Chapter Seventy-Six: What He Had Hidden
Elder Ruan reacted before anyone else.
The instant he saw Amon's limp, Lei's torn robes, and the blood darkening Yun Che's repaired armor, his expression changed from anger to command.
"Inside the carriage. Both of you. Now."
Yun Che opened his mouth, but Elder Ruan was already moving. He caught Yun Che by the arm and pulled him toward the nearest passenger carriage while Bao Kun and another guard helped Lei climb inside. There was no greeting, no demand for explanations, and no time for the apology Yun Che had failed to prepare.
"Cover the drake," Elder Ruan ordered.
Three guards moved at once. Heavy waterproof sheets were taken from a supply wagon and thrown across Amon's body. The Iceback Glacier Drake gave a low, offended growl when the cloth covered his head, but he was too injured to resist properly.
"Stay down," Bao Kun whispered as he secured the cloth around him. "Unless you want half the region to know where we are."
Amon stopped struggling.
Shen Rui had already disappeared into the trees. Two Frost Wolves moved with him, their noses close to the ground as they searched for any scent following Yun Che and Lei. Other guards climbed nearby hills or spread along the road, watching for distant movement. One inspected the sky for flying swords while another erased the tracks Amon had left when he entered the road.
The response was immediate and disciplined.
That only made Yun Che feel worse.
The sects knew he and Lei had been travelling with the Azure Wolf Consortium. The caravan had been stopped and searched several times since Rivergate. Elder Ruan had apparently been forced to answer questions while pretending not to know where Yun Che had gone.
Despite that, they had hidden him without hesitation.
He had abandoned them.
They were protecting him.
Inside the carriage, no one spoke for several moments.
Yun Che sat on one bench with his hands resting between his knees. Lei sat opposite him while Elder Liang examined the lightning burns along his back and arm. Lin Xia stood near the door, her expression tight. Jin Wei remained beside her, unusually silent.
Neither of them looked relieved to see Yun Che.
Not entirely.
Relief was there. So was anger. Fear. Exhaustion. The strained expressions of people who had spent a full day imagining every possible way a friend could die and then discovered that he had nearly managed several of them.
Elder Ruan entered last and closed the door behind him.
"Were you followed?"
"We don't think so," Lei said. "We stayed away from the roads and doubled back several times."
"Thinking is not enough."
"Mirage watched our trail."
Elder Ruan looked at the butterfly curled weakly beside Yun Che. Her damaged wing had been wrapped with a temporary bandage.
His jaw tightened.
"Shen Rui will confirm it."
He turned to Elder Liang.
"Are they poisoned?"
"Lei still has lightning damage in his meridians. Yun Che has fractures and severe exhaustion. Neither injury explains the behaviour."
Yun Che slowly raised his head.
"What behaviour?"
No one answered immediately.
That silence told him enough.
Elder Liang moved closer and placed two fingers against Yun Che's wrist. A fine thread of Ki entered his body. Yun Che stiffened but did not resist as the elder examined his circulation, dantian, and nervous system.
"Have you eaten anything unusual?" Elder Liang asked.
"No."
"Been bitten?"
"No."
"Stung?"
"I don't think so."
"That is not an answer."
"No. I wasn't bitten or stung."
"Did anyone touch you in Rivergate?"
"A lot of people were around us."
"Anyone who remained close? A stranger? A vendor? A cultivator?"
Yun Che shook his head.
Elder Ruan crouched in front of him.
"Did you drink anything that did not come from the caravan or the inn kitchen?"
"No."
"Did you buy medicine?"
"No."
"Did you enter any shop alone?"
"The cultivation store, but that was before Rivergate."
Elder Ruan looked toward Elder Liang.
"Curse?"
"I cannot detect one."
"Parasite?"
"Nothing obvious."
Jin Wei finally spoke.
"What kind of parasite?"
His voice was controlled, but his hands were clenched.
Elder Liang answered without looking away from Yun Che.
"Several species can influence behaviour. Some nest near the spine. Others enter through food and release substances that increase aggression, fear, or obsession. There are also insects that force hosts into dangerous areas so their bodies can be eaten by the parasite's next form."
Lin Xia's face lost some colour.
Yun Che stared at the floor.
The explanation sounded horrible.
It also explained why everyone was looking at him as though something might be living inside his skull.
Elder Ruan continued questioning him.
"When did you first decide to hunt the tiger?"
"At the inn."
"When did it begin to feel necessary?"
Yun Che hesitated.
"The night before we left."
"What happened that night?"
"I dreamed about it."
Elder Liang's gaze sharpened.
"What kind of dream?"
"I saw the storm. The tiger. The power I could gain." Yun Che swallowed. "When I woke up, it felt like I would regret it forever if I didn't go."
Lin Xia looked at Jin Wei.
The two had clearly reached the same conclusion.
Something had influenced him.
Elder Ruan's expression grew colder.
"And you told no one about this dream?"
"I didn't think it mattered."
"You abandoned the caravan because of it."
"I know."
"You argued with experienced guards, insulted your friends' judgment, and entered a conflict over a major treasure."
"I know."
"Yet you did not think the dream mattered."
Yun Che lowered his gaze again.
"No."
The carriage became quiet.
Elder Liang moved behind Yun Che and began examining the base of his skull and spine. He checked his eyes, ears, mouth, and the channels around his head. He even used a thin silver needle to draw a drop of blood and placed it onto a small testing talisman.
Nothing reacted.
"No parasite I recognise," he said.
Lin Xia exhaled shakily, but the relief did not last.
"If it isn't a parasite," she asked, "then what happened to him?"
Yun Che's stomach tightened.
He had known this moment was coming.
He had imagined telling them many times since leaving the stormlands. In every version, he found a careful way to explain it. A way that would not frighten them more than necessary.
Now there was no careful way left.
"There is something inside me," he said.
Everyone looked at him.
Jin Wei's expression hardened.
"What?"
Yun Che forced himself to continue.
"When I killed the Hundred-Eyed Hollow in Mistforge, it left something behind."
Elder Ruan became completely still.
Lei lowered his eyes. He already knew what came next.
Yun Che looked at Lin Xia and Jin Wei.
"An Abyss Seed."
For a moment, no one reacted.
The words seemed too large for the small carriage.
Then Lin Xia took one step backward.
Jin Wei's face emptied of colour.
Bao Kun, standing near the door, stared at Yun Che as though he had just announced that the Hollow itself was hiding beneath the bench.
Elder Ruan's expression changed in a way Yun Che had never seen before.
Not anger.
Fear.
"You have carried an Abyss Seed since the battle in Mistforge?"
Yun Che nodded.
"And said nothing?"
"Lord Shen knew."
"That was not my question."
"No," Yun Che whispered. "I didn't tell anyone else."
Elder Liang sat back slowly.
"Does your family know?"
"They know I was marked. I don't think they understood how much it could affect me."
"Do you?"
"I thought I did."
Elder Ruan stood so abruptly that his head nearly struck the roof of the carriage.
"You thought you understood it."
His voice remained low, but fury pressed through every word.
"You carried one of the most dangerous forms of corruption known in this world and decided that understanding a short explanation made you safe."
"Lord Shen said I had to overcome it myself."
"That does not mean alone."
"He said his sword intent could damage my soul."
"Then we would have found someone else."
Yun Che looked up.
"How?"
"I don't know," Elder Ruan snapped. "But we would have started by not allowing a corrupted fourteen-year-old to walk away from the caravan because he wanted to hunt a tiger."
The words struck hard.
Lin Xia's eyes had filled with tears, though her voice was angry when she spoke.
"You knew something could affect your judgment?"
"I didn't know it already had."
"You knew it could."
"I thought I would notice."
"And when you had a strange dream and suddenly decided to do something completely unlike you?"
Yun Che had no answer.
Jin Wei turned away and pressed both hands against the wall of the carriage.
"We kept asking what was wrong."
His voice was quieter than Lin Xia's.
"You looked at us and said we were overreacting."
"I know."
"You told us we did not understand."
"I know."
"If we had known about this, we would never have let you leave."
Yun Che flinched.
Elder Ruan gave a sharp nod.
"We would have restrained you."
Ruan's voice hardened.
"If you resisted, I would have sealed your cultivation, tied you inside the carriage and placed two guards beside you until we reached someone qualified to help."
The statement was brutal.
Yun Che believed him completely.
Elder Liang looked more tired than angry.
"You were careless before the Seed influenced you."
Yun Che looked toward him.
"Keeping this secret was your decision. The corruption did not force that. You chose not to tell the people travelling beside you that your emotions and judgment could be altered."
Yun Che's chest tightened.
That distinction hurt because it was true.
The Seed might have amplified his greed and regret in Rivergate.
It had not stopped him from warning them earlier.
"I didn't want everyone treating me like I was dangerous," he said.
Lei's hand shifted near his sword before he caught himself.
Yun Che noticed.
So did everyone else.
The silence that followed was painful.
Elder Liang spoke carefully.
"And now?"
Yun Che looked down at his hands.
"Now I don't know when I am dangerous."
Lin Xia wiped her eyes angrily.
"That does not make hiding it better."
"I know."
"You keep saying that."
"Because I do."
"Knowing afterward does not help us."
Her voice broke on the final word.
She looked away.
Yun Che felt the pain rise again. It became too large too quickly, pressing against his chest until breathing hurt. Shame turned toward despair. Despair became the certainty that he had ruined every friendship in the carriage.
He knew the Seed was increasing it.
That knowledge did nothing.
He gripped the edge of the bench.
Jin Wei finally turned back.
His expression remained hard, but fear sat beneath the anger.
"Are you still being affected now?"
"Yes."
The honesty seemed to frighten them more than denial would have.
"What does that mean?" Bao Kun asked.
"It means negative emotions become stronger. Fear. Anger. Guilt. Regret. Greed." Yun Che struggled to keep his voice steady. "I can know it is happening and still feel all of it."
"Can you control yourself?" Jin Wei asked.
Yun Che looked at him.
"I can control what I do."
He swallowed.
"What I don't know is whether I'll recognize when the reason I want to do something has been distorted."
Lin Xia closed her eyes.
Elder Ruan stood in silence for several seconds, forcing his anger down before speaking.
"Then from now on, you do not make decisions alone."
Yun Che's head lifted.
"You remain with the caravan. You do not leave without my permission. You hand over your explosives and poisons. Your puppet remains stored. When you feel anger, fear, obsession, or any sudden desire that seems urgent, you tell us."
Yun Che's first reaction was resistance.
The restrictions felt humiliating. Suffocating. The thought of surrendering his weapons made panic rise inside him.
Then he recognised the reaction.
That did not weaken it.
He still wanted to refuse.
He looked at Amon's hidden shape outside the carriage, at Mirage's torn wing, and at the burns on Lei's hand.
Slowly, he removed his storage bracelet.
He placed it in Elder Ruan's palm.
"Fine."
Elder Ruan closed his fingers around it.
His expression did not soften.
"Do not mistake our concern for forgiveness."
Yun Che swallowed.
"I won't."
"We are glad you returned alive," Elder Liang said. "We are also furious with you."
Jin Wei nodded.
"Both can be true."
Lin Xia finally looked at Yun Che again.
Her face was wet, her eyes red, and her disappointment was worse than shouting would have been.
"I was afraid you were dead."
"I'm sorry."
"I know."
She said the words without comfort.
"I am still angry."
Yun Che lowered his head.
"You should be."
Outside, Shen Rui gave a low whistle.
A moment later, Elder Ruan opened the carriage door.
Shen Rui stood there with rain on his cloak.
"No one followed them directly," he reported. "But there are scouts on the main road. We need to move before someone notices we have stopped too long."
Elder Ruan nodded.
"Double the perimeter. No one enters this carriage without permission."
He looked back at Yun Che and Lei.
"You will remain hidden until we reach somewhere that can guarantee a lawful hearing."
Then his eyes settled on Yun Che.
"And until we find someone qualified to deal with the Seed, you will not be left alone."
The door closed.
The carriage began moving again.
Inside, no one knew what to say.
Yun Che sat among the people who had protected him, feared for him, and no longer trusted his judgment.
They had accepted him back.
That did not mean things had returned to normal.
Some choices could be forgiven quickly.
Trust took longer to rebuild.