Yun Je and Lu Hu stepped inside, and the air itself seemed to thicken the moment the great doors closed behind them with a low, final boom that echoed off the vaulted ceiling far above. Sweat had already begun beading on their faces, cold despite the warmth radiating from dozens of oil lamps set into the walls, their flames throwing long, restless shadows across the polished floor.
Inside stood great pillars, thick as ancient trees, carved with serpents and mountain peaks that seemed to writhe faintly in the flickering light. A royal carpet, deep crimson bordered in gold thread, stretched across the floor from the entrance to the raised dais at the far end of the hall, its fibers so dense that their footsteps made almost no sound at all — an unnerving silence that made every breath, every swallow, feel unbearably loud. Along its sides sat the ten Family Elders, seated on carved wooden chairs, their expressions unreadable in the dim light, hands folded in their laps like men waiting for a verdict they had already decided.
Atop four steps sat Clan Leader Tunxo Miang Ming, his wife Qing You beside him, and Advisor Niang Ming at his other side, watching everything with the patient stillness of a man who rarely needed to move to get what he wanted.
Because Qing You was Chinese, many in the hall resented her — a resentment worn openly in the way certain Elders' eyes lingered a moment too long on her face, in the faint, deliberate distance some kept even while seated. They believed the Leader should have married a woman of his own country, and fifteen years had not been enough to soften that belief.
Both Tunxo Miang Ming and Qing You wore ceremonial robes of pale blue and ivory silk, richly embroidered in gold, red, and black, with ancient symbols worked into the fabric so finely that they seemed to shift and reform depending on the angle of the light. His headdress rose like a golden fan crowned in feathers and carved ivory, catching every flicker from the lamps and scattering it across the hall in small, wandering points of light; hers was a smaller silver-white crown atop dark hair pulled back in a style Je had only ever seen in old paintings. Together they looked less like a married couple than figures stepped out of some ancient imperial court, untouched by the ordinary passage of years.
Niang Ming, beside them, had a face sharp as a wolf's — narrow, angular, with eyes that never seemed to blink quite often enough — and wore the long cap of a scholar, though nothing else about him suggested scholarly patience.
Before her husband could speak, Qing You spoke first, her gaze lowered just enough to seem composed, though her hands, folded tightly in her lap, betrayed the tension beneath. "You claim my son killed your servant?"
Fury filled her eyes the moment she lifted them.
Yun Je stammered, his voice thinner than he intended, "Y-yes, Clan Leader's wife."
"Lies!" Qing You's voice cracked through the hall, sharp enough that several of the lamp flames seemed to flicker in response. "My son isn't capable of that. He's far too timid — he wouldn't even think of killing someone, let alone do it!"
The fury in her gaze alone was enough to silence them both. Pressure bore down on Je and Lu Hu — an invisible, physical weight settling over their shoulders, forcing the air from their lungs in short, ragged pulls. It was crushing and merciless, and it only grew as her anger built, until Je felt his knees begin to buckle beneath him, sweat now running freely down the sides of his face and neck.
Tunxo Miang Ming laid a hand on his wife's arm, the gesture gentle but firm. "My dear. You must stop. I know how much you worry for our son." Then his eyes turned cold, fixing on the two men below with a stillness far more unsettling than his wife's open rage. "Yun Je. You've kept us waiting by invoking our son's name. If your claim proves false, I promise you — your entire clan will be destroyed."
The words landed with the weight of stone. The Elders glared at them with open fury, several leaning forward slightly in their seats, as though eager for an excuse to act. Niang Ming alone simply watched, saying nothing, his sharp eyes moving slowly between Je, Lu Hu, and the dais, cataloguing something none of them could guess at.
After a moment, the pressure lifted, and Je gasped audibly, dragging air back into starved lungs. He and Lu Hu rose on trembling legs, neither man fully steady, both still feeling the phantom weight of what had just pressed down on them. Keeping the Clan Leader waiting was punishable enough on its own — if their excuse didn't hold up, far worse awaited them, and both men understood this without needing to be told twice.
Pressing a hand to his chest, feeling his own heart hammering beneath his palm, Je forced out, "Clan Leader — please, just a moment — hear us out."
He gestured to Lu Hu, whose hands were shaking as he reached into the folds of his robe. "He has proof. He saw it happen with his own eyes."
Lu Hu stepped forward, bowed low enough that his forehead nearly brushed the crimson carpet, and drew out a sealed fragment of broken wall wrapped in cloth. As he unwrapped it, a faint purple aura — one-star strength — pulsed from within it, casting a thin, sickly light across his trembling fingers.
At the sight of it, Tunxo Miang Ming's expression hardened, the warmth that had briefly softened his features toward his wife vanishing entirely. "Bring Shree Yan before me."
A short while later, footsteps echoed down the long corridor leading into the hall — measured, unhurried, entirely at odds with the tension gripping everyone else in the room. Shree Yan arrived, thinking to himself as he walked, his expression carefully arranged into something between curiosity and mild confusion: *I knew this plan of theirs wouldn't hold up.*
He greeted his parents with a bow, the movement fluid and practiced, then the Elders in turn. "Mother, Father — why have you called for me?"
His voice was soft — soft enough that no one hearing it could have guessed what he was truly capable of, gentle in a way that seemed almost boyish beneath the towering pillars and ancient carved serpents surrounding him. Lu Hu, who had watched this same young man kill with his own eyes, felt something cold settle in his stomach at the sound of it, briefly stunned by the gentleness, by how thoroughly it seemed to contradict everything he had witnessed.
Qing You's tone softened instantly, the fury draining from her voice the moment her son stood before her. "Son. Did you kill his servant?"
"No, Mother," he said easily, tilting his head slightly, as though hearing the accusation for the first time and finding it faintly puzzling rather than alarming.
Qing You turned to Lu Hu, her gaze sharpening again. "You said you saw it yourself."
"I did!" Lu Hu insisted, his voice rising, cracking slightly at the edges. "Don't lie, Young Master — I saw it with my own eyes. And there was a girl with you. Where is she? Bring her here too."
Inside, Shree Yan allowed himself a private smile, hidden carefully behind an expression of mild concern. This was exactly what he'd been waiting for — every word from Lu Hu's mouth another thread pulling the trap tighter.
The Clan Leader ordered Yi Ner brought forward. Moments later, she arrived through the side entrance, moving with small, careful steps, and bowed low, her manner perfectly unremarkable — the practiced stillness of a girl who had learned, long ago, how to make herself forgettable.
Lu Hu turned on the two of them, some of his earlier confidence returning now that there was a second target to press. "Did you go to the Lawati shop?"
"We did," Shree Yan said, his tone unbothered.
"Why?"
"To buy a hidden stone."
"Prove it."
Shree Yan reached into the folds of his robe and held up a broken fragment of his own — a hidden stone, its aura glowing gold, warm and unmistakable against the dim hall.
The hall fell silent at the sight of it, several Elders shifting forward in their seats, murmuring low to one another.
Lu Hu's composure cracked visibly, a fine sheen of sweat now covering his forehead. *Shit — he has proof too.* He held up his own fragment, hand shaking now with something closer to desperation than conviction. "Then explain this! Isn't this your aura — purple, just like his power?"
Shree Yan shook his head, slow and deliberate. "No."
"Then prove it isn't!"
Shree Yan extended his hand, palm open, and a golden-star aura bloomed from his skin — unmistakably his own, warm and radiant, and nothing like the sickly purple mark pulsing faintly from the fragment Lu Hu held.
He had planned this from the start: suppressing his true aura the night at the cave to leave behind the false purple trace, knowing someone, eventually, would come demanding proof. The satisfaction of watching that plan unfold exactly as intended settled somewhere quiet and cold behind his calm expression.
*And if this doesn't shake him enough,* Shree Yan thought, turning the small gift over once in his fingers, feeling the cool metal beneath his thumb, *there's always this. In my previous life, once I gave him something, he never took it off again.*
Memory stirred, unbidden — a girl from that other life, small and quick, who used to seek him out just to tell him stories that mattered to no one but her, her voice carrying across some other courtyard, some other century.
*I wonder how she survived, in that life,* he thought, something almost wistful passing briefly behind his eyes before vanishing entirely. *Strange, seeing her face again here.*
Without seeming to notice what he was doing, he pressed his thumb to the small red button on the gift, the motion so subtle that even the Elders nearest him failed to register it.
Yi Ner cried out — a sudden, wrenching pain that dropped her to her knees, her hands pressed flat against the carpet as her whole body convulsed once, sharply.
The hall erupted into alarm, several Elders rising from their seats, voices overlapping in confusion.
"What's happening?" Qing You demanded, already halfway to her feet. "What's wrong with her?"
Shree Yan turned wide, frightened eyes toward the crowd, his voice pitched with just enough panic to sound convincing. "Mother — Father — look, in his hand! That must be doing it!"
"No!" Yun Je stammered, panic rising genuinely now, his own hands trembling as he stared down at the fragment he still held. "I don't know anything about this — I didn't do this!"
Even as he denied it, his hand moved again over the item, fingers shaking too badly to hold still.
Yi Ner's screams grew worse, sharp and raw, echoing off the pillars in a way that made several of the Elders visibly flinch.
"Yun Je!" Lu Hu shouted from across the hall, his voice cracking with something between fear and fury. "What are you doing to her?"
"I don't know!" Je's voice cracked entirely now, tears springing unbidden to his eyes. *A mortal woman gave me this. How could it possibly be hurting her like this?*
He had no way of knowing — Shree Yan had built the formation himself, tied directly to his own will, invisible and untraceable to anyone without the knowledge to look for it.
"Enough!" Tunxo Miang Ming's voice cracked through the hall like a whip, silencing every other sound at once. "What exactly do you think you're doing — here, in the Rana Clan, in front of me?"
Qing You rose fully now, her expression a mask of controlled fury. "You accused my son falsely, and now that your lie has failed, you try to murder his maid in front of us? You and your entire family will die for this."
Neither man could speak. The Elders closed in around them from every side, the sound of their robes rustling against the floor the only warning before hands seized both Je and Lu Hu by the shoulders.
Je and Lu Hu dropped to their knees, begging, voices tangled together in desperate, overlapping pleas. "I didn't do it — I didn't do it—" Je kept repeating, tears now streaming freely down his face, but no one was listening anymore, the sound of his own voice lost beneath the low, furious murmur of the Elders surrounding him.
Shree Yan stepped forward, his expression carefully arranged into something gentle, almost merciful. "Mother. Father. Let my maid and I handle this."
His parents exchanged a look — a long, silent conversation passing between them in the span of a heartbeat. After a moment's consideration, they granted permission, Tunxo Miang Ming giving a single, slow nod.
*Power and talent are what conquer the weak,* Shree Yan thought, watching the two men tremble before him, watching the fear settle fully into their bones now that whatever mercy they'd hoped for had clearly run out. *There was a time when I was called a genius in name only, without the strength to prove it, without a voice of my own.*
*Not anymore.*