The privacy array settled into its final configuration with a low pressure change that made the surface of the reflecting pool go still. Feng Lan kept her hand on the sealed case and her eyes on my face. The three-hour window had begun.
I started where she had asked.
"The previous owner of this body was not the weak young master the clan believed him to be. He cultivated in secret for years under restrictions his adoptive mother placed on him. At some point he located a treasure or a technique that allowed limited crossing between worlds. The five residual wills found him before he could fully escape. They marked him as a claim and a warning. He still crossed. The mark came with him. When I arrived in this body the mark was already there, quiet, waiting for the right stimulus to wake."
Feng Lan's expression did not change, but the fine focus of her Rebirth Eyes sharpened.
"What are they, exactly? Not the fragmentary warnings in our archives. The operational truth."
