The settlement was visible from the air before its details could be read.The first thing that registered was the color—or rather, the absence of living color. No pink from flowering trees, no well-tended green from gardens anyone had bothered with. Only the dull brown of rooftops that hadn't been repaired in years, the gray of walls no one had touched in ages, and moving through all of it, people who walked like people who weren't going anywhere but had nowhere to stop either.Closer in, more could be read.The clothing was worn—not the temporary kind of worn that comes from a dirty day, but the kind that had been carried too long without decent replacements, the kind that had lost its own color from being washed too many times in ways that never quite got it clean. The buildings had forgotten when a pair of hands had last fixed something broken in their walls.And the people themselves.Some moved the way people who weren't entirely healthy moved—steps too deliberate, posture adjust

A legend that had been circulating since she was young enough to sit in her grandmother's lap and listen to stories—the Grand Healer who could cure diseases that had no name, who came when no other hope remained. A name she had long spoken in silence, in a way that wasn't certain whether it was a prayer or just a wish that didn't know where to be sent.And now the Grand Healer was right in front of her.Crouching down, with eyes that held no disgust when they looked at her spot-covered skin, with a voice that held no fear when he spoke to her."Don't worry." Caelan held her gaze directly. "I will heal you."At that point, his hand moved.Not to the spots first—but to a point on the girl's left wrist, where two meridians met at what was known as Neiguan, the sixth pericardium point that governed the flow of qi to the skin's surface and the immune system beneath it.A light touch, with the tips of two fingers already releasing spiritual energy in a very small amount. Not to heal, not ye

Caelan folded the cloth carefully—four folds, with the fluid-soaked part on the inside, shielded from outside air. Then he tucked it into the pocket of his white hanfu.Only then did he look at Rex."Did you follow all of it, Rex?"The serious expression Rex had been wearing since the treatment began eased—not disappearing entirely, but shifting into something more familiar, more like the way Rex usually looked at Caelan when answering something whose answer was already obvious."I understood everything perfectly, Papa."Rex didn't elaborate beyond that, but Caelan knew Rex well enough to understand that behind those few words was something far more detailed than what had been said out loud.And what Rex understood wasn't just the sequence—not simply first this, then that, then this. What he understood was *why* each step sat where it did. Why the spiritual energy frequency used at the Quchi differed from the one used at the Zusanli. Why the pressure had to move from the inside out an

"Thank you, Grand Healer." The old man was the first to speak—with a voice that had its strength back, something that had been nearly gone before. "You saved my life. Three days I couldn't move, and no one could help—" His voice cracked slightly at the end. "But you came.""Grand Healer, I had given up." The twenty-five-year-old woman lifted her head, her eyes wet. "I'd already convinced myself that no one could heal us. All of us had given up. But you—""I was the first to get sick." Xiu spoke from among the adults surrounding her—a small girl's voice with no great volume, but heard clearly because everyone around her went quiet the moment it came out. "I was the one who brought this disease to the village. It's all my fault." Her eyes went to Caelan, the way someone looks when they've carried something too long and have finally found somewhere safe enough to set it down. "But the Grand Healer didn't blame me. You healed me first." Her head dropped again. "Thank you."Caelan and Rex

The riders dismounted simultaneously—a practiced movement, the kind that made it clear this wasn't their first time doing this, that there was a ritual behind every arrival of Mo Xuan to any place, always beginning the same way.They formed a corridor on either side of the carriage door—standing straight, hands at their sides, in blood-red robes cut cleanly at the shoulder with gold ornaments flowing along the edges of the collar and sleeves like carved rivers branching from a single source in many directions. On the left chest of each was a small gold emblem shaped like a drop of blood—small, but positioned in a way that was clearly meant to be seen.Their spiritual energy read clearly to Caelan from where he stood. Having heard the power rankings of this world directly from Wang Liyen, he recognized that the majority were at the Spirit Realm, with three who carried a different depth. Soul Realm. Positioned closest to the carriage door, as if they understood that position was its own