The silence that blanketed the northern terrace lasted for the span of three deep breaths.
Grand Elder Zhao of the Golden Sword Sect knelt beside the plush velvet beanbag chair. His knobby fingers shook as he withdrew his divine sense from Senior Student Wu’s chest bone. The old man’s beard twitched with disbelief. For two hundred years, Zhao had tended to students carried back from monster nests and ancient ruins. He knew the sickening stench of shattered bone marrow, the dull glaze of a collapsed dantian. The uneven pulse of cut spiritual channels.
There was none of that here.
Wu sat cradling his steaming celadon cup of wild ginger tea. His eyes were wide and blank as he stared down at his flawless palms. Aside from the smudge of damp peat clinging to his left earlobe, his body was in better condition than it had been. Just then, he woke up that morning. The mild spirit vein fatigue he had carried from practicing the Golden Sun Sword Form for three weeks had fully vanished, gently dissolved by the soothing warmth of the ginger-honey broth.
“Speak plainly, Senior Wu,” Elder Zhao commanded, his voice tight as a drawn bowstring. “Did the Primordial Sovereign extract a portion of your soul essence as payment? Is your life-force tethered to an infernal promise? What was the price of your resurrection?”
