer, followed by a concussive blast that knocked Jin and his surviving subordinate off their heels, snapping their hems back. Where the swordsman stood, there remained only a smoking trench, scorched earth, and a lingering stench of singed ozone and roasted turnip. Not an ash flake of the man remained, save for a faint wisp of green steam drifting into the sky. Ruhai dusted his palms against his thighs, frowning at the crater. “Honestly, the cost of manure these days is outrageous. I’m going to dip into my stash for another batch of seeds. He could have just paid for the greens.” He glanced at the scorched ditch, then back at Jin, who stood rigid, grey skin taut beneath his scar. “Four jade shards, officer. Plus the cost of my radish. Let’s say… ten for the grief? Or would you prefer another levy?” Ruhai’s smile, when it came, was wide and utterly disarming, a flash of teeth that held no warmth at all. A shadow fell over the Terraced Fields. The bright afternoon light abruptly dimmed, as if a colossal hand had covered the sun. A whistling shriek descended from the heavens, growing louder, faster. The air vibrated with dense pressure that rattled the surviving stems. Then, with a deafening *CRACK* that split the sky, a streak of brilliant silver sword-light slammed into the terraced plot, blasting up a plume of dry dirt and shredded stalks. At its center, a figure stood, slender and rigid, a longsword held loosely in one hand. Her robes were dyed the color of twilight, her jaw set as sharp as the steel she bore. Lin Feiyan, the disgraced Sword Saint, had arrived.

The Cabbage and the Coffin