Evening fell like a velvet cloak over the Southern Archive Sect, the twilight wind scattering talismans from high towers. Bells chimed distantly, echoing through the stone corridors as cultivators whispered of storms to come. Inside the Hall of Silent Petition—a place unmarked on any sect maps—twelve elders gathered in grim silence.
The chamber was circular, built of ancient red cedar and basalt, and lit only by soulfire braziers whose blue flames danced without smoke. The walls were inscribed with forbidden oaths of secrecy and silence. Here, truth came shackled. Here, decisions could unmake lives.
Elder Guan stood alone before them, a silver-threaded robe sweeping around his boots, and a sealed Qi-lock box hovering beside him. Within it: the jade slip Yue Lian had retrieved. He bowed only slightly, enough to show formality but not submission.
"I invoke the Scholar's Right," he began. His voice was neither loud nor meek, but firm, edged with restrained fury. "A truth has been unearthed—one that may absolve a man history calls a monster."
"You mean the Crimson Tyrant," Elder Zhu muttered, voice thick with contempt. "You bring us the heretic's poison and expect what? Sympathy?"
"I bring clarity," Guan snapped back. "In that slip, Yan Zhuo is seen saving lives, not taking them. The child survived. The records claim otherwise. This is not poison—it's contradiction."
Some elders stirred uncomfortably. Elder Nian, the oldest among them, lowered his fan of peacock feathers. "We've heard whispers before. Half-memories. Hearsay."
"Then silence those doubts with truth," Guan said. "The Song of Jueyan—a surviving artifact from the era—matches what the girl saw. They called Yan Zhuo a tyrant because he razed the Xuanjin Sect. But that sect had sold its disciples to demonic beasts."
"And do you propose we open the wound again?" High Elder Lin asked, her expression unreadable behind a veil of lavender Qi. "Cloudfire Palace still upholds the Imperial Doctrine. If we side with this girl, we not only insult them, we defy a verdict centuries old."
"Would you rather uphold a lie than face what truth demands?" Guan said.
The air turned brittle. A single breath might snap the moment in half.
"Do not accuse us of cowardice, Guan," Elder Zhu said coldly. "History is not a scroll to be rewritten on a child's whim."
"No, it isn't," Guan said, and his tone cut deeper than any sword. "But we all stood by when the verdict was passed. We chose silence. And that silence birthed a myth that served convenience. Not justice."
The room tensed. Such words bordered on heresy.
A long silence followed. Finally, Elder Nian murmured, "Let the vote be cast."
One by one, the elders dropped tokens into a jade basin carved with a sealing array. White for protection. Black for extradition. No names. No explanations.
The basin pulsed. Seven black. Five white.
Guan's face fell like cracked porcelain. "Cowards."
High Elder Lin stood. "Prepare to hand Yue Lian to the emissaries. The Black Writ has been invoked."
Unaware of the trap tightening around her, Yue Lian sat in her spartan quarters. The walls were lined with old paper talismans, flickering from the Qi torch in the corner. Her brush moved swiftly across the scroll as she copied her observations. Every character she wrote pulsed faintly with Qi, part of the method she had developed to preserve spiritual integrity.
"Yan Zhuo bled for them," she whispered. "And they called him a butcher."
Shuang stirred, curling protectively beside her. The little spirit-beast growled softly. Its ears flattened, sensing something Yue Lian had not yet perceived.
A knock.
She rose cautiously and slid the door open with two fingers.
Lin Huo stepped in, his expression grim. "They voted. Cloudfire's emissaries are on their way. We need to leave."
"How do you know?"
"Because I bribed a servant to listen at the hall's threshold. Guan tried. He really did. But they chose fear."
"And now they choose betrayal," Yue Lian muttered. "Of us and of the truth."
She rolled the scroll carefully, slid the jade slips into her robes, and looked at him with a fierce calm. "Then let's burn their lies before they burn the truth."
Lin Huo hesitated, then gave a slow nod. "Pack light. We leave through the east cliffs. I know a spirit hawk master there who owes my father a favor."
Yue Lian turned to Shuang. "Go ahead and scout. Stay hidden."
The beast shimmered and vanished in a flicker of wind.
That night, above the Sect, the clouds began to swirl. A sword-shaped light cleaved the sky in two, glowing with judgmental radiance.
Descending from the heavens came a figure clad in silver armor, inscribed with countless runes. His helm bore the seal of Celestial Mandate. On his back, a relic weapon of ancient design—a Judgment Saber that could sever a person's name from the cycle of reincarnation.
The Silver Judge had arrived.
And his first target was Yue Lian—the girl who dared dig up the bones of truth.
He landed atop the Sect's highest pagoda, eyes scanning the wards. The girl was already on the move.
"Do not let her flee," he spoke to the night. Behind him, clouds split, and figures in crimson and white dropped like burning stars.
The Hunt had begun.