Moments before, on the other end of the clearing, inside the forest…

  ?

  She didn’t know how far she had run.

  Her robes were torn, stained with mud and blood and shame, caught on low branches that scraped her skin like knives. Her breath came in ragged bursts, barely enough to keep her legs moving. Her spirit had been burning on borrowed fuel for too long—until even that sputtered to smoke.

  And still… they followed.

  Zhen’er collapsed in the clearing, legs finally giving out beneath her. She hit the ground hard, chest heaving, vision flickering at the edges. The sun had long since disappeared behind the canopy, leaving only thin light filtered through leaves.

  She could hear them behind her—laughing.

  That awful, heavy laughter.

  ?

  It hadn’t started this way.

  She had only wanted to gather spirit orchids from the southern ridge. It was supposed to be safe. No beasts this season, no patrols, no storms in the forecast. Just silence.

  She needed the coin.

  Since her family fell, no one in Huajing would hire a girl with no name worth protecting. Her father, once a respected alchemist—had been executed for failing to repay a noble house. Her mother had disappeared in the night.

  Zhen’er had barely survived.

  ?

  But when she returned from the ridge…

  …they were waiting.

  Five cultivators, sons of noble blood. She knew their faces. Not their names—those changed too often—but the kind of smiles they wore. The kind of hunger in their eyes. It was telling what they planned to do to her.

  They called her “little wild flower.”

  Called her “stray.”

  Said she “owed the world something” for walking in it alone.

  She tried to run.

  They followed.

  And now… they stood around her like wolves too bored to kill cleanly.

  ?

  She pressed her back to the tree, arms tight around her chest. Her robe clung to her, mud-stained and torn where they had grabbed at her.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “Stay away,” she whispered, though it came out weaker than she wanted.

  The tall one stepped closer. His hair was gold-dusted, his eyes smug with entitlement.

  “Oh? Are you still pretending to be worth something?” he asked. “You’re not even a real cultivator. Just a peasant with pretty eyes. You should feel honored we took interest in you.”

  Zhen’er’s fingers twitched. Her dantian pulsed, albeit weakly. She had spiritual roots, yes, but undeveloped. Untrained. There was no one left to teach her.

  “Please…”

  “I like when they beg,” another said. “It means they know they’ve already lost. The pleasure will be intoxicating.”

  “Let’s see how soft she is beneath all that dirt.”

  The tall one reached for her chin.

  ?

  And that’s when she felt it.

  Cold.

  Not winter cold.

  But the kind that sank beneath the skin, into the soul. The kind that made her breath stop mid-sob.

  The air changed.

  The mist stirred and the forest itself seemed to shrink back.

  A shiver ran through the leaves.

  One of the men turned.

  “Did you feel—?”

  “Shut up. She’s just—”

  “No… something’s—”

  Then a voice.

  A whisper across the forest floor, so faint it could have been the wind—

  —but it wasn’t.

  And though the girl couldn’t see them yet…

  She knew—

  Someone had come.

  ?

  The clearing held its breath.

  Even the wind didn’t dare move.

  Zhen’er’s eyes stung with unshed tears, but she blinked through the haze, heart pounding in her ears. A faint pulse of pressure had spread through the earth—not a strike, not an explosion, but something deeper, like the forest itself was bowing to a presence just beyond her vision.

  The tall one turned sharply, his voice cracking with sudden unease.

  “Who’s there?!”

  No reply.

  Just mist.

  It slithered through the underbrush, coiling at their feet, then slowly began to part—as if something unseen walked through it.

  Zhen’er squinted—

  And then she saw them.

  ?

  Two figures.

  Identical in form, yet distinct in presence.

  Their robes moved like water across stone—one in silver and white, glowing faintly with frost-light; the other in violet and indigo, threaded with flickers of illusion. Their long hair trailed behind them like banners of moonlight and shadow.

  Not a sound passed from their feet to the earth.

  But the air wept as they moved.

  Zhen’er’s mouth fell open.

  She’d never seen anyone so…

  Beautiful. Terrifying. Divine.

  Like paintings of goddesses had stepped down from temple walls—but with blades in hand, and fury in their eyes.

  “W-Who the hell—?” one of the men started, but the words caught in his throat.

  Because now the pressure hit them.

  ?

  A spiritual force like a tidal wave without water—a pressure that crushed sound and froze breath.

  Zhen’er’s limbs went numb. Her body trembled—but not from fear. From something deeper. Something she didn’t have a word for.

  One of the men dropped to a knee, face pale.

  “Core… Core Formation… both of them—”

  Another screamed.

  And then—a voice cut through the clearing like silk through glass.

  “You have one chance,” the one in white said. Her voice was soft—but it carried like thunder beneath snow.

  The men flinched.

  “Leave now,” said the one in violet, a smirk barely tugging at her lips. “Or die on your knees like worms.”

  No one moved.

  Zhen’er could only stare.

  She had never seen cultivators like them.

  She had never seen power like this.

  She had never seen grace sharpened into death.

  And for the first time since she had been chased…

  …since she had lost everything…

  She felt something rise in her chest.

  Hope.