BENEATH HEAVENS GAZE

Chapter 3 – The Girl’s Secret

Three days passed.

The girl moved about quietly, helping with simple chores around the cottage—sweeping the steps, boiling rice, gathering fallen pine needles. Chen Fi never asked her to. She simply did it, perhaps out of gratitude… or guilt.

She hadn’t asked his name again. And he had not offered it.

This morning, as mist curled between the trees and the bamboo chimes whispered, the girl finally spoke.

“My name is Liun.”

Chen Fi didn’t reply. He was tending to a small patch of spirit herbs at the edge of the clearing. Some of them were extinct in the outside world. Here, they thrived like wild grass.

Liun hesitated. Then sat near the flat stone where he always brewed tea.

“I was supposed to become a vessel,” she said softly. “For the Black Flare Sect.”

Chen Fi’s hand paused over a leaf. He said nothing.

“They raise children with special constitutions. I was born with the Silent Flame—cold on the outside, but deadly when stirred. They needed someone to contain their Spirit Demon Core.”

She clenched her fists. “They branded me. Said I should be honored. I ran.”

Chen Fi gently removed a leaf from a herb sprout, careful not to disturb the dew gathered on it.

“I knew I would die,” Liun continued. “But it was better than being used like that.”

Silence.

Then, at last, Chen Fi asked, “Do you wish revenge?”

She blinked.

“…No.”

He looked at her.

“I just want to live.”

He nodded.

They sat quietly. The wind moved through the trees like a long sigh.

But beneath that peace… Chen Fi felt it.

A disturbance. Faint. Distant. But there.

The Dao was trembling, like a thread stretched too far. His concealment art—woven into the very soil and air of the mountain—had always been flawless. Now… something tugged at its edge.

“Stay near the clearing,” he said suddenly.

Liun looked up. “Why?”

“Because I said so.”

His tone left no room for questions. She nodded.

That night, he stood atop the highest ridge of the mountain, robes fluttering in the wind. No moon lit the sky, but his eyes needed no light. He watched the horizon—not with his sight, but with his Dao sense.

Far away, in a realm beyond the empire’s maps, a gate had opened.

Not by mortal hands.

It pulsed. Hungry. Searching.

Chen Fi extended one finger.

The air shimmered. The stars above his mountain dimmed, folding behind a thin veil.

He whispered a command—just one syllable—and the air itself obeyed.

His concealment deepened, merging with the pulse of the world. The heavens shifted slightly, like a door closing silently.

But not completely.

Whatever force had brushed against his veil… it had noticed something.

He returned to the cottage in silence. The tea was still warm. Liun had fallen asleep at the doorway, holding a broom in her lap.

Chen Fi sat beneath the old pine tree. The wind no longer reached him.

He looked up at the stars, and for the first time in decades, his eyes narrowed.

Something ancient was stirring.

And he would not remain hidden much longer.

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