49. Leaving the Shallow Water

The pass looms before us, a narrow road carved through granite, flanked by sheer cliffs that block out the morning sun. The path is just wide enough for two wagons to pass, and it’s guarded by a small fort built into the mountainside. A toll station.

The guard is a bored Foundation Establishment cultivator in mismatched armor. His helmet is too large, his breastplate is too small, and his posture suggests someone who has been standing in this exact spot for so long that his soul has partially departed his body. He glances at our tokens and waves us through without interest.

“Watch for beasts in the pass,” he mutters, already looking past us. “Bandits too, sometimes.”

I nod and walk past, Ling’er at my side.

The Gaze flickers as I pass him:

I breathe a sigh of relief and keep walking.

The climb begins.

The path steepens immediately, switching back and forth across the mountain face. The granite walls press close on either side, blocking the wind, trapping the cold. Ling’er moves ahead of me, her steps light, her balance perfect.

“Master, there’s a shortcut.” She points to a narrow fissure in the rock, barely wider than her shoulders, angling upward at a steep grade. “It cuts off three switchbacks. We’ll save an hour.”

I look at the fissure. I look at the sheer drop visible beyond its far end. I look at Ling’er, who is already sliding into the gap.

My legs tremble. Not from exertion, but from the height.

This body remembers. The previous Lu Chen, the one who spent forty years on this mountain, had an accident during training. A cliff face. A misstep. A fall that should have killed him. He survived with broken bones, torn ligaments, and weeks of recovery, but the fear never left. One that manifested as a subconscious aversion to flying, even when it was possible with Autumn Leaf.

I feel it now. The phantom sensation of falling. The stomach-lurching awareness of empty space below.

“Master?” Ling’er’s voice echoes from the fissure.

I force myself to move. The rock is cold against my palms. The gap is narrow, the walls pressing in, the ground sloping upward at an angle that feels steeper than it probably is. I don’t look down. I don’t look anywhere but at Ling’er’s back. She navigates the shortcut with ease, finding handholds where there are none, stepping on stones that shouldn’t hold weight, moving through the treacherous terrain like she was born in these mountains. I follow, less gracefully, and try not to think about the drop beneath my feet. We emerge on the far side of the pass in half the expected time. Ling’er is not even breathing hard. I am, but for reasons that have nothing to do with exertion.

The pass opens onto a vista that steals my breath.

Rolling hills give way to a vast plain, crossed by silver rivers and dotted with cities. The land stretches to the horizon, green and gold and brown, patchworked with farms and forests and roads that thread between settlements like veins. In the distance, I can see the glimmer of a massive metropolis: not Celestial Jade City yet, one of its satellites, but still larger than any city I’ve seen in this world.

Ling’er stares. Gold flickers in her eyes, the bone rising to meet the flood of information.

“Master…” Her voice is quiet. “There are so many people. So many cultivators. I can feel them like stars in the sky.”

“How many?”

She closes her eyes, counting by threads. Her lips move silently.

“Hundreds of Foundation Establishment. Dozens of Core Formation.” She pauses. Her face pales slightly. “And at least three Nascent Souls. In that city alone.”

The Central Provinces. Where Foundation Establishment is common and Core Formation is expected and Nascent Souls walk the streets like ordinary people.

We’re not in the backwaters anymore.

The road ahead is wide and well-maintained, lined with merchants and travelers and cultivators going about their business. No one looks at us twice. No one cares about a minor sect leader and his servant girl.

“Ling’er.” I keep my voice low. “From now on, you don’t use any power you don’t have to. The concealment is perfect—keep it that way. If someone looks at you, you’re a mortal. If they talk to you, you’re shy. If they touch you—”

“They won’t,” she says. “The threads tell me who to avoid.”

I believe her.

We walk. The road descends into the plain. The city grows larger on the horizon. The pass closes behind us, and with it, the last trace of the familiar.

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I ignore the Gaze and keep walking. Hours pass.