The Mind of the Empyrean

For the next two days, Jian Feng did nothing to arouse suspicion. He diligently continued his review of the mine's ledgers, occasionally summoning Elder Jin to ask a dry, technical question about ore-to-jade processing ratios or the lifespan of a grinding rune. He was the very picture of a young, studious noble, completely out of his element. His presence became a part of the monotonous routine, and the initial tension surrounding his arrival visibly dissipated.

But his nights were spent in silent, focused action. He did not return to the sealed gate of Sector 07. A locked door, he knew, was a statement. Attempting to force it would be a crude and noisy confession of his suspicions. The true weakness in any conspiracy was never the stone and steel, but the faltering hearts of the men who kept its secrets. His target was the weakest link in the chain: the perpetually nervous Elder Jin.

On the fourth night, Jian Feng put his plan into motion. He slipped from his quarters, a ghost in the oppressive dark. His first stop was the settlement's modest infirmary. Cross-referencing the personnel files with the local death register, he had identified a miner who had passed away from 'exhaustion sickness' just a week prior. With his acute senses, he located the man's neatly folded work robes, which were being kept for the family to collect. From them, he took a single, loose thread.

His next stop was the dark, windy alley behind Elder Jin's private residence. He did not approach the building. From the shadows, he placed the thread onto one of his blank jade disks. He then overlaid it with an exceptionally complex, low-energy illusion formation, powered by a wisp of Origin Qi so minuscule it was virtually undetectable. This was not a formation of power; it was one of psychological terror.

He activated the disk.

Inside his lavishly decorated study, Elder Jin was pouring himself a strong spirit wine, his hand trembling slightly. His nerves had been frayed since the Young Lord's arrival. Suddenly, a cold draft swept through the sealed room. He looked up towards the window.

For a breathtaking second, a faint, ethereal figure seemed to coalesce out of the moonlight. It was the ghostly, translucent image of the miner who had just died, his face pale and accusatory. The apparition didn't scream or attack. It simply raised a trembling, spectral hand and pointed, its finger aimed directly towards the distant, dark mountainside where Sector 07 lay hidden. Then, a whisper, like the sigh of the wind itself, seemed to breathe a single word into Jin's mind: "Stolen."

The illusion vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

Elder Jin screamed, dropping his glass. It shattered on the floor, the sound unnaturally loud in the silent night. He scrambled backwards, his face a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. It wasn't a spiritual attack; his protective wards hadn't even flickered. It was something far worse: a direct strike against his guilty conscience. The spirits of the men he had condemned… they were coming for him.

From a rooftop hundreds of meters away, Jian Feng watched the panicked lights flare to life in Jin's residence. He had shaken the tree. Now he would see what fell out.

The terrified elder, his mind unraveling, did what all frightened conspirators do. He sought out his superior. He burst from his residence, his fine robes in disarray, and ran not towards the mine, but through the winding alleys of the settlement. Jian Feng shadowed him effortlessly.

Jin arrived at the dark, silent courtyard of Elder Bao and began hammering on the door, his voice a frantic whisper. "Bao! Let me in! Something's wrong! Something knows!"

The door opened a crack, revealing Elder Bao's stone-like face, his eyes cold with fury at this unprofessional display of panic. A hushed, angry exchange took place. Jian Feng was too far away to hear the words, but the body language was clear. Jin's frantic pleading was met with Bao's dismissive anger. Finally, Bao shoved Jin away and slammed the door shut, leaving his terrified subordinate alone in the darkness.

Panicked and rejected by his superior, Elder Jin made his final mistake. He scrambled back to his own courtyard, his eyes darting into every shadow. He pried loose a floorboard under his porch and retrieved a small, obsidian talisman, shaped like a coiled serpent—an object that bore no resemblance to the Azure Dragon Clan's official communication devices. He poured his Qi into it, his hands shaking too much to form a proper seal. He was trying to contact someone else, someone outside the immediate hierarchy.

Observing from the darkness, a faint, cold smile touched Jian Feng's lips. This was the moment he had engineered. He now had confirmation of Bao's authority and Jin's subservience. He had broken Jin's composure, making him a future tool for manipulation. And most importantly, he now had a new, tangible lead.

As Elder Jin fumbled with the forbidden talisman, Jian Feng's fingers were already weaving through the air, a blank formation disk in his palm. He was not trying to intercept the message; that was too risky. He was rapidly inscribing a resonance-tracking array, tuning it to the unique, dark energy signature of the serpent talisman.

He had found the key to the locked door.