"Who are you? Some sort of magistrate?" Chen Gong asked, his tone laced with suspicion but lacking the razor-sharp tension that had seized Kai and Lulu.

  A cold sweat prickled at Kai’s temples, his fingers tightening imperceptibly around the box of nails. Beside him, Lulu’s breath had gone shallow, her muscles coiled like a spring. To Chen Gong, this man might have seemed like just another scholar, but to them—trained cultivators with senses honed beyond mortal limits—his sudden appearance was nothing short of terrifying.

  He shouldn’t have been able to sneak up on us.

  The man’s attire alone was a warning. The yellow panling lanshan robe, the black futou—these were the garments of a high-ranking scholar from the Righteous Alliance’s territories, the kind worn by sect administrators or court-appointed advisors. The embroidery along his sleeves was too fine, the silk too pristine for some mere wandering academic. And then there was the way he carried himself—every movement controlled, his presence unnervingly still, as if the very air around him bent to his will.

  Cultivator.

  The realization settled over them like a suffocating weight. But which sect? The Righteous Alliance’s enforcers wore distinctive insignias. The Iron Cliff Society’s craftsmen bore the marks of their forges. This man gave away nothing—no symbols, no weapons, just that placid, practiced smile.

  Friend or foe?

  The stranger chuckled, a sound like dry parchment rubbing together, his amusement never reaching the cold calculation in his eyes. "Oh, heavens no," he demurred, performing an elaborate dismissive wave with sleeves that fluttered despite the absence of wind. "Just a wandering scholar. And please, don't be so tense—I mean no harm." His smile widened fractionally as he gave a shallow bow. "My name is Kuro."

  Lulu's sharp intake of breath was barely audible, but to Kai's heightened senses, it might as well have been a scream. Her gaze had locked onto the massive scroll slung across Kuro's back - an artifact nearly as half as tall as the man himself, its aged parchment ends peeking from an ornate jade case. The intricate silver clasps bore the unmistakable sigil of crossed quills over an open book.

  "Honorable senior!" Lulu suddenly exclaimed, her voice cracking with forced reverence as she dropped into a perfect kowtow, forehead pressing into the dirt road. "May your pursuit of knowledge go unmatched! This unworthy one greets you!"

  The dirt beneath her hands began to darken as nervous sweat dripped from her brow.

  "Senior? Wait, is this man a cultivator?" Chen Gong asked, his tone hovering between confusion and dawning alarm. The disciples' eyes darted between Lulu's prostrate form and the suddenly flustered scholar.

  Kuro actually took a step back, his carefully cultivated poise cracking as he made frantic lifting motions with his hands. "N-No that's fine! You don't have to—heaven above, stand up!" His previously smooth voice gained an almost panicked edge. "It's really all right! I'm not—that is, the formalities aren't necessary—"

  Kai's mind raced even as he maintained a neutral expression. The pieces clicked together with terrible clarity. Lulu's extreme reaction. The scroll's design. The way this "Kuro" moved - not like a warrior, but with the precise, measured steps of someone who'd spent centuries walking between library stacks without disturbing a single dust mote. This wasn't just any cultivator - this was likely a member of the Silver Quill.

  Chen Gong, blissfully unaware of the gravity of the situation, pressed on: "What is a cultivator doing so far north here?"

  Kuro's demeanor shifted back to calm like a mask sliding into place, though his eyes kept darting to Lulu as if worried she might prostrate herself again. "Ah, I was about to explain, but I can tell these two are..." He gestured vaguely at Kai and Lulu. "...apprehensive. But you truly have nothing to fear. I'm merely a wandering scholar collecting stories."

  "Oh!" Chen Gong brightened. "So you're a rogue cultivator as well?"

  The temperature seemed to drop several degrees. Kai could feel Lulu's aura spike in panic next to him. Chen Gong might as well have announced their crimes to the entire street.

  Kuro's eyebrows climbed his forehead as he tapped a finger against his chin. "So, you're rogue cultivators," he mused, the words hanging in the air like a sword above their necks. "But not of the demonic kind, I see. Hmm."

  The death stare Kai fixed on Chen Gong carried enough spiritual pressure to make the former magistrate physically recoil, the blood draining from his face as he finally grasped his misstep. In their months of travel, Kai had focused on teaching practical skills, never imagining they'd need to know the deadly intricacies of cultivation politics at this point - like how admitting to being unaffiliated rogues made them targets in the eyes of established sects.

  Kuro studied their reactions with academic curiosity before sighing. "To answer your question," he said, adjusting his massive scroll with practiced ease, "I am a wandering cultivator, but not what you'd call rogue. I still have the backing of a sect... well, sort of. It's complicated." His lips quirked in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Let's just say I'm from Silver Quill University for simplicity."

  Kai's throat went dry. The confirmation was not what he wanted to hear. Of all the sects, of all the possible encounters... it had to be them. Someone from one of the Great Eight.

  "But, I wander much like what you might imagine a rogue cultivator does," Kuro continued, his voice taking on a wistful, almost dreamlike quality. "I travel the world collecting stories—it is the nature of my Dao. I follow the Dao of the Storyteller, which compels me to seek out tales worth recording and sharing."

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  He spread his hands in a gesture that was both theatrical and strangely sincere. "I came to Zan in search of interesting narratives, and imagined my surprise when I stumbled upon fellow cultivators in this remote corner of the world. Truly, I never expected to find any of our kind here—not in a thousand years. Yet your presence alone suggests you carry stories worth hearing."

  His gaze sharpened, the scholarly veneer giving way to something far more perceptive. "And my Dao... it whispers to me that yours are stories of great significance. So, I must ask—would you be willing to share them with me?"

  Kai’s blood ran cold.

  He has a Dao.

  The realization added to Kai’s dread. If this man had truly had a Dao—a fundamental truth of cultivation—then he was, at minimum, a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator. A full realm above Kai, Lulu, and Gin. If all the beastkin were present, fighting someone of that level might be possible. But now? With just the two of them? It was suicide.

  "Of course! Honorable Senior!" Lulu blurted out before Kai could even open his mouth, her voice pitched high with forced enthusiasm. She bowed again, though not as deeply this time. "We would be honored to share what little we have! Our home is humble, but we will offer you the best hospitality we can!"

  Kai shot her a sharp look, but she barreled on before he could intervene.

  Kuro sighed, rubbing his temples as if embarrassed by the deference. "Again, it’s really okay. You don’t need to be so formal—or afraid. I swear on Heaven and Earth not to harm you while I remain in Zan."

  As the words left Kuro’s lips, Kai felt something—an inexplicable shift in the air, as if the world itself had paused to acknowledge the oath. A binding vow? Or just his imagination?

  "So please, don’t be frightened," Kuro continued, his tone softening into something almost... friendly. "I’m not sure why, but I feel we could become friends. And in exchange for your stories, I’ll gladly offer you something useful in return."

  "Oh, Honorable Senior, we could never—" Lulu began, only to be cut off.

  "Please," Kuro said, raising a hand. "Just call me Kuro."

  "Um... okay?" Lulu replied, blinking as if she wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or more suspicious.

  She glanced back at Kai, whose expression was caught somewhere between disbelief and dread.

  "Ah, Senior—I mean, Kuro," Lulu said, hastily correcting herself. "There’s one last thing we need to pick up before we head home. Would it be alright if we fetched it first?"

  "Of course," Kuro said, waving a hand magnanimously. "There’s no rush."

  "Wait, what was it that we needed?" Chen Gong asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

  "And Chen Gong," Lulu said, ignoring his question entirely, "why don’t you stay and keep Kuro company while Kai and I go get that thing? Make sure to treat him with respect while we’re gone."

  Before anyone could protest, Lulu seized Kai’s wrist and yanked him around the nearest building, out of sight and—hopefully—out of earshot.

  The moment they rounded the corner, Lulu's carefully maintained composure shattered. She slammed Kai against the rough-hewn wall of a blacksmith's shop, her fingers digging into his forearm with enough force to leave bruises. Her breath came in short, panicked bursts as she pressed close enough for Kai to see the tiny flecks of gold in her normally calm brown eyes - eyes that now burned with barely restrained terror.

  "Kai," she hissed, her voice trembling with urgency, "we are so far beyond deep trouble that we might as well be digging our own graves."

  Kai had never seen Lulu this scared before. This was the raw, primal fear of someone who'd just realized they were standing next to a sleeping dragon.

  "What's going on?" Kai demanded, keeping his voice low but urgent. "You clearly recognized something about that guy. What aren't you telling me?"

  Lulu's gaze darted around like a hunted animal's, checking every window, every alley mouth, even the rooftops above them. When she finally spoke, her whisper was so quiet Kai had to read her lips more than hear her words:

  "I don’t know who that man is. But, that scroll he was carrying, I’ve seen it before. It's an Endless Scroll - one of the Seventy-Two Peerless Treasures of the Silver Quill. My master showed me illustrations when I was being trained in artifact identification." Her throat worked as she swallowed hard. "Kai... each one of those scrolls is soul-bound to a Grand Archivist. The ink never fades, the pages never completely fill, and whatever is written in it can never be erased by anything short of heavenly tribulation lightning. It is used to record an endless amount of knowledge."

  Kai's breath caught. He'd heard legends of such treasures. "What realm—"

  "You don't understand," Lulu interrupted, her voice cracking. "Just to open an Endless Scroll requires Golden Core cultivation. But the archivists they give these to?" She leaned in so close her forehead nearly touched his. "They're always at least a full major realm above that. A Nascent Soul! That 'harmless scholar' back there is way beyond any of us."

  The roaring forges around them suddenly felt insufficient against the chill that settled in Kai's bones. He'd been worried about a Foundation Establishment cultivator. This... this was an entirely different level of catastrophe.

  Lulu's fingers trembled against Kai's sleeve, her nails biting into the fabric as if clinging to it for stability. Her voice dropped to a whisper so low it was nearly lost beneath the rhythmic hammering of nearby blacksmiths.

  "And that's not even the worst part," she breathed, her eyes darting as if expecting Kuro to materialize from the shadows. "He has the Dao of the Storyteller. That’s not just rare—it’s legendary. Only a handful of cultivators in history have ever walked that path."

  Kai frowned. "What does that actually mean?"

  Lulu exhaled sharply, as if forcing herself to explain quickly. "It means he can tell if a story is fiction or non-fiction. He can sense inconsistencies, fabrications, omissions that deviate from the essence of a story. If we try to lie to him, he’ll know. It’s like having the Truth-Seeker Dao of the Faceless Judges, except worse, because it’s always active."

  Kai’s stomach twisted. "Oh, crud… Wait, doesn’t that mean he already knows you lied when you said we needed to pick something up?"

  "No," Lulu said, already dragging him toward the nearest smithy. "Because I didn’t lie. That’s why we’re grabbing more nails right now. But listen—" She jerked him, her grip tightening. "I don’t know why he’s really here. Maybe it’s just his Dao compelling him to dig for stories. But we cannot afford to offend him. Not even a little. If he asks a question, we answer exactly what he asks truthfully—no more, no less. If we can get through this without giving him a reason to turn on us, that’s a win. And that starts with not keeping a Nascent Soul realm cultivator waiting."

  She yanked him forward again, and they broke into a jog toward a nearby forge. Kai’s mind raced as he processed the sheer magnitude of the threat they were dealing with. A Nascent Soul cultivator—someone who could level cities if provoked and is more than halfway to becoming an immortal—was about to be invited into their home. It felt like trying to appease a hurricane by opening their doors and hoping it passed by gently.

  But what choice did they have? They were tired of running. Fighting was suicide. Their only option was to play along, to feed him just enough stories to satisfy his Dao without revealing anything that could doom them.

  As they hurriedly bartered for another crate of nails, Kai couldn’t shake the gnawing dread in his gut.

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