Okay. Okay. Say something, Shenyan. Say anything. Anything that doesn't sound like you've been secretly training with deity behind everyone's back and just caught a cup in midair like some martial arts master.
He cleared his throat. His father was still staring at him, expression unreadable—just the weight of confusion and decades of fatherhood pressing down on Shenyan's very soul.
"Xuanzi."
No response.
"Don't you dare do this. Don't go silent on me. Help."
Nothing. No sarcastic comment. No dramatic sigh. No insult.
Traitor.
Shenyan blinked, brain whirling at a thousand useless excuses per second.
"I… uh… maybe I was… possessed by a ghost?"
The Emperor blinked.
"I mean, not like a scary ghost. A helpful ghost! Like—like a reflex ghost. They sneak into your joints and help with, you know, catching stuff. It's a known phenomenon."
Still no laugh. Just silence.
Shenyan felt his spine liquefy under the tension.
"…Or maybe it was all the offerings I made to goddess Guanyin."
He chuckled. It came out weird.
Still nothing from his father.
He tried again, a half-smile twitching on his lips. "Or maybe I'm secretly an immortal and you just forgot to tell me."
Silence.
One that spoke loudly.
"Father?" Shenyan asked weakly.
The Emperor didn't say anything. Just looked at him—really looked at him. Not with disappointment, not even suspicion. Just… confusion and....guilt?
Was it the terrible joke?
The sheer audacity of being cheerful?
I swear if I survive this I will donate all my silk robes to charity and thank heavens with in a thousand poems. I'll even learn mantras. So help me Xuanzi.
Still no help.
At last, the Emperor exhaled, setting his cup down.
"…It's okay. You're dismissed."
Shenyan didn't wait.
He bowed with all the sincerity of a man being pardoned from a beheading, and nearly tripped over his robes trying to get out.
If speed was a virtue, I am now a saint, he thought, rushing back to his quarters, heart pounding and mind still spinning.
And the second he shut the doors behind him—
"NOW you want to be silent?!" he hissed aloud.
---
Shenyan flopped onto his cushions dramatically the moment the door clicked shut.
"Of course this disgraced deity can't help when needed" he snapped into the air.
Silence.
Then, a beat later—
"Oh, I heard you called for me."
Shenyan groaned. "Oh, now you heard me? When my father was looking at me like I'd sprouted horns and caught a divine peach mid-fall, you were nowhere to be found!"
"You handled it so good. I didn't want to interrupt."
"Handled it?" Shenyan scoffed. "I told him I might be possessed by a reflex ghost. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?"
"Adorablyridiculous," Xuanzi said with a grin in his voice. "Very typical for you."
Shenyan didn't reply. He just sighed, pulling a brush through his loosened hair. "I almost blew it. I shouldn't have caught that cup."
"But you did. Because your body is adapting, whether you like it or not."
Before Shenyan could respond, a sound broke through the room—soft, steady footsteps beyond the corridor. He paused.
His brows furrowed, lips parting slightly.
"…Someone's coming," he muttered, voice low.
He rose, adjusting his robes quickly, and moved to the door with caution.
As he opened it, he blinked.
There, framed by the warm lantern light of the hall, stood Prince Shenglie.
"…Dàgē?" Shenyan murmured, startled.
His older brother, the ever-distant and serious Crown Prince, looked composed as always—but there was something… different in his eyes. Something quieter. Softer.
"Can I come in?" Shenglie asked.
Shenyan hesitated for a heartbeat, then stepped aside. "Of course."
Once inside, Shenglie lingered for a moment, glancing around the room like he didn't quite know how to start. Shenyan waited, unsure. This was new.
"…I wanted to check on you," Shenglie said at last, voice steady but sincere. "You disappeared on your birthday. The entire palace was in an uproar."
Shenyan said nothing, unsure where this was going.
"And…" Shenglie continued, "about what happened that night. Outside the palace."
Shenyan's shoulders stiffened.
"I know Renzhi attacked you," his brother said simply. "I've already punished him. He's been stripped of his honorary post and forbidden from entering the inner palace."
Shenyan's lips parted slightly, surprised.
"I should've stepped in sooner," Shenglie said, finally looking him in the eye. "I haven't… exactly been the kind of brother you could rely on. And I know I haven't done much to make you believe I care. But I do. I always have."
Shenyan looked at him quietly, words caught somewhere in his throat.
"…Thank you, dàgē," he finally said, voice soft. "That… means more than you think."
They stood in silence for a moment, two princes in a quiet room where everything felt strangely different.
Then Xuanzi whispered inside Shenyan's head.
"...I guess you have one good person in your family."
Shenyan coughed into his sleeve to hide his laugh.
Shenyan thought the conversation was over.
The air between them had lightened, just enough for him to breathe easy again. His brother's visit—as unexpected as it was—felt like a sliver of warmth he didn't known he needed. He was ready to settle back into casual chatter, maybe even laugh awkwardly about the past.
But then—
"Renzhi said you struck him," Shenglie said calmly. "That he barely got a chance to raise his sword before you landed a hit."
Shenyan froze. Becoming a cultivator sure is hard
His heart stuttered once. Then, smoothly—too smoothly—he began to speak.
"…Me? Dàgē, how could I? You of all people know—I've never trained in martial arts. I can't even hold a sword properly. I've always been the sickly one. My body's weaker than water."
He let out a breathy, almost self-deprecating chuckle.
"I probably bruised myself walking into the table this morning."
Shenglie looked at him for a long moment, unreadable.
Then simply said, "Okay."
No challenge. No further questions. Just… acceptance.
Too easy, Shenyan thought. Suspicion crawled under his skin, but the warmth still lingered. His brother had come, had defended him, had not pressed the blade too far. Maybe that was enough.
After a moment of quiet, Shenyan found himself asking, "Where were you going, anyway? Before you decided to drop by."
Shenglie turned toward the door. "To the Royal Library. The… Archive of Ten Thousand Petals."
Shenyan raised an eyebrow. "That place with all the dusty scrolls and serious guards who look like they haven't blinked in a decade?"
A faint smile tugged at the crown prince's lips. "Yes. That one."
"Can I come?" Shenyan asked, a little too quickly.
Shenglie paused.
Then nodded once. "If you don't touch anything fragile."
"No promises," Shenyan said with a grin.
And so, with a surprising lack of ceremony, the two brothers left together—one holding a lie in his mouth, the other holding secrets in his silence.
The Archive of Thousand Petals was quiet. Sacred quiet. Not the kind of silence Shenyan liked, but the kind that made you feel like the books were breathing down your neck, watching you mispronounce a name or accidentally sneeze on a scroll.
He followed Shenglie through rows of towering shelves until they reached a secluded corridor—a space reserved for records so ancient, even time had grown respectful.
"Here," Shenglie said, "the scrolls you'd find here aren't just stories. They're what the Empire calls 'select truths.'"
Shenyan frowned. "Is that supposed to be poetic or political?"
Shenglie didn't reply. He had already turned to a nearby shelf and begun reading. Typical. Leave your emotionally confused younger brother with a wall of papery old souls.
Left alone, Shenyan drifted toward a random scroll. He didn't expect anything interesting, but the title stopped him in his tracks.
Qian Shu Shan.
The Thousand Spells Deity.
"Oh?" he muttered. "Sounds useful. Maybe this guy can help me get rid of the chatterbox in my head."
Still no reply from Xuanzi. Shenyan's brow twitched. Now he decides to shut up?
With a dramatic sigh, he sat cross-legged and opened the scroll.
The first few lines were confusing.
> "Once praised, then cast aside, the Thousand Spells Deity defied the limits of learning and reached too high. With command over fire, water, wind, and earth, and spells no mortal or god could keep count of, he became a threat to order, not a servant of it."
Shenyan blinked. "Wait... what?"
He kept reading.
"Qian Shu Shan—granted the name by his own hubris—was accused of bypassing trials that others suffered through. He created shortcuts, spells without cost, and techniques without patience. The Heavenly Elders warned him: mastery without understanding leads to ruin."
The tone was clear. This was not a tale of reverence. It was a cautionary tale.
Shenyan frowned. "But—if he's so powerful… shouldn't people be worshiping him? Not shoving his scroll into a dusty corner like he's some forgotten fable?"
The scroll continued, describing how the deity's unmatched swordsmanship and elemental control made the other gods fear him. How he was young—too young—and arrogant. How he laughed at and hit the Jade Emperor once during a formal gathering and was exiled for it.
"Slapped the Jade Emperor? Qian Shu Shan is really bold."
Still, none of it felt real. It was hard to picture a god with the name Thousand Spells being anything but revered. Yet, everything here painted him as reckless, undeserving, dangerous.
Shenyan paused, glancing sideways. Shenglie was a few feet away, face unreadable as he studied his own scroll.
He should know Qian Shu Shan. I should just as Xuanzi about him. I feel like the books are lying.
But the annoying voice was silent. The silence in his head was louder than usual.
And for once, it wasn't comforting.
Two hours passed in a blur of ink and revelations.
Shenyan wasn't the studious type. His tutors would've wept tears of joy—or possibly dropped dead—if they saw how hungrily he devoured scroll after scroll. Each one about the Thousand Spells Deity. Each one painting a deeper, more conflicted picture of this so-called god who wasn't praised but feared. Respected, yet exiled. Feared, yet deeply powerful.
His fingers trembled slightly as he rolled up the last scroll. His thoughts were buzzing like flies trapped in a jar.
He turned to his brother.
"Dage… could I borrow these?" he asked, his voice low, uncertain. "I'll return them. I swear."
Shenglie didn't even look up from his scroll at first. "Mm."
"Really?"
This time, Shenglie met his eyes. "If you actually plan to read them, fine. But if I catch you using them to fan yourself or press flowers—"
"I get it." Shenyan gave an exaggerated sigh, clasping his hands together. "Many thanks, Dàgē." And with that, he gave a short bow, a little too dramatic for someone supposedly frail and uninterested in etiquette.
He gathered the scrolls—carefully this time—and left the Archive of Thousand Petals with the reverence of someone carrying sacred secrets. Once he reached his quarters, he locked the door, settled on his couch, and unrolled the first scroll again.
But halfway through rereading it, something began to gnaw at him.
Silence.
The kind of silence that made your skin itch.
Not outside. Not around him.
Inside.
He blinked and looked up from the scroll. "Hey," he muttered. "Xuanzi?"
Nothing.
He waited.
Still nothing.
"…Are you dead?"
Still nothing.
"…Because if you're dead, I need to know. There's no clause in our agreement about me taking responsibility."
He sighed and dropped his head against the cushions, letting the scrolls scatter across the floor like forgotten thoughts.
"Come on," he said softly, "you've been blabbering in my head since the moment you arrived. Now when I actually want to hear you, you go mute? Seriously?"
He waited again. One second. Two. A whole minute.
Nothing.
Shenyan stared at the ceiling. "This is worse than when you were loud."
His eyes flicked toward the scroll closest to his hand. Its edge was worn, and the red ink used for the title had begun to fade. It read: "The Trial of the Thousand Spells."
A chill ran down his spine, and his gaze slowly lowered to the words. He didn't know why his mind drifted back to Xuanzi.
"Jing Xuanzi," he whispered again, quieter this time. "Where are you?"