Once the verdict spread across the sect, the entire mountain erupted in shock.

  “What? That servant Li Wei was convicted of killing Young Master Guo Liang, and he’s being executed at dawn?”

  “You’re kidding! Li Wei actually poisoned Young Master Guo Liang?”

  “Who would’ve thought that that quiet cripple had murder in his heart?”

  “It’s just like the elders say—when jealousy festers, even a mortal can topple a god. Crippled disciples are truly frightening.”

  “The execution will be held in the outer sect public square tomorrow, at dawn. Anyone may attend.”

  “I’m definitely going! Public executions are so rare—I can’t miss this.”

  The news eventually reached Zhao Feng’s courtyard. When he heard it, he frowned for a long moment, then burst into wild, disbelieving laughter. Tears streamed down his face as he clutched his stomach, laughing so hard his cultivation nearly spun out of control. “And here I was thinking Li Wei might actually be the Buddha Mask Disciple! What kind of ‘vigilante’ uses poison and gets caught immediately? I really overestimated that fellow. Splendid! Absolutely splendid.”

  Hu Shaotian, Liang Wuji, and the others exchanged amused glances and chuckled along. Once upon a time, Li Wei had been a genuine rival, someone whose talent had nearly matched Zhao Feng’s, a thorn they all begrudged. But after Zhao Feng defeated him and 'accidentally' crippled his cultivation, Li Wei plummeted from promising disciple to forgotten servant. None of them thought of him anymore unless a passing joke brought him up. They certainly wouldn’t have remembered him today if not for the murder trial. Lately, they had been far too occupied hunting down the Buddha Mask Disciple, especially after the masked troublemaker’s stunt yesterday, which had caused rumors to circle uncomfortably close to Zhao Feng.

  “With this news, people’s attention will shift away from me and toward Li Wei,” Zhao Feng said with clear satisfaction. “Good. Very good. Ah, Li Wei… you truly are a considerate fellow. Just when I was wondering how to pull myself out of the mess that masked lunatic dropped me into, you offer yourself up as a distraction.” He placed a hand over his heart in mock solemnity. “Rest well in the afterlife, my crippled friend. After tomorrow, I’ll pour wine on your grave in gratitude.”

  “In the meantime,” Hu Shaotian added, “we can focus entirely on flushing out that Buddha Mask fellow.”

  “Yes,” Zhao Feng said, grinning. “Yes, we can.” He laughed again, loud and unrestrained. The laughter echoed across the courtyard, ringing through the trees and sending startled birds scattering into the sky.

  Meanwhile, a quarter mile away, in Xian Lan’s small room, the young man sat frozen for a long, breathless moment after hearing the news. “Brother Li… killed someone?” he whispered, numb with disbelief. “No—not just anyone. Guo Liang of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion! Patriarch Shigo Tianyu’s personal disciple! And now, Brother Li's to be executed tomorrow!” The words felt absurd each time they echoed through his mind. Even spoken aloud, they sounded like nonsense, a bad joke told in poor taste. Xian Lan lowered his head, eyes shadowed, and sat in silence for several heavy heartbeats. Then his fingers curled into a tight fist. “I don’t believe it,” he muttered at last, voice cold with certainty. “Brother Li Wei must have been framed.”

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  Xian Lan rose and walked to the window. The more he thought about it, the more the entire situation reeked of something rotten. How could an investigation finish mere hours after the supposed crime? How could evidence be gathered, reviewed, and judged so quickly? How could a verdict, one involving a disciple of the Heavenly Sword Pavilion, no less, be reached in a single night unless something was being pushed from behind the scenes? And beyond all that, he had been with Li Wei just last night, sitting by the fireplace in his room, reminiscing about the village they grew up in. Li Wei had spoken quietly but warmly, with a fragile, stubborn hope—perhaps not hope for cultivating again, but hope for a future worth seeing. Someone like that, someone still holding onto a scrap of tomorrow, would not suddenly poison a prestigious Heavenly Sword Pavilion disciple and throw his life away. And above all… Li Wei was his friend. Xian Lan knew him. Li Wei was not a cold-blooded murderer.

  Xian Lan exhaled sharply, turned from the window, and strode out of his room. He headed straight toward the Disciplinary and Punishment Hall. He had to see Li Wei. No matter what.

  At that same moment, after the First Head’s verdict, the courtroom had emptied, and Li Wei was being escorted through the dim corridor of the disciplinary hall by the same two senior disciples, one at each side. His steps were steady, calm. Li Wei wasn’t calm because he had some hidden plan, nor was he calm because he had accepted his fate. He was calm because the verdict hadn’t fully registered yet. It hovered just beyond his grasp like a nightmare he hadn’t quite woken up into. But as he walked down the long hallway, the stone cold under his soles of his shoe, the echo of each footstep hollow as a funeral drum, reality finally settled into him with a dark, suffocating clarity.

  So… I am going to die, he thought, The realization echoed through his mind with excruciating slowness, each word sinking like a stone into dark water. For a moment, he felt light-headed, almost detached from his own body, as though the statement simply couldn’t be real.

  But it was.

  He was going to be executed tomorrow.

  When he had been a boy in the village, death had always felt like a distant, unreachable thing—an old man’s problem, not his. Even though he’d been mortal, mortality itself felt abstract, almost irrelevant. He used to believe death was nothing to fear, that a true man faced it without blinking. Only cowards, he’d thought back then, trembled at the idea of dying. But after joining the Azure Cloud Sect and stepping onto the path of cultivation, that childish fearlessness had begun to erode. He was still bold, still daring, but he no longer acted with the reckless abandon he once gloried in. Because the more he learned about cultivation—the realms, the possibilities, the heights far beyond what mortals could even imagine—the more precious life started to seem.

  If he died now, how would he ever reach those higher realms? How could he possibly see the Celestial Palace with Xiao Lan as they once dreamed? How would he ever build a temple atop Cloudveil Mountain like he had boldly vowed in his youth? And it wasn’t only about cultivation. Li Wei also wanted to see the worlds beyond this one.

  According to orthodox legend, existence was divided into three planes. Mortal, Immortal, and Divine. He and everyone he knew lived in the Mortal Plane, the lowest rung of existence. Above it was the Immortal Plane, a domain of beings far beyond mortal comprehension. And above even that was the Divine Plane, whispered about in legends but never verified.

  Li Wei, at the very bottom of the hierarchy of existence, had never even touched the peak of the Mortal Plane. He hadn’t tasted its apex, hadn’t glimpsed its zenith, let alone witnessing the Immortal Plane, let alone the Divine Plane. And now… he never would.

  Because he was about to die.