The reverberations of Zong Wuhen’s decree faded into an echoing silence that pressed down on the valley. Bai Ruhai finally straightened, a fine tremor running through his frame. His hand went to his ear, where a slow, dark trickle of blood stained his thumb. He wiped it casually on his worn tunic. “Honestly, these Daoists. Always so dramatic. Couldn’t they just send a polite cease-and-desist letter?” He offered a wobbly, saccharine smile to Feiyan, who still stood frozen, her silver sword-light having dimmed to a dull sheen. Her gaze, however, was fixed on the blood, then on the distant, pulverized peak, and finally on Ruhai’s exhausted face. The cheerful mask was back, but it felt thin, brittle. The raw vulnerability she’d witnessed, the immense power he’d channeled, the cost… it warred with everything she’d been taught about anomalies and their deserved fate. “Well, don’t just stand there, Sword Saint,” Ruhai chirped, a little too brightly. “We’ve got three days. That means three days to double our harvest, or we’ll starve before those Celestial clowns even get here. I need to check the southern terraces, ensure the soil hasn’t been too… *over-aerated*.” He gestured vaguely towards the crater where Old Man Feng’s beanstalks once stood. “Chu Da, you keep an eye on our distinguished guest. Make sure she pulls those weeds properly. And don’t forget to water the gourds.” Chu Da, who had been staring blankly at the sky as if watching a flock of invisible birds, nodded slowly. “Gourds. Big gourds.” He lumbered off towards a patch of sprawling vines, abandoning Feiyan to the unsettling quiet. Ruhai, after a final, unreadable glance, strode away, whistling a jaunty tune that did little to mask the subtle stiffness in his gait. Feiyan watched him go, a knot tightening in her gut. *Anomalies*. The word Zong Wuhen had used. The very reason she had been sent here. Yet, observing Bai Ruhai, witnessing the genuine, if twisted, care he showed for his soil and his hulking farmhand… it chipped away at the rigid doctrines of the Scarlet Blade Temple. The cultivators of the orthodox path preached order and purity, yet their ‘cleansing’ had felt anything but. It felt like wanton destruction, like a cruel joke. And the way Ruhai had bled, the pain etched on his face… that wasn’t the cold, chaotic energy of an anomaly. That was the strain of defending something precious. Her eyes fell on the ramshackle shed near the edge of the plots, its wooden door slightly ajar. Ruhai had vanished into it only briefly after arriving, and rumour among the other farmers claimed it housed his most potent ‘fertilizers’ and ‘seed stock’. A strange curiosity, sharper than any craving for honor, pulled her. If Ruhai was more than a mere farmer, what secrets did he hide in that shed? She moved with the silent grace of a predator, her steps barely stirring the dust. The shed’s interior was dim, smelling of rich earth, dried herbs, and something metallic, like old blood. Farming implements hung on the walls – hoes, rakes, spades, all well-used but meticulously cared for. Then, tucked beneath a pile of hessian sacks, she saw it: a small, lacquered wooden box. It felt out of place amidst the rustic tools. Hesitantly, she opened it. Inside lay a stack of leather-bound notebooks, their pages brittle with age. The first page she opened bore elegant, spidery script, undeniably her former master, Elder Yuan’s, handwriting. But it wasn’t Elder Yuan’s usual botanical observations. This was a ledger of spiritual qi convergences, ley line disruptions, and… *ignition points*. Her gaze skimmed down a page, throat drying. “*The Luminous Radish, Phase Seven: Subterranean deployment along the Dragon’s Vein nexus. Each node, disguised as a common weed, will draw ambient qi, forming a delayed chain reaction. Estimated yield: a localized tremor, sufficient to destabilize the Sky-Vault Bastion*.” Sky-Vault Bastion. That was the primary fortress of the Heavenly Dao wardens. Her fingers trembled as she flipped through the papers. They contained a meticulously detailed blueprint for a realm-wide, catastrophic explosive array, disguised as a network of ‘weeds’ and ‘crops’ across the very land she stood on. These were not mere radishes; they were living bombs, each ‘weed’ a subterranean fuse, all interconnected, all building towards a cataclysmic detonation. Another passage jumped out at her, penned in Elder Yuan’s agitated hand: “*The Scarlet Blade Temple’s complicity sickens me. They claim to uphold the Dao, yet they sanctioned the purging of the Verdant Heart school, dismissing our cultivation as ‘mundane deviations.’ Their lust for spiritual qi dominance blinds them to the true balance. Their hands are stained with the blood of innocents, my students… and soon, mine too. Ruhai, my boy, remember the harvest.*” Feiyan felt a cold dread settle in her stomach. Her own sect. The righteous upholders of the Sword Dao. They had not merely overlooked an injustice; they had *sanctioned* it. They were complicit in the murder of Bai Ruhai’s teacher, in the destruction of the Verdant Heart school. The man she was sent to kill, the ‘anomaly’, was merely seeking vengeance for a crime her own order had committed. The world, as she knew it, was a lie. Just then, the familiar, off-key whistling grew closer. Ruhai was returning. Panic flared, but Feiyan suppressed it. She couldn’t let him know she knew. Not yet. She quickly replaced the booklets, closed the box, and slipped back out, moving to the boundary ditches, feigning deep thought while yanking a stubborn patch of grass. Her mind raced, piecing together the true scope of Ruhai’s revenge, the devastating scale of it. It wasn't just the arbiters; it was the entire system. And the cost… the entire realm. Ruhai approached, a basket of freshly picked, blood-purple radishes slung over his shoulder. “Ah, Sword Saint, still pondering the deeper meaning of crabgrass?” He chuckled, but his eyes, sharp and intelligent, seemed to probe her. “I see you’ve managed to pull… three entire weeds. At this rate, we’ll be purified by the Dao before the sun sets tomorrow.” Feiyan turned, her face a mask of carefully controlled emotion. “Bai Ruhai,” she began, her voice low, “what you are planning… it will destroy more than just your enemies. It will unravel the very fabric of Jinyang.” Ruhai’s smile faltered, a flicker of something dark crossing his eyes. “Planning? Sword Saint, I’m planning my next fertilizer rotation. Perhaps you’ve inhaled too much dust? Or perhaps, your illustrious sect has finally started training you to sniff out imaginary plots instead of just swinging your sword at peasants?” “Don’t play coy,” Feiyan pressed, stepping closer, her voice urgent. “I know about the journals. I know about the ‘weeds’ and the ‘harvest’. I know about the Verdant Heart school and the Scarlet Blade Temple’s involvement. This isn’t vengeance; it’s suicide! And it will condemn us all!” She reached out, her hand hovering, wanting to grasp his arm, to shake him out of his deadly delusion. “Please, Ruhai. There has to be another way. Abandon this. Let me help you find retribution, a true reckoning, not this… this madness.” The air between them drew taut as coiled wire. For a moment, Ruhai looked almost… pained. His cheerful mask slipped, revealing a raw, haunted expression. Then, it snapped back into place, harder, colder than before. He recoiled from her outstretched hand as if burned. “Justice?” Ruhai scoffed, a cruel, mocking laugh escaping his lips. “What would a disgraced, exiled Sword Saint know about righting wrongs? Your ‘honor’ was stripped from you, wasn’t it? Cast out like a broken blade, fit only to kill poor farmers. Perhaps you’re just jealous, Sword Saint. Jealous that a mere peasant like me can concoct a plot more intricate and devastating than any grand scheme your ‘righteous’ sect could ever dream of.” His words were like daggers, each one aimed at the deepest wound in her pride, laced with a venom she hadn't known he possessed. “Don’t pretend to care, Lin Feiyan. Your concern is as hollow as your reputation. Go back to your weeds. They’re far less complicated than my ‘madness’.” Feiyan froze, her hand dropping, her face paling. His words, sharp and deliberate, bit into bone. He had seen past her carefully constructed composure, past her facade of righteous indignation, and had struck directly at her most vulnerable point. The plea for connection, for understanding, withered under his brutal mockery. He had pushed her away with surgical precision, stranding her stunned in the dust. Later that night, the moon hung like a sliver of bone in the dark sky. Ruhai, unable to sleep, walked the quiet furrows. The memory of Feiyan’s hurt expression gnawed at him, a dull ache he tried to ignore. He had to do it. He had to push her away. Attachment was a weakness, a luxury he couldn’t afford. His dead mentor's vengeance demanded everything. As he neared the edge of the farm, a faint, rhythmic retching sound reached his ears. He quickened his pace, a colder dread seizing his gut. It was Chu Da, standing alone amidst a patch of night-blooming orchids. His eyes were wide open, glazed over, completely black – not the momentary shift from before, but a swirling, abyssal darkness. He was sleepwalking. From his mouth, Chu Da wasn’t vomiting bile, but a thick, viscous, iridescent sludge that shimmered with sickly purples and greens. The orchids it touched withered instantly, curling into ash. As Ruhai watched, horrified, a barely visible ripple in the air beside Chu Da solidified into the faint outline of a cloaked figure – a tribunal scout, their spiritual qi signature faint, but undeniably present. The figure had been observing Chu Da, no doubt drawn by his strange aura. Before Ruhai could even shout, before the spy could react, a stream of the primordial sludge arced from Chu Da’s mouth, striking the scout. There was no scream, no struggle. The cloaked figure dissolved, not burned, not melted, but simply *unmade*, their very essence erased, surrendering only a faint, acrid wisp of smoke that dispersed into the night air. Chu Da, his eyes still black, coughed, a gurgling sound escaping him, before he collapsed, falling into a deep, heavy slumber, a small puddle of the horrifying sludge gleaming innocently beside him in the moonlight. Ruhai stared at the spot where the scout had stood, then at his sleeping farmhand, the monstrous truth of Chu Da’s nature laid bare. The vessel of a primordial horror. His loyal, dim-witted friend. He had to make a choice, and the cold steel of it already formed in his mind: kill his only friend, or risk unleashing a creature that made the Enforcers seem like harmless gnats, a creature that could obliterate the realm before his revenge even began. He reached for the hidden blade at his belt.

Fertilizer and Phantoms