CHAPTER X — Hinter Whispers, Crucible’s Birth
1587 Words
The Shen dynasty’s storm-tossed dreadnought steadied, barely, on the patriarch’s failing breath. Eagle’s Aerie’s blood was scrubbed away; its icy press release cast upon media tides like chum. The gale hadn’t died—merely plunged to crushing depths.
Northwest Shen estate: Pinewhisper Courtyard.
A misnomer.
Walls lay scabbed with dead ivy. Twisted locust trees clawed up through cracked flagstones, roots bared like knucklebones in frozen mud. Knee-high weeds choked the yard; half a structure slumped, windows shattered, door-hinges screaming like tortured souls. The air hung thick with dust-mold, sour rot, and decades of stagnant damp. Forgotten. Isolated. A dumping ground for broken tools too stubborn to discard entirely—Shen opulence’s festering appendix.
The main shack was Shen Yaoyang’s “munificent” gift to Qin Hao and Shen Qingwu. No repairs. Just a verdigris-encrusted key tossed like scraps to strays.
Qingwu lay curled on the room’s sole intact relic—a plank bed stinking of mildew and despair. Fresh gauze bloomed crimson at her temple. The Aerie’s tempest had shattered her; now, wrapped in a reeking quilt, the shards ground together—Shen Qingxue’s glacial curse, Qianqian’s sneers, the stench of blood and blaring alarms—a glacial shroud over her lungs.
Center yard. Thawing muck.
Qin Hao dropped the heavy canvas sack on grime-slick steps. His gaze swept the ruin: snow-gritted earth, loam beneath rotting leaves, a crumbling brick enclosure—a graveyard for dead flowers.
From the sack’s depths, he retrieved a tiny oilskin parcel. Unwrapped: desiccated stalks like contorted bone-fragments; a spiral-grained obsidian wood nugget; desiccated heart-seed kernels.
He handled this "detritus" with sacred care, scrutinizing each fissure in the fading light. Fingertips traced withered stems—a communion with slumbering ghosts.
Steward Zhou Fu materialized at the broken gate like an unearthed shade. Immaculate grey frock coat. Rosewood food casket clutched like a reliquary. Disgust flickered as he scanned the squalor—lingering on the muddied sack, then Qin Hao’s clutch of grave-weeds.
“Best secure your treasures, sir,” his voice cracked, sharp as shingle, pitched to pierce the shack’s thin walls. “Such ill-omened things… defile our Shen prosperity! Fragile as Qingwu lady is—” He spat “our Shen” like venom, eyes icing Qin Hao as unwelcome as rot.
Qin Hao’s thumb paused on the obsidian root-grain. Not a glance. He re-wrapped the herbs with care, stood.
Zhou Fu’s smirk hardened. He cranked false reverence louder: “Patriarch’s grace! Swallow’s nest ginseng soup—to soothe Qingwu lady’s shock! Insisted it be delivered!”
He stomped to the warped door. Thunked the fine casket onto the grimy threshold—a punctuation of disdain. A nose-wrinkle at the yard’s reek; hands dusted with theatrical revulsion. Back rigid with contempt, he vanished into deepening gloom.
Silence reclaimed the yard. Wind sobbed through broken lattices.
Inside, Qingwu flinched at Zhou Fu’s knife-edged charity. Shame and ice crawled up her spine. Leftovers. Qingxue’s declaration echoed. Lips bled against the quilt’s rough weave.
Outside—
Qin Hao stood beneath the skeletal locust tree.
Night.
Absolute. Pinewhisper drowned in ink, save for sickly moon-glow on crusted snow through broken slats.
Utter stillness.
Then—Qin Hao moved.
He shifted a lichen-skinned millstone slab beside the sunken brick pool—a miniature tarn of freezing mire.
From the sack, unlit, moon-cold fingers revealed—
An artifact.
Neither metal nor jade. Color: frozen firmament seeded with stygian gold dust.
Shape: Brutally archaic. A stone basin born when giants hewed mountains.
Tripodal legs:
One—a raptor’s talon locked on bedrock.
One—a coiling dragon poised to strike.
One—a gnarled root delving to the world’s core!
No embellishment adorned its belly—only crater-ice cracks, faintly seething with subviolet luminescence beneath the pallid moon.
Tri-Limbed Starfall Crucible.
He placed it on the millstone’s heart. No sound. No dust. Contact birthed a momentary flicker within its cracks—a leviathan stirring in dreamless sleep.
Next—the oilskin treasures:
A finger-joint of obsidian whorled wood (Shadowgnaw Heartwood).
Two desiccated heart-kernels (Abyssal Seeds).
Fragments of leaves, edges hinting at baleful gold (Solstice Leaf Scraps).
Placed within the crude basin with ritual precision.
*“Ignition.”*
A convoluted hand-seal.
Phut.
A bead of grave-cold azure flame bloomed on Qin Hao’s fingertip—ghost-light. Tiny. Solid. Biting to the bone.
It fell into the crucible.
Instantly—
*HUMMMMMM—*
The inert crucible shuddered. Its crater-scars blazed to life—a lattice of subviolet veins pulsing like awakened star-core! Converging power at three basal points:
*Gold-Scarlet! Abyssal-Azure! Void-Purple!*
A micro-star’s vortex ignited!
Herbal matter disintegrated—ground by unseen forces into luminous dust-streams! Swirled! Fused! An impossible scent blossomed above the crucible—transient dew-mist cut with tomb-chill—trapped in a fist of air above its maw!
Starlight churned within. Lethal. Exquisite. Unseen laws braided and clashed! The withered root stirred—a phantom-glimmer of earthen gold wrenched free, fed the whirling nexus!
The crucible’s subviolet veins blazed! Palpable dread rippled out! Rotting leaves leapt, swirling around stone and starlight!
Inside—
Qingwu’s sightless eyes snapped wide.
No sound. No smell.
Tsunami. Soul-deep.
Her inner world—
The courtyard?
Deeper.
The leylines!
Wrenched awake!
As if a slumbering primeval colossus, vast as continents forged in stellar fire, had shifted its volcanic bulk beneath her!
Scalding yang—a conflagration to immolate creation!
Twined with glacial yin—cold to still a galaxy’s spin!
Anchored by the earth’s core-pulse—primordial, indomitable!
Three primal contradictions: opposing, merging!
From the yard’s heart!
A leviathan’s heartbeat:
*THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!*
Cosmic anvil weight!
Smashed through her psyche!
*“Kh…!”*
She convulsed. Hands clamped temples. The half-healed wound flared anew—soul-tearing pressure!
Yet—
Within that agony—
Deep within her dantian—
The glacial prison of her Nine Yin Meridian core—
CRACKED.
A hairline fracture!
A ripple—microscopic, purest yin-chill—escaped!
*Vmmmm…*
That minuscule ripple—
A sympathetic tremor—
*Synced!*
With the tripartite pulse!
For one breath—
Resonance!
Qingwu’s pain-twisted features went slack.
Vision changed.
Not sound. Not touch.
The center yard blazed—not light—pure energy: gold-scarlet, abyssal-azure, void-purple—a cosmic blaze!
Its heart:
An archaic colossus—a tripod forged from swirling subviolet star-shards! Churning fires: Unworldly! Around it—invisible, but felt—torrents of primordial force: ripped! Refined! Condensed!
Forging a microcosmic core—a nascent star’s cradle!
Below the crucible—
Qingwu’s breath died.
The figure in the worn jacket! No longer dim shape!
Mountain incarnate! Rooted to the planet’s bones!
Veins of ochre earth-power—ancient dragons roused! Surged up stone-ankles!
Poured through him!
Fed the starlit crucible!
The dragon-currents roared! Sucked the courtyard’s lifeforce dry! A vortex of staggering force!
Worse—infinitely worse—
Above the mountainous shadow—
Beyond perceived cosmos—
Three rivers of pure law ripped reality’s fabric:
Star-scorching Solar Fury!
Cosmos-freezing Nether Breath!
Entropy’s Grey Desolation!
Cascading cataracts!
Into the figure’s grasp!
Threaded to his fingertips!
Guiding the stellar furnace!
*He… What?*
Her mind imploded. Soul-scaled power threatened to burst fragile sanity! Terror! Stunned incomprehension!
*Resonance snapped.* Vision shattered!
Reality crashed back—magnified agony! She spasmed violently! Temple gauze—fresh crimson bloom!
*THOOM-KRACK!!!*
Inside the crucible—
The compressed essence-core—seared by tripartite law-fires—
Detonated!
A single point of impossible prismatic iridescence!
The crucible’s subviolet veins erupted—star-death implosion!
Then—ALL light extinguished!
*PHUFF.*
The crucible settled.
Within its belly—
Nine seeds…
Jet. Pitted. Charcoal-like slag.
No radiance.
Stench erupted—overpowering!
Carrion filth + scorched offal + mulch decay!
A plague-stink swallowed the courtyard!
Vile! Mind-reeling!
Qingwu gagged—stomach wrenching. The contrast—cosmic revelation to this pestilence—horrified.
Qin Hao acted as if tidying a shed.
Rough fingers scooped the stinking slag-beads.
Pinched.
*Crunch.*
Fine, malodorous cinders.
Dumped into a rain-grime-filled urn—discarded rubbish.
He scooped the fouled crucible. Sluiced its inner heat-stain with ice-marsh water from the stone pond (surface ice shattered earlier by imperceptible force) into a crude, grease-crusted clay bowl. Void-cold slurry met mundane sludge.
The crucible, restored to mundane ruin, vanished into the canvas sack. Millstone shifted aside. Sack shouldered.
He turned towards the hovel.
*Skreeee—*
A dying hinge-cry.
As the warped door opened—stink-blast engulfing the shack—Qin Hao’s step vibrating the plank bed—
Deep in Shen manor’s warmth.
Shen Yuehan reclined on carved zitan. Sable furs. Sallow skin. Scanning damage-control reports. Calming sandalwood smoke.
*SNAP!*
His body locked rigid!
An icicle pierced his heart! Clawed hand clutched chest! Terror! Primal! Deep as bone-marrow!
Not pain. Not frailty.
Predator scent. His soul recoiled.
He lurched upright. Sunken eyes—terror-virulent—stabbed towards the blacked-out northwest wing!
Nothing. Just hungry dark.
But the dread… cold sweat beading his yellowed brow… the hammering of his damaged heart beneath the furs…
*What abomination lurks there?!*
Fingernails tore velvet. Sandalwood smelled suddenly… cloying. Death-sweet.
Only his panicked heartbeat remained.
Taut hide drums in the void.
- Writer
