By ArkGodZ | DaoVerse Studio
The Eternal Flower Sect looked the same.
Stone walkways, tiled roofs, jasmine trees swaying under the morning light. But Jian Yu no longer walked within it.
He walked through it.
And the sect… moved aside.
No one bowed. No one dared speak. They simply stepped back—disciples, servants, even instructors drawn to his presence yet terrified to be close.
Qi pulsed beneath his feet in ripples, rising faintly through his skin. Every breath he took disturbed the balance of the air. Every glance from his golden eyes made petals stir. The wind didn't touch him anymore it followed him.
Yuan walked beside him, silent. Her lips pressed into a line, her posture firm, but her gaze... it shifted too often. Toward him. Away. Back again.
She remembered the forest.
The lotus blooming from untouched soil.The glow pulsing beneath his skin.The feeling—of the world not resisting his presence, but welcoming it.
The guards at the Hall of Returning Blossoms opened the doors without a word.
Inside, incense curled softly into the dim light. Four elders sat at the high platform in silence—Zhen among them, spine straight as stone, hands folded loosely in his lap.
Jian Yu stepped into the center of the chamber. The air grew denser the moment he entered, as if the Qi of the room recoiled and hesitated to settle.
Elder Zhen opened his eyes. His voice was calm, yet edged like a knife drawn partway from its sheath.
"You've returned, disciple Jian Yu."
"I have," Jian Yu replied, voice low but steady.
Another elder, robed in silver with hair tied in intricate knots, leaned slightly forward. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes held a sharp glint.
"You brought something back with you."
"I brought nothing," Jian Yu answered. "But something… followed."
From the shadows near the door, Yuan stepped forward. Her tone was firmer than expected.
"He didn't summon it. The forest answered him. The lotus—it bloomed at his presence. Not through Qi. Not command. It was... like recognition."
Elder Suen narrowed his gaze. "The lotus responded to him?"
Jian Yu nodded slowly. "It didn't just respond. It asked."
Elder Zhen's voice dropped. "Asked what?"
He looked directly at the elder. "What I wanted."
Zhen stared at him for a long moment. Then, in a tone as final as a stone door closing, he said, "Return to your quarters. Rest. Say nothing. Cultivate nothing. We will observe."
Yuan's feet shifted with protest. "Elder Zhen, with respect—what I saw was not something that should be observed from afar."
Another elder, the one clad in violet-trimmed robes, spoke without looking at her. "Flames must be watched closely, or they consume the house."
But Jian Yu, already turning to leave, paused and looked back once more.
"What if it doesn't want to be watched?" he asked softly. "What if it chooses to burn?"
There was no answer.
Only silence.
That night, the sect held its breath.
Jian Yu didn't return to his bed.
He sat cross-legged beneath the tree in his courtyard, his robe open at the chest, revealing the soft crimson glow beneath his sternum.
It pulsed like a heart.
Not his own.
The wind was still. The moon was high. The leaves didn't rustle—only watched.
He inhaled slowly.
And the world inhaled with him.
The Qi around him no longer waited for instruction. It circled him like an embrace, warm and coiling, brushing along his spine, trailing behind his ears, curling across his lips.
Every heartbeat made the air hum.
He wasn't summoning it.
It was courting him.
He pressed a hand to his chest.
"Why are you still here?" he whispered to the glow. "What are you becoming?"
No voice answered. But the pulse beneath his hand grew stronger.
And then—he wasn't under the tree anymore.
He stood in a sea of petals, crimson and black. The sky above him was cracked like porcelain, threads of golden light escaping through the breaks.
Nine doors stood before him. Eight familiar.
Flame. Water. Lightning. Earth. Wind. Light. Shadow. Death.
And a ninth—one that wasn't carved, but mirrored. A smooth obsidian slab with no handle.
His reflection stared back at him. But the eyes were different. Hungrier.
He stepped toward it.
As his fingers touched the surface, a voice not heard but felt whispered from within.
"Come inside. We already know what you are."
The petals on the ground curled upward, forming shapes—mouths, hands, eyes—then dissolved again.
He stepped through the door.
And the world vanished.
He woke just before dawn.
His body was damp with sweat, but his breathing was slow.
He rose.
Outside, the courtyard was already shifting.
Petals fell from trees without wind. The lanterns along the path burned a little brighter.
When he stepped into the garden, a servant paused mid-step, eyes wide.
The young boy dropped his tray, mouth trembling.
"I'm sorry, senior—!"
Jian Yu didn't speak.
He passed without looking.
And the broken tray slowly lifted from the ground.
By midday, the courtyard was buzzing with whispers.
Jian Yu's name lingered on every tongue—but not with admiration.
With uncertainty.
With weight.
With fear dressed as curiosity.
Wei Lin, proud and brash among the outer disciples, didn't whisper.
He shouted.
"He walks like a ghost! Doesn't speak. Doesn't train. And now the petals fall for him?"
The others looked away. A few warned him. One girl murmured that he should let it go.
Wei Lin stepped into the middle of the courtyard, lifted his voice, and called:
"Jian Yu!"
From the far walkway, he appeared.
Calm. Barefoot. Sleeves rolled. As if he had been waiting.
Wei Lin snorted.
"You think you're something now? Everyone's scared to say it, but I will. You don't belong here. You're not one of us."
Jian Yu's gaze held him, but his steps were light, fluid—closer now.
He said nothing.
Wei Lin raised a hand. "You want to prove it? Then stop hiding behind petals. Show us what you really are."
"All right," Jian Yu replied.
He stepped closer.
The air rippled.
Wei Lin took a step back involuntarily. His lips parted to speak—but the words didn't come.
Instead, he dropped to his knees.
Gasps spread like lightning.
He wasn't hurt. He wasn't even touched.
But he looked up at Jian Yu with eyes wide in panic.
"I… I saw her," he choked. "I saw my sister… crying… I never apologized…"
Jian Yu blinked once, then turned away.
The pressure lifted.
Wei Lin collapsed into sobs.
Yuan stepped into the courtyard just as the last whisper died. She walked up to Jian Yu, eyes sharp but unsure.
"That wasn't cultivation," she said quietly.
"I know," he replied.
"And it wasn't mercy either."
"No," he admitted. "It was… reflection."
That night, the Elders convened again.
For the first time in a decade, the Ritual of Petals was enacted outside the seasonal solstice.
A sign of unrest.
A sign of power.
In the lotus arena, nine petals shimmered on stone pedestals, each representing a path: Flame, Water, Wind, Earth, Shadow, Light, Ice, Thunder, Death.
But in the center—there was no petal.
Not yet.
Jian Yu walked barefoot into the circle.
He didn't bow.
He simply stood.
And then… it bloomed.
From the center.
A petal of black, veined with red.
The others began to fade.
Not burnt.
Not crushed.
Overwhelmed.
The petals wilted.
The light dimmed.
And still, Jian Yu stood unmoving, the lotus beneath him pulsing softly—alive, and watching.
The Elders didn't speak.
But across their faces, the truth could be read.
One was afraid.
One fascinated.
One calculating.
And Zhen… still as stone, but his fingers curled slightly, for the first time in years.
The ritual was not a success.
Nor a failure.
It had simply become something else.
Later, beneath the Moon Tree, Jian Yu sat with Yuan.
They didn't speak for a while.
When she finally broke the silence, her voice was low.
"You're not the same."
"No," he said. "I'm not sure who I am now."
"You're not afraid," she observed.
"I am," he admitted. "But not of losing control. I'm afraid of what I might understand… and still choose."
Yuan turned her head toward him.
"Then choose right," she whispered.
Jian Yu looked up at the night sky, and for a moment, the stars pulsed in the same rhythm as the lotus in his chest.
Far away, beneath a ruined temple lost to history, a stone cracked open.
A glowing root slithered out—black, pulsing, ancient.
In the darkness, something awoke.
Not with anger.
With memory.
"It begins again…"
End of Chapter
Next Chapter: CHAPTER 12 — The Gaze Beneath the Petals
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