The dark candlelight in Bai Ling's private chamber flickered like dying stars, casting twisted shadows across the silk-draped walls. The air was thick with the scent of rare incense—sweet yet cloying, a deceptive veil over the insidious corruption lurking beneath. The Black Lotus Sect thrived in secrecy, and within its core, a sickness spread, unseen and unstoppable.
Bai Ling knelt before the jade mirror, her breath slow, controlled, but empty of the fire that once burned in her soul. She studied her reflection, but the woman staring back was a stranger. The predator's glint in her eyes had dulled, the sharp defiance in her posture replaced by something far more unsettling.
Submission.
Jin Xiao had hollowed her out, carving away the past until nothing remained but his will. She was no longer Bai Ling, the feared assassin. She was a vessel. A shadow. A tool forged in his image, bound to his design.
Her lips curled into a slow, deliberate smirk as her fingers ghosted over her collarbone. A faint black lotus mark shimmered against her pale skin—a brand of ownership, a brand of corruption. It pulsed with an eerie warmth, a reminder that her body was no longer hers alone.
"Master's will is absolute," she whispered, her voice like silk stretched over steel. "The seeds have been planted."
The task was clear—dismantle the sect from within, fracture its trust, and lead more disciples into the abyss.
A Night of Corruption
A soft knock shattered the silence.
"Senior Sister, may I enter?"
The voice was small, trembling at the edges. Bai Ling's smirk widened. Right on time.
"Come in, Little Yue."
The door creaked open, revealing Yue Rong, an outer disciple barely past her adolescence. Her large, naive eyes glowed with reverence, yet underneath the surface, doubt churned. It had taken root the moment Bai Ling whispered her poison into the girl's ears the night before. Now, she had returned, like a moth drawn helplessly to the consuming flame.
Bai Ling rose, her sheer robes gliding over the floor, a ghost in the dim candlelight. She moved with effortless grace, each step deliberate, predatory.
"What troubles you, Little Yue?" Her voice dripped with honeyed concern, yet a razor's edge lurked beneath.
Yue hesitated, fingers twisting in the fabric of her robes. "Senior Sister… yesterday, you spoke about the truth of our sect. I—"
Her hands clenched into trembling fists.
"I need to know. Is it true that the elders are caging us? That they suppress our cultivation?"
Bai Ling exhaled softly, as if in sympathy, before lifting a delicate hand to Yue's chin, tilting her face upward. "You already know the answer, don't you?" Her nails traced the girl's jaw, cold against warm skin. "You feel the chains tightening around your soul every time you meditate. The exhaustion that gnaws at your strength after every so-called breakthrough."
Yue's breath hitched. She had felt it. The suffocating pressure. The inexplicable stagnation. The exhaustion that never faded.
"But why would they do that?" Yue's voice cracked, fear and anger warring in her chest.
Bai Ling chuckled, a sound that slithered into the girl's ears like a lullaby laced with venom. "Because to them, we are nothing but livestock. Cattle bred for the slaughter, shackled to a system designed to break us."
Yue's eyes widened in horror. She wanted to reject it, to call it a lie—but the doubts had already taken root.
Bai Ling leaned in, her breath ghosting over the girl's cheek. "But there is a way out, Little Yue. A path to true power. A path to freedom."
Yue's pulse pounded against her skin. "H-How?"
A slow smile spread across Bai Ling's lips. "Swear yourself to the one who opposes their tyranny. Swear yourself to my Master."
The silence between them was deafening.
Yue's lips parted slightly as her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths. And then—slowly, almost imperceptibly—she nodded.
Bai Ling's fingers glowed with dark energy as she traced a mark along Yue's throat. The girl's body convulsed as the corruption took hold, veins darkening beneath her skin, a strangled gasp escaping her lips. The black lotus bloomed, binding her will to Jin Xiao's.
Another soul consumed.
Beyond the Sect Walls
Far beyond the Black Lotus Sect's walls, buried in the ruins of an abandoned shrine, Jin Xiao sat upon a lotus throne carved from obsidian. His presence, though still, exuded a pressure that coiled through the air like an unseen predator.
His eyes remained closed in meditation, but through Bai Ling, he saw everything.
Felt everything.
A slow, knowing smirk curved his lips.
"Good… very good."
Power pulsed within him, fed by each new disciple who surrendered to his will. The corruption spread like roots burrowing into soft earth, deeper, stronger, impossible to uproot.
The Black Lotus Sect was rotting from within.
And soon, it would collapse.