He never got the thirty seconds.
Scarface moved to grab the pendant directly. Wen Dao pulled back — instinct. One of the other two men grabbed his arm.
He drove his elbow into that man's face, broke the grip, moved sideways. The knife came in. He took the cut on the forearm — Level Five body hardening meant it was shallow rather than deep — and used the pain to fuel a strike to Scarface's wrist.
The knife fell.
Scarface hit him. Hard. Level Four cultivator, full force, no hesitation. Wen Dao's vision blurred and he went back against the wall.
The third man pinned him there. Strong grip on both shoulders.
Scarface picked up the knife. His face was all business now. No more talking.
A sound from behind them. Very soft.
Scarface turned.
Zhou Jin was standing fifteen feet down the corridor. He looked exactly the same as always — forgettable face, calm expression. His hands were at his sides.
'Release him,' Zhou Jin said.
Scarface laughed. 'Another child.'
Zhou Jin moved.
Wen Dao did not fully track what happened. He registered movement — fast in a way that made most people he had seen look slow — and then two of the three men were on the ground. The man holding Wen Dao's shoulders had simply stopped holding them because both his arms appeared to be wrong-angled.
Scarface was still standing. He looked at his two men on the floor. He looked at Zhou Jin.
Something in his expression changed. The professional assessment of a dangerous man recognizing another dangerous man.
'How many levels are you?' Scarface said.
'Does it matter?' Zhou Jin said.
Scarface ran. He was fast. He was gone around the corner before Wen Dao had fully processed the exchange.
'The kitchen,' Wen Dao said immediately.
'I handled that first,' Zhou Jin said. 'Three people. They're unconscious.' He looked at the two men on the floor. 'The sect security will find these. We should be elsewhere.'
They moved fast to the outer areas of the sect. Wen Dao went directly to the kitchen.',
Mei was standing against the kitchen wall when he got there. Three men were unconscious in the corner, trussed with kitchen rope. Kun was sitting on a storage box with wide eyes.
Mei looked at Wen Dao's cut forearm. 'You're bleeding.'
'Slightly,' he said.
She got cloth and wrapped it without asking further questions. He let her.
'Is this going to keep happening?' she said.
He looked at Kun, who was still watching him from the storage box with those wide, serious eyes.
'For a while,' he said honestly.
Mei tied off the bandage with unnecessary tightness.
Outside, sect security began dealing with the unconscious Iron Claw members. Elder Huang was notified. Questions would be asked.
Wen Dao stood in the kitchen doorway and thought about what had just happened.
Zhou Jin had been following him. Had been close enough to act within seconds of Wen Dao's wall scratch signal. That meant Zhou Jin had been watching him continuously, or at minimum had tracked him to this corridor.
That should have been unsettling.
It wasn't, entirely. Because Zhou Jin had acted.
There was an implicit agreement being established. He didn't know what Zhou Jin wanted in the long run. But the behavior was clear: Zhou Jin was investing in him.
For reasons he hadn't explained.
That was something to watch carefully.
On the fourth day — the last day before inner disciple transition — nothing happened. No attacks. No ambushes. Pei Tao apparently backed down from whatever he had been pushing Fang Lie toward.
Fang Lie, Wen Dao suspected, had made a different calculation.
He moved to the inner disciple wing at dawn on the first day of the new month.
He had one month at the sect behind him. Body Tempering Level Five with pre-Qi Condensation dantian activity. The complete Iron Question Fist. Elder Shao's jade. Ren Long's notes memorized. A hidden room sealed and waiting.
He was fourteen years old in body. Something much older in mind.
The inner disciple wing was better in every way. Better rooms. Better food. Better training resources. Better enemies.
He noted all of this and began planning his next steps.