Coffin Shop of the Destiny Ruler

Bab 6

The nib of the quill scratched against the parchment with a sound like a dying insect. Ulricar’s signature was jagged, the hand of a man whose grip on life was slipping as fast as his dignity. The moment the last loop of his name closed, the Destiny Ledger hummed. It wasn't a sound heard with the ears, but a vibration that rattled Chen’s teeth.

In Chen’s vision, the red timer hovering over Ulricar’s head, which had been a frantic, pulsing blur of minutes, flickered and reset. The 'Internal Betrayal' status vanished, replaced by a dull, steady countdown of thirty-four years.

"The contract is sealed," Chen said, his voice flat and professional. He reached out and snatched a small, rusted chisel from his workbench. "Hold still. This is going to sting, and I don't offer refunds for flinching."

Ulricar didn't have time to protest. Chen’s hand moved with the precision of a master surgeon. He didn't use Qi; he didn't have any. Instead, he leveraged the physical mechanics of the human body that the system highlighted in glowing structural lines. He jammed the blunt end of the chisel into a specific nerve cluster near Ulricar’s collarbone and twisted.

Ulricar let out a strangled yelp, his body arching. A glob of thick, black bile, smelling of rotted copper and ozone, erupted from his throat and splattered onto the sawdust-covered floor. It hissed as it touched the wood, eating away at the grain.

"The silver-melting poison," Chen remarked, wiping the chisel on a dirty rag. "Most of it is out. Your own cultivation can handle the rest, provided you don't drink any more 'special' tea from your subordinates. Now, about my payment."

Ulricar slumped against the wall, gasping for air. His face, previously a sickly shade of grey, was beginning to regain its color. He looked at the black puddle on the floor, then at the ledger, and finally at the "trash" disciple standing before him. Without a word, he reached into his robes and pulled out a heavy, embroidered silken pouch. He tossed it onto the workbench. It landed with a dull, metallic thud that spoke of serious density.

"Five thousand spirit stones," Ulricar wheezed, wiping his mouth. "In high-grade promissory notes from the Town Governor’s treasury. They’re as good as gold in any province."

Chen weighed the pouch in his hand. It was light for the value it held, but the aura radiating from the notes inside was unmistakable. "Pleasure doing business with you, Captain. Don't die on the way out; it’s bad for my storefront's feng shui."

Ulricar gave him a look that was equal parts terror and respect before stumbling out of the shop.

Chen didn't waste time. He needed better wood. The pine he’d been using for Vaelen’s coffin was bottom-shelf trash, and if he was going to attract high-end clientele, he needed materials that didn't splinter if you looked at them wrong. He locked the shop door, threw on a slightly less stained carpenter’s apron, and headed toward the Azure Wood Market.

The walk was... interesting.

News traveled in Azure Wood Town like a wildfire in a drought. As Chen walked down the main thoroughfare, the bustle of the morning market died a sudden, unnatural death. People didn't just move out of his way; they scrambled. A vegetable vendor nearly overturned his cart trying to backtrack. Mothers pulled their children behind their skirts, whispering prayers to the Heavens.

Chen ignored it all. He had a singular focus: the High-Timber Quarter.

He stopped in front of a sprawling warehouse owned by a man named Wrenara Blaze. The scent of cedar, sandalwood, and aged oak hung heavy in the air. Inside, a group of cultivators were inspecting slabs of Spirit-Infused Mahogany.

As Chen stepped over the threshold, the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Wrenara, a stout man with a beard singed by years of kiln-work, looked up from a ledger. His eyes went wide, landing on the measuring tape hanging from Chen’s belt.

"I... I'm not for sale!" Wrenara stammered, dropping his brush. "I’m healthy! Look! My pulse is steady!"

"I'm here to buy wood, Wrenara, not measure you for a box," Chen said, his tone bored. He walked over to a stack of Spirit Sandalwood, the wood a deep, lustrous purple. "How much for the lot?"

Wrenara backed away, his hands raised. "Take it! Just... just take it and go! No charge! I don't want your money, and I certainly don't want your 'consultation'!"

Chen sighed. This was going to make logistics difficult. "I'm a businessman, not a bandit. If I take it for free, the Ledger will count it as a debt, and you don't want to owe the man who builds the graves. Name a price."

"Two... two thousand stones?" Wrenara squeaked, clearly naming a price three times the market value just to get Chen to leave.

Chen reached into his pouch, pulling out two of Ulricar’s treasury notes. Before he could hand them over, a shadow fell across the entrance. The air didn't just get cold this time; it turned crystalline. A frost-laden aura swept through the warehouse, causing the moisture in the air to turn into tiny, drifting flakes of snow.

A woman stepped inside. She wore robes of shimmering white and azure silk that seemed to flow like liquid ice. Her hair was like spun silver, pinned back with a jade hairpin that radiated a terrifying amount of Qi.

Chen’s eyes automatically shifted, the System’s HUD overlaying the world in shades of blue and gold. He looked at the merchant, timer: 42 years. He looked at the customers, timers: 12 years, 5 years, 8 months.

Then, he looked at the woman.

His breath hitched. Above her head, the timer wasn't red. It was a deep, tranquil gold, and the numbers were staggering.

[0899:11:29:23:59:58]

Nine hundred years.

Chen blinked. In a world where the average person lived to sixty and the local cultivators were lucky to see a century before a sword or a botched pill ended them, this woman was an anomaly. She was a mountain of time.

She ignored the terrified merchant and walked straight to the Spirit Sandalwood Chen had been inspecting. Her eyes, the color of a frozen lake, flicked to Chen. She didn't look at him with fear. She looked at him with a clinical, detached curiosity.

"You are the one they call the Grave-Bringer," she said. Her voice was like the chime of a silver bell against ice. "The one who predicted Vaelen Kane’s deviation and Ulricar Wolf’s betrayal."

"I prefer 'Funeral Director,'" Chen replied, recovering his composure. He leaned against the stack of wood, looking her up and down. "And you are Sylphara Ash. I’d offer you a brochure, but looking at your clock, you aren't going to be a customer for a very, very long time. It’s almost a waste of my time talking to you."

The merchant, Wrenara, looked like he was about to faint. Nobody talked to a Core Formation expert from the Everfrost Sect like that.

Sylphara tilted her head. "You can see it, then? My end?"

"I see everyone’s end," Chen said, casually tossing a spirit stone note onto the merchant's table. "But yours is boring. Nine hundred years is a lot of wood to store. Tell you what, since you’re clearly a high-value prospect, I’ll offer you a 'Lifetime Warranty.' Buy a coffin today, and I’ll maintain the finish for the next nine centuries, free of charge. I’ll even throw in a silk lining that won't rot."

The silence in the warehouse was absolute. The other cultivators had stopped breathing.

Sylphara stepped closer, her aura pressing against Chen like a physical weight. He felt his bones creak, but he didn't move. He just looked at the golden timer ticking down its first minute since she'd entered.

A small, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips, a cold, dangerous thing.

"A lifetime warranty," she mused. "Bold. Most men lose the ability to speak in my presence, yet you want to sell me a bed for my corpse."

She reached out, her fingers, chilled to the point of smoke, brushing the surface of the sandalwood. "They say your word is absolute. That if you say a man dies at noon, he does not see the sun reach its peak."

She turned her gaze back to Chen, her eyes locking onto his with a piercing intensity.

"Prove it," she challenged. "My longevity is tied to my sect’s secret arts. Not even the Great Diviners of the Central Plains can see the moment of my fading. If you can tell me exactly how I die in nine hundred years, not just when, but the cause, I will buy this entire market for you. Every slab of wood, every tool, and the land it sits on."

She leaned in, her voice dropping to a whisper that felt like a winter wind in his ear. "But if you lie to me, I’ll ensure your timer reaches zero before the sun sets today."