Heaven's Only Men Cultivator

Chapter 4 - Letting Go of the Thread

Ying Yue pulled him into the shadows of a narrow crevice just as a flare of blue light washed over the rubble of the obsidian doors. Li Feng stumbled, his knees hitting the cold, damp stone. The blade stayed inches from his windpipe, a constant, shivering reminder of his place.

"Don't move," she breathed. Her heart was racing—he could feel the vibration through her grip on his collar. "If you breathe too loud, they'll find us."

"They're already here," Li Feng whispered back, his eyes fixed on the flickering blue glow reflecting off the cave walls. "Elder Mei... she won't stop until I'm dead."

Ying Yue narrowed her eyes, her violet irises shimmering in the dark. "She wants the Core, you idiot. Dead or alive doesn't matter to her as long as she can scrape it out of your ribs."

"Why?" Li Feng asked, a sudden surge of heat bubbling in his chest. "Why is a man having this power such a crime? You saw what happened. It saved you. It's just... energy."

Ying Yue let out a sharp, cynical breath that was almost a laugh. She didn't lower her sword. "You really are just a slave, aren't you? You know nothing about the world you live in."

"I know the whip," Li Feng said, his voice hardening. "I know the hunger. I know being told I'm a mistake of nature because I was born male. What else is there?"

The sounds of the search party grew louder. The clinking of jade ornaments and the authoritative bark of Elder Mei echoed through the tunnels. Ying Yue shoved Li Feng further into the alcove, her body pressing against his to keep them hidden in the narrow space. The heat from his chest was intense, a contrast to the icy aura she radiated.

"A thousand years ago," Ying Yue whispered, her voice low and tight, "men weren't slaves. They were the ones who held the sky. They were the emperors, the masters of the Sun Qi. But they were also arrogant. They tried to build a ladder to the Higher Realms to challenge the Architect himself."

Li Feng stared at her. This wasn't the history he had been taught. The temples said men were created weak to serve the balance. "They challenged a god?"

"And they lost," she snapped. "The Architect didn't just kill the rebels. He placed a seal on the very blood of your kind. He inverted the heavens. He made it so the world's energy would only respond to the Yin—to women. Any man who tried to touch the Qi of the universe would find his meridians shattered. You were turned into empty vessels. Hollow. Weak."

"So it was a cage," Li Feng said. His hands balled into fists, his fingernails digging into his palms. "Nineteen years... my whole life... it wasn't nature. It was a prison sentence for something I didn't even do?"

"The women of the sects call it the Great Rectification," Ying Yue said, her eyes flickering toward the entrance. "They believe that by keeping men in chains, they are preventing the end of the world. To them, you aren't a person, Li Feng. You are a potential disaster. And that thing in your chest? That's the key to the prison door."

"I didn't ask for this key," he hissed. "I just wanted to survive."

"Well, you failed at that," she said. "The moment you absorbed that Core, you became the most hunted thing on this planet. Every sect, every queen, every demon—they will all want to either own you or erase you."

A sudden chill swept through the tunnel. The air grew heavy, like a physical weight pressing down on their lungs. Li Feng saw a faint, pale mist beginning to crawl across the floor toward their hiding spot.

"Elder Mei’s Frost Seekers," Ying Yue cursed under her breath. She finally lowered the blade from his throat, but only to grip her own sword hilt tighter. "It's a tracking technique. It senses the heat of living bodies. My Yin is suppressed from the wound, I can't mask us both."

"Can you hide yourself?" Li Feng asked.

"I could," she said, looking at him with a cold, calculating gaze. "It would be easy to leave you here as a distraction. They’d find you, I’d slip away in the chaos."

"Then why don't you?"

Ying Yue hesitated. Her violet eyes searched his face, lingering on the golden glow that refused to dim beneath his skin. "Because I’ve never seen the sun before. Not like this. If I let them kill you, I’m just letting the world stay dark. And I hate the dark, Li Feng."

"Sister Mira! Over here!" a voice shouted from just outside the crevice. "The frost is reacting! Something hot is hidden in the rocks!"

"They've found the trail," Li Feng whispered. He could hear the rapid thud of boots. The white-and-blue silks of the Silk Cloud disciples were visible through the gaps in the stone.

"If they see your aura, it’s over," Ying Yue said, her voice urgent. "Can you pull it back? Can you make the Core go cold?"

"I don't know how!" Li Feng gasped. He tried to focus, to push the liquid fire back into the center of his chest, but the energy was restless. It felt like a caged animal sensing a predator. It wanted to strike, to burn, to defend itself.

"Think of the river," the voice in his head suddenly boomed. "The deep, dark water. You must wrap the fire in the shadows. Do not extinguish it—bury it."

"Li Feng, do something!" Ying Yue grabbed his arm. Her touch was freezing, but it helped him focus. "The Elder is coming. If she enters this chamber, her Spirit Sense will tear through these rocks like paper."

Li Feng closed his eyes. He felt the golden grain spinning in his solar plexus. *Bury it,* he thought. *Wrap it in the cold. Wrap it in the slave I used to be.*

He didn't try to stop the energy. Instead, he visualized his own Qi as a sun sinking below the horizon. He imagined the heavy, suffocating weight of the chains he had worn for years. He took that feeling of being 'nothing,' of being 'hollow,' and draped it over the Core like a heavy black shroud.

The golden glow beneath his skin flickered. The warmth in the air began to plummet.

"What are you doing?" Ying Yue whispered, her eyes wide. "You're... you're disappearing."

Li Feng didn't answer. He was pouring every ounce of his will into the mask. He felt the Yang Core straining against the suppression, roaring in protest, but he forced it down. He became a void. A cold, empty space in the fabric of the world.

A shadow fell over the entrance to their crevice. A woman in ornate, flowing robes stepped into the small chamber. Elder Mei. Her face was a mask of cold fury, her eyes scanning the darkness with the precision of a hawk. She held a jade staff that pulsed with a rhythmic, moonlight-blue light.

Li Feng held his breath. He could see the hem of her robes just inches from his boots.

"Where is he?" the Elder hissed. Her voice was like ice cracking on a lake. "The frost led here. I can feel the resonance of the broken seal, but the heat... it vanished."

"Maybe he fell into the lower river, Elder?" one of the disciples suggested, her voice trembling. "The current is lethal."

"No," Mei snapped. She slammed her staff into the ground. A wave of blue energy rippled outward, passing right through the rocks where Li Feng and Ying Yue were huddled. "He is here. I can smell the corruption of the Yang. It's a foul, oily scent. Search every crack! Break the stones if you have to!"

Ying Yue’s hand tightened on Li Feng’s shoulder. He could feel her pulse thrumming against his skin. She was terrified. If he slipped for even a second, the golden light would erupt and they would both be incinerated by the Elder’s power.

Li Feng felt a drop of sweat roll down his forehead. The effort of holding the Core back was like trying to hold a mountain with a single thread. His muscles began to shake. The anger he had felt earlier—the rage at the history of his kind—began to leak through the mask.

*They call us foul,* he thought. *They call us oily. They stole the world and called it holy.*

The Core responded to his anger. A tiny spark of gold flared in the center of his chest.

"There!" Elder Mei spun around, her staff leveled directly at their crevice. "I felt it! A flicker of the forbidden light!"

"Li Feng, no," Ying Yue breathed, her hand reaching for her sword.

The Elder stepped forward, her hand erupting in a swirl of blue, jagged energy. "Come out, slave! Come out and return what doesn't belong to you, or I will bury you in this tomb forever!"

Li Feng looked at Ying Yue. He saw the fear in her eyes, but he also saw a strange, desperate hope. He looked at the Elder—the symbol of everything that had kept him in the dirt.

He had a choice. He could keep hiding, hoping the thread wouldn't break, or he could embrace the fire and show them exactly what a 'hollow vessel' could do.

"You want the light, Elder?" Li Feng whispered, his voice vibrating with a power that wasn't his own.

He let go of the thread.

***