Months turned into a year. The seasons cycled, and Su Chen felt each one. He felt the biting cold of winter that seeped into his bones, the vibrant burst of life in spring, the oppressive heat of summer, and the crisp melancholy of autumn. He learned the names of the villagers, the preferred tea of Old Man Liu, and the precise spot in the courtyard where the sunlight first landed at dawn. His hands, once capable of shaping nebulae, became calloused from sweeping and carrying water. These small, tangible realities were anchors, holding him gratefully to the mortal world.
The peace was disturbed not by a thunderous roar, but by a subtle change in the town's lifeblood: the Clearstream River.
It began with the fishermen. They complained that the river, once teeming with silver-bellied fish, had grown strangely barren. Then, the water itself began to change. Its usual clarity became clouded with a faint, milky-white substance, and at night, some villagers swore they saw a soft, ethereal light pulsing deep beneath the surface. A strange chill began to emanate from the riverbanks, withering the reeds and making the air feel unnaturally cold, even in the midday sun.
Fear, an emotion Su Chen was re-learning from a new perspective, began to spread through the town. They whispered of water spirits and angry river gods. Offerings were made at the small, local shrine, but the river only grew colder.
One afternoon, a young woman in the pristine blue and white robes of the Azure Cloud Sect descended into the town. She rode a magnificent white crane that landed with a grace that scattered dust and awe in equal measure. She was young, perhaps seventeen, with a serious expression and a sword strapped to her back that hummed with a faint spiritual energy. She was in the Qi Condensation realm, a foundational stage, but to the mortals of Clearstream Town, she was an immortal.
The town elder, with great deference, explained the situation to the cultivator, whose name was Lin Fei. She listened with an air of clinical detachment, her gaze fixed on the sickly-looking river.
"It is likely a Yin entity," she declared, her voice clear and confident. "A water ghost or a resentful spirit has taken root here. Standard procedure. I will purify the river."
Su Chen watched from a distance as she strode to the riverbank. He knew instantly that she was wrong. This was not the chaotic, resentful energy of a ghost. This was something else. It was an ancient, dormant power, slowly awakening. It was the energy of a seal, one he hadn't placed, but one he recognized the nature of. It was a seal from an era long past, and it was beginning to fail. The "light" was leaking power, and the "cold" was the seal's magic draining the life force from its surroundings to maintain its integrity.
Lin Fei, however, saw only what her limited training allowed her to see. She drew her sword, and with a shout, began performing a purification ritual. Blue light flared from her blade as she slashed at the water, chanting sutras designed to exorcise evil spirits.
The effect was immediate, but not what she intended.
Her purification energy, which was Yang-aligned, struck the Yin-aligned seal. It was like pouring water on a grease fire. The seal, already failing, reacted violently to the opposing energy. The gentle pulsing light in the river flared into a blinding white glare, and a wave of intense, life-draining cold erupted from the water.
Lin Fei was thrown back, her face ashen, a line of blood trickling from her lips. The grass around her instantly withered and turned black. The villagers screamed and fled.
"Impossible..." Lin Fei gasped, clutching her chest. "Such potent Yin energy... it's not a mere ghost."
She was out of her depth, and she knew it. Her youthful confidence was shattered, replaced by the same fear that gripped the mortals.
From his place in the scholar's courtyard, Su Chen sighed. He had felt the energy's source. Deep beneath the riverbed, sealed within an ancient stone casket, was a single artifact: a solitary black pearl. It was a Heart of the Netherworld, an object formed in the absolute zero of a collapsed realm. The seal around it was decaying after millennia, and the young cultivator's clumsy attempts had only accelerated the process. If the pearl was fully released, its unrestrained Yin energy would not just freeze the river; it would turn the entire town and its surroundings into a lifeless, frozen wasteland.
He looked at his calloused hands. He had made a promise to himself to live as a mortal. To intervene would be to touch upon the powers he had abandoned. But to do nothing? To watch these people, who had shown him simple kindness, perish because of a cosmic relic and a well-intentioned but ignorant child?
He looked toward the river, where Lin Fei was struggling to her feet, her face a mixture of terror and stubborn determination as she prepared to try another, likely more disastrous, technique.
The weight of a copper coin was a simple, honest burden. But the weight of all these lives, he was discovering, was far heavier. He had to act. The question was, how could he solve a problem of cosmic proportions as Su Chen, the scholar's assistant?