The first light of dawn painted the camp in diffused light as steam curled from Gin’s bowl of soup. He stared into its depths, as if searching for the words to begin—or perhaps the courage. Kai waited in silence, the only sounds the crackling fire and the occasional rustle of spirit beasts settling in the undergrowth.

  Finally, Gin spoke.

  "I was born under the shadow of the Blue Storm Crane Sect," he began, his voice rough with the weight of memory. "Far south of here, almost on the other side of the continent from where we are, where the mountains weep waterfalls and the rivers run clear as glass. Back then, I thought the world was made of opportunity."

  He took a slow sip of broth, the warmth doing little to ease the cold grip of the past.

  "When I was sixteen, I took their selection exam. The elders told me I had a rare physique—something unusual, something they couldn’t immediately identify. They said to return in a year or two, to let it mature." A bitter smile twisted his lips. "I thought that meant I was chosen."

  “Just because you have a rare physique doesn't mean you’ll be a great cultivator.” Kai said, with a hard expression to read.

  “I know that now,” Gin said, sounding irritated. “But, at the time you hear the word ‘unique’ and you think you're special. Especially since they also didn’t explain in detail what it can mean to have a unique physique.”

  Gin let out another long sigh.

  "I spent every coin my family had saved," Gin continued, his fingers tightening around the bowl. "Sold my grandmother’s jade hairpin—the last thing she left me—for a single ‘Spirit Pill’ from a back-alley peddler. Took loans from men who smiled when they spoke of interest, their eyes sharp as knives. I didn’t care. I wanted to get a head start. I was going to be a cultivator. I was going to rise above the dirt and the struggle, and none of it would matter once I stood among the honored disciples of the Blue Storm Crane."

  He exhaled sharply, as if the memory still carried the sting of a fresh wound.

  "When I returned for the second test, they gathered in their pristine robes, their faces unreadable. The elder in charge—a man with frost in his beard and ice in his voice—told me the truth." Gin’s voice dropped to a whisper. "Drunken Master physique. A curse disguised as a gift."

  The fire popped, sending a shower of sparks into the morning air.

  "They said no righteous sect would ever take me in. That my path would always lead to the bottle, and the bottle would lead me to disgrace. The Righteous Alliance would hunt me if I lost control in public. The loans I’d taken would bury me alive. And the ‘potential’ I’d bet my life on?" He barked a laugh. "A joke. A sick twist of fate."

  Gin set the bowl down, his hands trembling—not from the cold, but from the phantom grip of despair.

  "That night, I stood on the edge of the Blackcliff Gorge, ready to let the river take me. But fate had one last twist in store." His gaze lifted to meet Kai’s. "Because that was when Su Pei found me."

  Gin's fingers tightened around his bowl as the firelight flickered across his weathered face. His voice dropped lower, as if the mountain winds themselves might carry his secrets back to the sect that had rejected himt.

  "Su Pei, the son of a sect elder of the Blue Storm Crane sect, didn't find me by accident that night at Blackcliff Gorge," he said, his words measured like carefully poured liquor. "He'd been watching. Waiting. The elders may have seen my physique as worthless, but Su? He recognized its true value."

  A bitter chuckle escaped him as he swirled the dregs of his soup.

  "Do you know what they call our kind in the forgotten stories of history? The Immortal Wine Makers. Legends say, those with this physique have the potential to become master spirit brewer who can craft wines potent enough to make gods weep. Su knew this. And he made me an offer—not out of pity, but calculation."

  Gin's eyes grew distant, seeing not the campfire before him but the moonlit clearing where his fate had changed.

  "'Become my ghost brewer,' he told me, 'and I'll give you what the sect never will—a path.' Not an honorable one, mind you. No grand titles or jade tokens. Just shadows, secrecy, and enough resources to keep breathing. More than I had standing on that cliff."

  “And it got you booze.” Kai added.

  “And it got me booze as well,” Gin said with a defeated sigh. "Su started me with peasant's tools—clay pots and bamboo tubes," Gin recalled, running a calloused thumb along the rim of his bowl. "But when my first batch of Frostmelt Wine made a visiting elder praise Su's 'exquisite taste,' the real investments began."

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  Kai leaned forward slightly, the fire casting shifting shadows across his impassive face.

  "Jade fermentation vats from the Western Azure Dynasty," Gin counted off on grease-stained fingers. "A stolen chapter of the Vermillion Bird Brewing Manual. Even a single vial of Phoenix Tears—just three drops, but enough to transform an entire batch into something... otherworldly."

  His voice took on the reverent tone of a craftsman remembering his masterpiece.

  "That was when I made my masterpiece, the Five-Peak Mountain Dew.”

  “The same wine you tried to give me?” Kai asked.

  “Yup, the very same. The best wine I have ever made, with the best ingredients Su could provide.”

  Hearing that it was a sect elder son that was helping Gin, Kai finally understood how someone like Gin could get access to such expensive ingredients to make such a wine.

  “Su sold that batch to a Golden Core elder for enough spirit stones to buy a small city. He was pleased with what I was creating and provided me with manuals so that I could start cultivating properly. It was through those manuals, and booze that I brewed, that I managed to reach the first stage of qi gathering. "

  The fire popped as Gin's continued.

  "But don’t go thinking it was all easy for me," he muttered. "I was still a rogue cultivator—no sect, no status, no protection. Just a ghost living in the mountains, talking to barrels of fermenting wine like they were old friends."

  A dry, humorless laugh escaped him.

  "For decades, my only visitors were Su or one of his lackeys, coming to collect their precious wines. I was his little secret—useful, but never acknowledged. And then…" His jaw clenched. "Eight years ago, everything went to hell."

  "Su got careless," Gin said, his voice dripping with bitter irony. "Drank too much of my wine at some high-sect banquet. Started bragging—loudly—about how he had his own personal ‘Drunken Immortal’ brewing miracles just for him."

  He mimed tipping back a bottle with a savage grin.

  "By the time he was done, half the Blue Storm Crane Sect knew their precious elder’s son was keeping a rogue cultivator—one with a physique their own elders had condemned—hidden away like a dirty secret. And worse? He’d been profiting off me."

  Kai’s eyes narrowed slightly. "That would not have gone over well."

  "Oh, it didn’t," Gin snorted. "Su’s father was furious. Not at his son, of course—no, the great Elder Su couldn’t possibly admit his heir was an arrogant fool. So who got the blame?" He tapped his chest. "The ‘dangerous rogue cultivator’ who had ‘corrupted’ his precious boy."

  The fire crackled, as if in grim agreement.

  "They sent a kill squad," Gin said flatly. "Three Foundation Establishment disciples, all to ‘cleanse the blight’ from their territory. Would’ve been flattering if it wasn’t so fucking stupid."

  He shrugged. "Luckily, one of Su’s drinking buddies had a conscience—or maybe just owed me for all the free hangover cures I’d slipped him over the years. He tipped me off just in time."

  Gin’s expression darkened as he recounted his escape.

  "I grabbed every jar of Five-Peak Mountain Dew I had left—my best work, aged twenty years in special casks—and ran. Didn’t even stop to piss until I crossed into the next territory. For two years after, I tried to rebuild. A hidden cave here, a smuggled alchemy set there—but without Su’s resources, every step was a struggle.”

  "Nearly got caught by a Faceless Judge outside of Silver Vale," Gin muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as if he could still feel the cold gaze of those featureless masks. "That was when I decided: fuck it. I’m done."

  His voice dropped to a raw whisper.

  "I headed north. No plan, no destination—just away. Away from sects, away from cultivators, away from the whole damned mess."

  “But the people of Zan had offered no sanctuary. They wouldn’t even let me through the gates," Gin said, his voice thick with frustration. "Too many refugees fleeing the war, they said. Too much risk. And then I saw the slavers—bastards in ragged robes rounding up refugees like livestock, probably to sell to demonic sects for blood rituals or cauldron fodder."

  His hands shook slightly.

  "And the Faceless Judges? They were everywhere near the border.” He exhaled sharply. "So I kept going. As far north as I could. As far from the cultivation world as possible."

  Kai studied him for a long moment. "Just like that? You’re walking away?"

  "Yeah," Gin said, the word final as a tombstone. "Too many close calls. Too many years of looking over my shoulder. And I’m sick of being alone."

  A beat of silence. Then, quieter:

  "You ever talk to yeast, Kai? Not like, to it—really talk to it. Ask it how its day was. Complain about the weather. Argue with it when a batch goes sour."

  Kai blinked. "...No."

  "Yeah, well, try it for forty years and see how sane you feel," Gin muttered. "Point is, I’m done. No more hiding. No more being alone. No more cultivating."

  He reached for his gord, took a long swig, and grimaced—not from the taste, but from the truth in his own words.

  "The alcohol addiction is bad enough. I don’t need the rest of the bullshit that comes with this life."

  The fire burned low between them, the embers fading like the last sparks of Gin’s defiance. Somewhere in the distance, a creature called—a lonely sound, echoing through the trees.

  Kai said nothing. But for the first time, something like understanding flickered in his eyes.