Chapter 11: The Cold Within the Fire
> "A warm house can still burn you, if no one remembers you're alive."
The Ji Estate was bathed in the orange glow of a rising sun. Disciples moved with purpose, their flowing robes trailing behind them like echoes of forgotten glories. But for Lin Ma, the days blurred together in a suffocating haze of labor, silence, and strange, creeping thoughts.
He scrubbed the stone tiles outside the inner sanctum. His hands, once familiar with glass offices and signing pens, were now blistered and raw. Soapwater mixed with blood. Still, he didn't stop.
He had learned not to.
Ji Yanyu hadn't spoken to him since that day in the outer courtyard. She hadn't needed to. Her cold gaze, whenever it passed over him, said enough: You are a placeholder. Not even a person.
Lin Ma didn't argue. Not with her. Not with the elders who snickered when they passed. Not even with himself. Because beneath all the silence and humiliation, something far more dangerous had begun to awaken.
A pulse.
Not in his chest—but behind his eyes, in the center of his soul. A quiet rhythm only he could hear. It started the day he refused to break. The day he endured.
> "Survival Mission Completed: 3 Days Endured Without Collapse."
Reward: Partial Unlock – Companion Seal.
Name: Bai Xue (White Serpent of the Falling Sky).
Status: Dormant.
That message had come two nights ago. At first, Lin Ma thought he was losing his mind. Then the dreams began.
In his sleep, he wandered endless corridors of stars. And always, curled among the cosmos, was a serpent—white as ash, eyes like melting ice. It never spoke. But it watched him. Tested him.
He awoke each time in a cold sweat. And in the real world, something else changed.
He began seeing things.
A flicker in a servant's aura. A shadow behind an elder. Glimpses of strings—like energy threads—that seemed to connect people, twist around their fates. He couldn't explain it. So he kept quiet.
For now.
--
"Boy!"
The bark ripped through the courtyard. Elder Ji Heng stormed down the steps of the main hall, his expression darkened by irritation—and something else: fear disguised as superiority.
"You left streaks on the northern tiles! Do you want my granddaughter to fall and break her neck before her wedding trial?"
Lin Ma bowed deeply, his voice calm. "I'll redo it now, Elder."
Ji Heng sneered. "You'd best. Worthless thing."
He turned and left, robes billowing.
Lin Ma didn't move right away. He watched the elder's back retreat and caught a shimmer of something dark wrapping around the man's ankle. It slithered, smoke-like. Malice?
No… That's not just anger. That's something darker. Deeper.
Lin Ma stood and got back to scrubbing. But inside, something sharpened.
He was being tested again. And this time, he intended to pass in ways the Ji Clan would never see coming.
---
That night, he sat alone outside the storage hut, wrapping his hands in gauze. The moon was high. The estate had grown quiet.
Then he heard it.
A voice.
No—not a voice. A presence.
> "You've lasted longer than most. Good."
He spun around. Nothing.
Then from the shadow of a tree, something shifted. Slithered. Emerged.
A white serpent, small as a kitten but with eyes older than time itself, coiled at his feet. Its scales shimmered faintly, as if layered with starlight. When it spoke again, it did not move its mouth.
> "I am Bai Xue. Or what's left of me."
Lin Ma could barely breathe. "Are you… real?"
> "You freed part of my seal. I am bound to you now, in soul and trial."
He knelt. "What are you?"
> "Once, I ruled skies. Now, I wait. You must rise. Or we both stay broken."
The serpent's body pulsed—and so did the jade bead in Lin Ma's pocket. A thin line of glowing energy linked the two.
Then:
> "A new mission is available."
Quest: Discover the True Nature of Ji Heng's Shadow.
Reward: Companion Awakening Stage 1 – Combat Form.
---
Lin Ma didn't sleep that night. He didn't need to.
Because for the first time in weeks, he felt something stronger than pain.
Purpose.