The Contribution Hall smelled of dried herbs, polished cypress, and copper ink. It was also deafeningly loud until the favored junior sister arrived through the carved archway, trailed by half the outer peak's senior apprentices. "Elder Qiu, please reconsider," Lin Feifei pleaded, her voice like wind chimes dipped in honey. Her hands clasped against her white silk sash, her almond eyes shiny with unshed pity. "Junior Sister Ning has suffered so much grief. Her seclusion... her refusal to accept sect duties... it is merely trauma. To formally petition for her demotion to an outer-tier scavenger would crush what remains of her spirit." At the central counter, Ning Weiying rubbed the corner of her left eye. The teacup before her was lukewarm. She had not slept, her ledger was only half-tallied, and her skull ached from the lingering image of the sky turning pitch black over the mountain. Beside her elbow, Tongban let out a wet, metallic croak. The brass toad’s lid of a mouth twitched, faceted ruby eyes fixed on the emerald tassel dangling from the girl's sash. "Quiet, pest," Weiying murmured. She did not bother to sit upright, propping her cheek upon a curled palm. "Sister Ning!" Lin Feifei turned toward her, gliding forward with calculated hesitation. The onlookers behind parted, murmuring sharp reproaches. "I tried to stop them. But the sect charter is clear. Three consecutive moons without turning in a single celestial talisman, monster horn, or herb voucher... the Azure Pavilion cannot shelter dead weight. Even Senior Brother Chu's influence cannot excuse total neglect." From the edge of the hall, Chu Tiankuo leaned against a pillar of black granite, his arms folded across his chest. His crimson robes bore fresh soot from the subterranean pits. His brows drew together, his mouth flattening into a line as he looked between the girl's performative trembling and Weiying's utter apathy. "Lin Feifei," Chu Tiankuo barked, his voice grating with impatience. "Don't drag my name into this farce. If she owes duties, she pays them. It has nothing to do with me." The heroine flinched delicately. "Tiankuo... I only thought—" "Did you bring the ledger or did you bring an audience?" Weiying asked. Her tone was completely flat. She sounded like an exhausted merchant speaking to a child who had brought river pebbles to buy gold. Lin Feifei’s lips trembled, playing her part to perfection for the onlookers muttering in the gallery. "Sister, do not be proud. If you simply apologize to the council and surrender your inner-court token, I will personally pay your outstanding quota for the season. You need only bow, accept the outer robes, and let us help you." Elder Qiu, an ancient man with a beard stained yellow from cinnabar fumes, cleared his throat. "Cultivator Ning. Sect doctrine stands clear. By decrees etched into the Foundation Stone, an inner rank holder who amasses zero merit over ninety days forfeits all status. Hand over your jade plaque." Weiying did not reach for her waist. She reached into her sleeve. She withdrew an unadorned iron ring—Mu Cangyuan’s ancestral treasury seal—and set it upon the polished desk. It met the timber with a heavy thud. Beside it, she tossed the three violet-silk bags Chu Tiankuo had thrown at her feet hours prior. "Elder Qiu," Weiying said, stifling a yawn against her knuckles. "What is the current exchange rate for unrefined high-grade spirit crystals to sect merit tally?" Elder Qiu frowned. "One crystal yields ten units. But that is an absurd question. An ordinary petitioner earns thirty units a month through blood and labor—" "Empty the bags," Weiying directed Tongban. The brass toad sprang. Its gullet expanded with an awful grinding sound, and it belched out a cascade of raw, blinding purple luminescence. The stones spilled across the table, cascading over the rim and rolling across the polished cedar floor. Each one was flawless, harvested from the deepest veins of the Scorched Earth Rift, humming with pure, volatile energy. Chu Tiankuo stiffened, his palms digging into his biceps. Those were the exact gems he had traded half his life's blood to unearth, tossed across the grain like common river gravel. Weiying then tapped the iron ring. "The Mu Clan treasury key carries a certified credit line against the Cloud Sea Bank. Authorize a transfer of four hundred thousand merits to this pavilion immediately." Elder Qiu stood up so quickly his stone inkwell tipped over, dark fluid pooling across his scrolls. "Four... four hundred thousand? Ning Weiying, this is an astronomical sum! You could buy three spirit vessels! You could buy—" "I don't want vessels," Weiying said. "I want sect rank. What does the charter say regarding direct capital endowment? Page seventy-four, clause nine. An endowment exceeding three hundred thousand merits grants the donor immediate ascension to an unaligned seat." Elder Qiu’s hands shook. He grabbed a brass stylus, clumsy as he plunged it into the central meridian tablet beneath the desk. The tablet flared brilliant gold. The air in the hall thickened, heavy with the absolute law of the sect’s founding ancestors. "Honorary... Honorary Elder," Qiu stammered, staring at the numbers flashing on the slate. "The title is granted. The status is... recognized by the mountain array." A heavy pulse of pressure descended from the vaulted ceiling. It was not Weiying's power; it was the ancient formation of the Azure Pavilion enforcing its own ironclad hierarchy. The spiritual gravity fell directly upon every junior in the hall whose standing fell beneath that of an Elder. Lin Feifei gasped. The force hit her shoulders like a falling boulder. Her knees buckled violently, slamming into the hard planks of the floor with a bone-jarring crack. Around her, forty sect peers collapsed like cut wheat, pressed flat under the sheer burden of ancestral law. Chu Tiankuo sank to one knee, his teeth grinding so hard they clicked, the veins on his neck bulging as he fought the ancient suppression, staring at Weiying with raw, bewildered fury. Weiying remained seated, entirely unaffected. She rested her chin back on her hand and looked down at the kneeling heroine. "You told me to bow," Weiying said mildly. "It appears the charter preferred you to do it instead." The maiden's mask shattered. Her sweet, tremulous sorrow vanished, replaced by an expression of pure, sulfurous hatred. Her face twisted, pale skin mottling with red blotches as she looked up from the floorboards, manicured nails clawing at the wood until they splintered. "You parasite," the girl hissed, her voice stripped of celestial grace. "You stole his wealth. You buy your life with other men's bones! You think stones can change your fate? You think you can escape the fire meant for you?" Her left hand jerked beneath her wide sleeve. A jagged black needle, carved from petrified lightning bone, snapped between thumb and knuckle. A sickening, greasy chill slid across the floor. Weiying felt no wind, but the shadow stretching behind her chair suddenly rippled. A black, oily filament darted through the wood, plunging straight into Weiying’s silhouetted form on the wall. The mark of the Tribulation Curse took hold like an iron barb hooking into her spiritual marrow. Above them, the ceiling groaned. The carved beams of the Contribution Hall did not just shudder; they splintered. Outside, the midday light vanished in an instant, snuffed out by an unnatural, suffocating void. A roar ripped through the atmosphere—not thunder, but the shrieking tear of reality splitting apart. A jagged spear of violet heavenly lightning punched straight through the mountain's defensive ward, fracturing the roof tiles and showering the hall in blinding, incandescent sparks as the Tribulation descended weeks before its time.

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