The night stretched long over the Black Lotus Sect, but within the hidden chamber, the true darkness lay not in the sky—but in Mu Qinglan's mind.
She stood motionless, gazing at the wreckage of human bodies chained to the cold stone walls.
They weren't disciples. They weren't warriors. They were husks, their cultivation stripped, their dignity carved away by hunger and time. Their hollowed-out faces were twisted masks of agony—lips cracked, eyes sunken, limbs skeletal. A few twitched weakly, their bodies refusing to die, forced to linger in suffering.
And she had trained alongside them. Laughed with them. Trusted them.
All for what?
To be cattle for slaughter?
Her fingers curled, nails biting into her palms. The sect had betrayed them all.
And she… she had been next.
Jin Xiao's Test Begins
A whisper of movement.
Bai Ling stepped closer, her presence a blade at Mu Qinglan's back. "Are you ready to truly see the world for what it is?"
Mu Qinglan did not flinch. Her voice was steady. "What do you mean?"
Bai Ling's smile was cruel. "The strong do not suffer. The strong take. You've spent your life following rules. But where have they led you?"
Mu Qinglan said nothing, her breathing even.
"You don't want to be weak, do you?" Bai Ling's tone was soft, coaxing. "Weakness is what led them here."
Her hand flicked toward the prisoners.
Her meaning was clear.
Mu Qinglan's gaze swept across them—faces she had once known, now devoid of all meaning.
She had hesitated before. That hesitation had almost cost her everything.
Never again.
Bai Ling's voice dropped lower. "Then prove it."
A single command, woven from silk and steel.
She gestured toward the crumpled figure of Senior Brother Han.
He was nothing now. A trembling skeleton draped in a loose layer of flesh. He had been a prodigy once, his sword sharp, his will unshakable. But now… he could barely lift his head.
Still, his broken lips formed words.
"S-Senior Sister… p-please…"
His voice was brittle. Worthless.
Mu Qinglan felt nothing.
The Breaking Point
She stood over him.
Han trembled, his chains rattling as he tried to crawl back, instinct forcing him away. But he had nowhere to run.
"Kill him," Bai Ling murmured, voice smooth, patient.
Mu Qinglan hesitated. A pause. A tiny crack in the surface.
Bai Ling tilted her head. "You hesitate because you are still shackled by false morality."
Morality.
A meaningless word.
Mu Qinglan had killed before. She had faced beasts, enemy cultivators, assassins sent to take her life.
But this was different.
Han had been one of them.
A remnant of her past self. A past self that had been naive. Foolish. Weak.
She inhaled slowly.
Jin Xiao, watching through Bai Ling's eyes, smirked.
She's breaking.
Just a little more.
Bai Ling knelt beside Han, dragging a single finger across his gaunt cheek. "Kill him," she whispered. "Or I will."
Mu Qinglan's grip tightened.
Han coughed violently, struggling to lift his head. "M-Mu Qinglan… d-don't—"
Pathetic.
A mistake.
Something inside her snapped.
Weakness meant death.
She would never be weak again.
A sharp inhale.
Her fingers curled, frost surging through her veins, condensing into a blade of jagged ice in her palm.
Han's eyes widened.
"No—!"
A single step forward.
A single strike.
Slash.
The ice blade tore through flesh and bone, carving through his throat in a single brutal motion.
A wet, gurgling gasp—then nothing.
Blood sprayed, hot and violent, across the stone.
The body slumped.
Mu Qinglan watched the life drain from his eyes, her own gaze cold. Detached.
A moment of silence.
Then she turned.
The blade of ice in her grip remained steady.
Jin Xiao's Approval
Bai Ling exhaled, a slow smile curling at the edges of her lips.
"Good girl."
Miles away, Jin Xiao closed his eyes in satisfaction.
The final chain had broken.
Mu Qinglan, the once-righteous Ice Lotus, had taken her first step into darkness.
She did not realize it yet.
But this was only the beginning.
Jin Xiao leaned back, fingers tapping idly against the arm of his chair. His smirk widened.
"Now, let's see how far you're willing to fall."
The shadows whispered their approval.
And Mu Qinglan did not look back.