Jin Mu: THUNDER UNLEASHED

Chapter 3

By the third day of travel the storm had passed leaving the world washed clean the grasslands stretched in endless gold and the mountains ahead shimmered blue beneath a sky so wide it made Jin Mu dizzy to look at.

He walked beside Orin in silence their footsteps keeping a steady rhythm on the dirt road the scholar’s chatter filled the air when the quiet grew too heavy soft and thoughtful

“Do you ever think about how small we are? Orin asked suddenly “The heavens the sects and the immortals… we scurry about like ants and call it destiny.”

Jin Mu gave a faint smile “Ants still build kingdoms.”

“True But sometimes the rain comes.” Orin tilted his head watching a hawk circle overhead “I used to think knowledge could shield us from that Lately, I’m not so sure.”

They stopped at a roadside shrine half-collapsed and overgrown with vines Someone had left offerings dried rice a single coin and a sprig of plum blossom already browned by the sun. The carving on the stone was worn smooth but Jin Mu could still make out the faint outline of a sword and a lotus.

He bowed his head out of habit then froze.

the offering bowl shimmered just a flicker of movement like heat haze Beneath it the soil darkened.

Orin noticed too. “You saw that?

Jin Mu crouched brushing aside the dust the earth beneath the shrine was cool… too cool A faint pulse of energy drifted from it low familiar in a way that made his skin prickle.

“Death Qi,” he murmured before he could stop himself.

Orin turned to him sharply. “You can sense it?

Jin Mu stood, pulling his hand back. “It’s faint Old Probably a burial site.”

But he knew it wasn’t Death Qi didn’t cling like that unless it had been shaped guided by will Someone had made this shrine deliberately to seal or hide something.

He didn’t say it aloud.

And They moved on.

By late afternoon they reached the edge of a forest. The air grew thick with resin and the sharp scent of pine Orin stopped to refill their waterskins at a stream humming tunelessly as he wrote in his small battered notebook.

Jin Mu watched the water drift past It should have been peaceful clear sky, birds calling but the silence felt wrong

He dipped his fingers into the current the chill ran deeper than the mountain melt should allow. For an instant, he saw his reflection shimmer and behind it, faint silhouettes dozens of them drifting like shadows underwater

He jerked back the vision vanished.

“You all right?” Orin asked without looking up.

“Fine.”

The scholar’s quill paused. “You don’t look fine.”

“I said I’m fine.”

The words came out harsher than he intended Orin raised his hands in mock surrender smiling faintly. “Fair enough.” He corked his ink bottle and stood. “We should reach Heiyan Village by nightfall they say there’s an old archive there I could use a look at their records.”

Jin Mu nodded but kept his eyes on the stream a moment longer. The reflection was his alone again pale skin silver-ringed eyes.

Heiyan was small barely fifty homes surrounded by barley fields the whole place wrapped in a faint mist that never seemed to lift. A wooden bridge crossed a narrow ravine where the remains of a shrine lay half-swallowed by ivy.

As they entered an old woman sweeping her doorstep looked up and crossed herself twice Her eyes lingered on Jin Mu a moment too long.

“Friendly place,” Orin murmured.

“ this place is top quiet,” Jin Mu replied.

They found lodging in a small tavern near the edge of town the innkeeper a young man with a nervous twitch handed them keys without meeting their eyes His hands shook.

“Something’s wrong here,” Orin said once they were upstairs.

Jin Mu glanced out the window The villagers moved like people underwater slow heads bowed Even the dogs were silent the air carried a faint metallic tang.

That night he dreamed that He stood again in the burned village smoke curling through rain Only now the houses stood whole, the people alive smiling, laughing, faces bright in firelight and at the center of it all his father stood beside the well hammering iron turning to smile at him.

“Come home, Mu’er,” his father said gently “You’ve wandered too long.”

Jin Mu took a step forward the air thickened The laughter turned to weeping His father’s eyes hollowed into black sockets.

“Come home,” the corpse said again, voice breaking. “Join us.”

He woke with a shout drenched in sweat the echo of thunder pounding in his ears.

Orin was sitting up, wide eyed. “Bad dream?

Jin Mu’s hands trembled His palms glowed faintly thin veins of silver fire threading through black.

“You’re… glowing,” Orin whispered.

Jin Mu closed his fists forcing the light to fade the effort hurt.

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?” Orin’s gaze was sharp now. “You’re burning from the inside and you call it nothing?

Jin Mu met his eyes. “If I told you the truth you’d call me cursed.”

Orin hesitated. “Try me.”

Outside the wind rose rattling the shutters.

Finally Jin Mu said quietly, “When the lightning struck something answered like a power that isn’t from this world It gave me life… but it took something too.”

Orin’s expression shifted curiosity, wonder then settled into something steadier. “You’re saying you command Death Qi.”

Jin Mu stiffened.

The scholar smiled faintly“I thought so I’ve seen traces of it before minor and unstable but yours… it’s different it’s Controlled It shouldn’t be possible.”

“It isn’t,” Jin Mu said.

Orin shrugged. “Yet here you are.”

Somewhere in the distance a bell tolled deep and mournful.

Orin leaned back on the bed, folding his arms behind his head. “You should learn to control it before it controls you the old texts speak of ‘Yin Flame Arts’ that could”

“Enough,” Jin Mu said.

The scholar grinned “Fine tomorrow we find the archive Maybe the past still remembers what the present fears.”

Jin Mu nodded but his thoughts lingered on the dream on his father’s hollow eyes.