Elder Han spotted him before he reached the training grounds.

  Yan Qiu had the boy over one shoulder and the two girls dragged behind him by their robes. His arms were shaking and his qi was empty and every disciple on the path had stopped to stare, but he kept moving until he heard the voice.

  “Yan Qiu.”

  Elder Han crossed the distance in four quick steps. “Are you wounded?” He grabbed Yan Qiu’s arm and checked it for cuts, then ran his hands across his ribs and down his other arm in quick succession.

  Then he stopped.

  He had seen the blood on Yan Qiu’s hands and sword, and the dark patches where it had soaked through the front of his robes. His eyes moved to the three unconscious disciples on the ground. The girls had cuts across their hands and the boy had a bruise spreading across his side.

  His expression changed. He did not ask for an explanation.

  He lifted all four of them with his qi. The ground dropped away and the outer court shrank below as they rose above the rooftops. The wind hit Yan Qiu’s face and then they were descending toward a building set apart from the others, a grey stone pavilion with heavy wooden doors.

  A plaque hung above the entrance. It read Punishment Hall.

  Yan Qiu froze.

  Elder Han set them down in the courtyard. The three were still out. Yan Qiu stood beside them with his hands at his sides and tried to keep his breathing even.

  The doors opened and three more elders came out. The first was a tall woman with a burn scar running down the left side of her neck, half-hidden by her collar. The second was a man who looked like he had not slept in days, with deep lines under his eyes and ink stains on his fingers. The third was the oldest of them, heavyset with a shaved head and thick hands that looked like they belonged to a blacksmith more than a cultivator. They took in the scene quickly and understood what they were looking at.

  “What happened?” the woman asked.

  “A fight,” Elder Han said. “In Sector 2, probably during a mission. I do not know the details yet.”

  The man with the ink-stained fingers opened a ledger. “Names?”

  Yan Qiu told them what happened, keeping it straightforward. Three disciples had approached him after he finished his C-rank mission and wanted his tusk and spirit core. He refused, they came at him together, and he defended himself.

  He did not say anything about the senior.

  He was hoping the beasts in Sector 2 would find Fang Rui tied to that tree before anyone else did. He knew the odds were terrible.

  The elders listened. The ink-stained man wrote everything down while the woman asked a few questions about the sequence of the fight, which Yan Qiu answered without adding anything extra.

  “Fighting between disciples outside of sanctioned grounds is a severe offense,” the woman said. “Regardless of who started it.”

  Yan Qiu’s stomach tightened.

  “However,” she continued, “The circumstances matter. Three against one, during a mission, with clear provocation.” She looked at the others. “This is not a case of mutual aggression.”

  The ink-stained man checked the tokens on the three unconscious disciples. All outer court, last year’s batch.

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  “And you are from the new batch,” the woman said to Yan Qiu. “Less than a week.”

  “Yes, Elder.”

  The elders spoke among themselves for a moment. Yan Qiu stood there and waited. His hands were still at his sides and his heart was going fast, but he kept his face still.

  The woman turned back to him. “You will not be expelled.”

  The relief went through him like cold water. His shoulders dropped and he let out a breath he did not know he had been holding.

  She was about to say something else when a voice came from the gate, loud and out of breath.

  “Elders, we found a student in Sector 2 tied to a tree! He has a qi deviation and there is blood in his eyes and he cannot speak. It looks really bad.”

  Every head in the courtyard turned toward the voice. A senior disciple stood at the gate with dirt on his robes, breathing hard.

  The elders looked back at Yan Qiu.

  His eyes swelled up and the tears came before he could stop them, running quiet down his face. He did not sob or make a sound, just stood there with wet eyes and a tight jaw while the elders looked at him.

  The heavyset elder sighed.

  “Bring him in,” the woman said.

  Inside the pavilion, Yan Qiu sat on a wooden chair while the elders talked. The boy and the two girls had been moved to benches along the wall. A disciple had been sent to retrieve the injured student from Sector 2.

  The report came back quickly. The student had been identified by his token. His qi channels were severely damaged from a deviation. His eyes were filled with blood and his throat was injured badly enough that he could barely whisper. He had been tied to a tree with strips torn from his own robe.

  The ink-stained man read the name from the ledger.

  “Fang Rui.”

  The room went quiet for a moment.

  “That one,” Elder Han said.

  “How many warnings?” the woman asked.

  The ink-stained man flipped back through the pages. “Three formal warnings. Two for intimidating newer disciples into handing over resources. One for taking contribution points from a first-year by threat.” He looked up. “He was placed on probation six months ago.”

  “And he kept doing it,” the heavyset elder said. “He was warned several times. Every elder in this hall told him what would happen if he continued.” He shook his head. “He was never disciplined in his cultivation either. Spent more time pushing around newer disciples than training. It was bound to catch up to him.”

  “The qi deviation,” Elder Han said. “He was near breakthrough to the next stage of Breath Weaving. If he was fighting a junior while his cultivation was that unstable, the deviation is his own doing.”

  The elders agreed. This time was too severe, and the consequences were already beyond what they would normally impose. But they still needed the full truth.

  “Tell us everything,” the woman said to Yan Qiu. “All of it.”

  So he did. He told them everything, from Fang Rui ordering the other three to rob him, to the fight, to disrupting the senior’s qi when it surged and hitting his throat and tying him to the tree.

  The room was quiet when he finished.

  “It is still an offense,” the woman said. “You fought a senior disciple, you hurt him badly, and you did not report any of it. We understand he started it, but that does not excuse everything you did after.”

  She looked at Elder Han. “He is one of yours. New batch?”

  “He is,” Elder Han said.

  “You are a new junior, correct?” the heavyset elder asked.

  “Yes, Elder.”

  The elders exchanged a look.

  “You will not be allowed to participate in the upcoming assessment.” The heavyset elder glanced at Elder Han, who nodded. “Elder Han’s foundation technique test. You are barred from it.”

  That meant the qi condensation pills, the intermediate technique manual, and the personal tutoring from an elder were all gone.

  “Additionally,” the woman said, “you will be sent to the secluded grounds for one month of self-reflection. During that time you will receive very little food, no pills, and no other resources. You will be cultivating on your own.”

  One month alone with minimal rations and nothing to help him cultivate.

  Yan Qiu bowed his head. “I understand, Elder.”

  One of the elders led him out of the Punishment Hall and down a stone path that wound behind the main buildings toward the back of the sect grounds. They walked in silence. The path narrowed and the buildings thinned out until there was nothing around them except trees and rock and the fading afternoon light.

  The secluded grounds were at the end of the path, a small stone room built into the side of the mountain with a single door and no windows. There was a thin mat on the floor, a clay jug of water, and a small basket with a few pieces of dried fruit in it. That was everything.

  The elder opened the door and stepped aside. “You have to stay here for one month. Someone will bring food every few days.”

  Yan Qiu walked in and the door closed behind him.

  He sat down on the mat and looked at the stone walls around him. He was relieved that he was not expelled, and that was the first thing he felt once he was alone. He was still a disciple and he still had a place here. The relief did not last long because the seclusion was already pressing in on him. A whole month alone with almost nothing, no training alongside the others, no assessment to prepare for. He did not know what that would look like and the not knowing made him nervous.

  He sat there in the quiet and waited for the feeling to pass.