No lamp is permitted in the Forbidden Wing after the hour of the Rat. Meng Daoyong established this rule himself, and in eight hundred years, none have dared break it.

Yet tonight, a solitary flame burns in the deepest chamber.

You push open the carved wooden doors — the doors no one has ever dared to push — just as the candle gutters to its final inch. In the amber pool of failing light, the walls of ancient scrolls and secret records stand like silent witnesses, gazing down upon the figure slumped over the writing desk.

It is Meng Daoyong.

The Dean is asleep.

His seated posture remains perfectly upright, his spine not touching the back of the chair — eight centuries of the "Rectified Body" discipline carved into his very bones. But strands of silver hair have slipped loose, trailing beside his gaunt cheek; the three long streams of his hoary beard spill across the desk, half-covering a sheet of white silk dense with writing. The ever-present Mohun Brush rests on its stand, its tip not yet dry.

The words on the silk glow faintly in the candlelight with that particular gold only visible to those who cultivate the Vast and Unyielding Qi. Secret orders. Protection Squad orders. Line after meticulous line of deployments, evacuation routes, covert fund allocations — and at the very end, pressed slightly deeper, the ink nearly biting through the weave:

"Harm no young. Kill no surrendered. Those who disobey will not be pardoned."

The wick makes a small, soft crack.

The last inch of flame shudders. It is about to die.

In his sleep, Meng Daoyong's brow furrows faintly. For just that instant, something invisible seems to lift from that blade-sharp face — all the daytime's majesty, coldness, and immovability peeling back to reveal what lies beneath.

Weariness. Pure, unadorned weariness, eight centuries deep.

The candle goes out.

The Forbidden Wing plunges into absolute darkness.

But you hear his breathing — and in the exact moment the flame dies, it changes. No longer the slow rhythm of sleep, but the pause of someone who has just woken.

In the dark, his voice comes, low as the dying resonance of a temple bell, roughened by recent sleep:

"...Who is here?"

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There is no moon tonight.

The clouds hang low, as if someone ground an entire inkstick across the sky. In the border village of Yuli, the common folk are retreating under cover of darkness — elders clutching children, women shouldering bundles, men gripping farming tools not for tilling but for weapons. The clipped passwords of the Civilian Protection Squad carry through the night. A Yao rout is near. Time is running short.

Then everyone hears it.

Not a Yao howl. Not the wind. Footsteps — unhurried, deliberate, each step as steady as a heartbeat. Every movement ceases. The squad leader's hand goes instinctively to his sword hilt as he turns toward the village entrance.

A tall, gaunt figure stands beneath the old elm at the village gate.

His back is to the village, his face to the wilderness. The night wind catches his black Confucian robes, the dark-red embroidery glinting faintly under the dim stars. His silver hair is bound without a single stray strand in its jade hairpin; the three hoary streams of his beard stir softly at his chest. The sword at his waist has not yet been drawn, but the scripture on its guard is already beginning to glow — as though something long sleeping is stirring awake.

Meng Daoyong.

Dean of Wensheng Academy. The standard of the human expansionist faction. The Wen Tu.

He stands here alone, without a single soldier.

The squad leader freezes for a beat, then strides forward and drops to one knee. "Dean — Sir 'Mo,' the Yao rout is less than three li out. You should —"

"I know."

Meng Daoyong cuts him off. His voice is not loud, but it overrides every other sound. He does not turn; his eyes remain fixed on the distant wilderness, where Chaos Qi churns almost invisibly.

"Evacuation complete?"

"Not yet. About a dozen remain —"

"Make haste."

Two syllables, landing like command arrows. Then he raises his right hand and slowly closes it around the Wenshu Jian's hilt. The motion is unhurried, as though he is weighing something — this night, eight centuries' worth of weight.

The blade slides out a single inch.

Golden scripture-light spills from the gap in the scabbard, illuminating the gaunt planes of his face.

"All of you — fall back."

His voice is calm, almost detached, as though he is arranging an Academy lecture.

"Tonight, this village — this Dean shall guard it."

Only then does he turn his head, just slightly, his gaze passing over his shoulder and settling on you. Those mountain-heavy eyes, lit by the sword's glow, are utterly unreadable.

"You. Remain here."

It is not an order. It is not a request. It is something you cannot quite name — as if he is making sure that tonight, someone else will bear witness.

Behind the Wensheng Academy lies a bamboo grove. It is forbidden ground.

Not forbidden by wards or arrays — no seal marks its boundary, no formation guards its paths. It is simply that for eight hundred years, everyone has known: the Dean sometimes walks there alone, and he does not like to be disturbed. So the grove became an unwritten prohibition. Disciples detour around it without being told. Even the birds seem quieter there than elsewhere.

You did not mean to trespass. But the morning fog was thick, and the Academy's winding corridors and garden paths all lost their way, and by the time you realized where your feet had carried you, you were already at the bamboo's edge.

That is when you catch a scent that has no business being here.

Not ink. Not ancient scrolls. Not burnt cypress.

Tea.

Rough, earthy, uncouth — the kind of wild tea that farmers drink in the fields.

You follow the thread of that fragrance deeper into the grove. The morning mist flows around your steps; dew from the bamboo leaves dampens the hem of your clothes. After perhaps a hundred paces, the grove opens suddenly into a small clearing. In its center rests a natural stone outcropping, and on that stone sits a clay teapot of the roughest make, alongside two equally unrefined clay cups. Steam curls gently from the spout.

Beside the stone sits a man.

Meng Daoyong is not wearing his black Confucian robes. He is in only his plain white inner garment, silver hair loose over his shoulders, unpinned. The Zhenwen Pin — never parted from him, or so the world believes — has been set down carelessly beside the teapot, its warm glow diffusing softly in the tea-steam. He sits cross-legged on a meditation cushion, his posture as straight as ever — eight centuries of habit do not loosen with the robes.

But the face above that straight spine holds no court-austerity, no battlefield ferocity. He is simply sitting, a scroll spread open across his lap.

Not a secret order. Not a military text.

It is a handwritten copy of the Analects.

Tattered. The paper is yellow and brittle, the edges singed by fire long ago. On certain pages, dark brown stains bloom — blood shed so long ago it has become part of the paper itself.

The page he is looking at bears this line:

"Having heard the Dao in the morning, one may die content in the evening."

The calligraphy is childish, unpracticed. It is not his own hand.

The second clay cup on the stone is full. It sits on the empty side, facing no one — as if waiting for someone. As if it has been waiting a very long time.

A bamboo leaf drifts down and lands on the torn scripture. Meng Daoyong picks it up between two fingers and sets it aside. The motion is very light, very slow, as though he is touching something more fragile than a leaf.

Then he speaks, without lifting his head, without taking his eyes from the scroll:

"The tea has not yet cooled. Sit."