The CopyCat Immortal

Chapter 4 The Elder's Suspicion

Mao grabbed Ren’s shoulder, looking for broken bones. His eyebrows shot up when he felt the solid muscle beneath the servant's rags. "You’re tougher than you look, kid. But you're done. Get out of here before the Quartermaster sees me wasting the Golem's charge on a laborer."

"Yes, Senior. Thank you for the... lesson."

Ren backed away, bowing deeply. His internal world was a storm. He had three elements now—Fire, Wind, and Earth. They weren't compatible yet; they sat in his chest like three stray dogs fighting over a scrap of meat, but he could feel his overall power floor rising.

As he walked away from the Granite Yard, heading toward the shaded seclusion of the bamboo groves, that sensation returned. 

It was a prickle on the back of his neck. Not the aggressive, loud gaze of a bully like Li, but something more surgical. It was the feeling of being dissected from a distance.

Ren didn't look back. He knew better. In a sect where everyone was looking to climb, the man who stayed on the ground but looked up was always an anomaly. He kept his pace steady, his breathing shallow, and disappeared into the green shadows.

High above the Granite Yard, perched on the balcony of the Azure Willow Pavilion, a man stood as motionless as a statue. 

Elder Zhou stroked his thin beard, his mercurial eyes reflecting the midday sun. He had watched the entire exchange—Ren’s steady water-hauling, the strange fluidity of his movements, and finally, that inexplicable survival against the Golem’s fist. 

"Friction, you said?" Zhou murmured to himself, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. "Internal heat from a clogged meridian? A clever lie for a boy of sixteen."

Zhou had seen thousands of disciples in his eighty years. He had seen geniuses who burned bright and faded fast, and slow plodders who eventually found their path. But he had never seen anyone absorb impact the way Ren did. It wasn't just a physical toughness; it was as if the boy's spirit roots were acting as a bottomless void, swallowing techniques whole.

"A ruined core shouldn't be able to hold the resonance of three distinct elements without exploding," Zhou noted. He leaned over the railing, watching the tiny, ragged figure of Ren disappear into the grove. "And yet, he walks as if he is carrying nothing but a slight fever."

He wasn't ready to report this to the Sect Master. Not yet. The Azure Cloud Sect was currently navigating a precarious political alliance with the neighboring Frost-Peak Temple. They didn't need the distraction of a "prodigious anomaly" that might actually be a spy or a demonic cultivator in disguise.

But Zhou's curiosity was piqued. In the dry, dusty world of sect administration, Ren was the first thing that had truly interested him in a decade.

"Let’s see how many more deaths you have in you, little cockroach," Zhou whispered. 

Meanwhile, Ren reached the deepest part of the grove, a place where the bamboo was so thick it blocked out the sun. He collapsed against a stalk, his body finally trembling with the aftershocks of the Golem’s strike.

He looked at his hand. He willed the Earth Shield to manifest. For a heart-pounding moment, his fingers became grey, cold to the touch, and heavy. He slammed his hand against a nearby stone. 

The stone chipped. His hand remained unbruised. 

"I can’t keep doing this in the open," Ren told the shadows. "Mao isn't an idiot. Li will eventually notice I’m not limping. And that Elder..."

Ren shivered. He didn't know the Elder's name, but he felt the weight of that mercury-gaze. It was a pressure far heavier than the Golem’s fist.

He realized he was playing a game of chicken with a tidal wave. Each technique he stole made him more formidable, but it also made him a bigger target. The more he "resurrected," the more questions would be asked.

"If they catch me, I’m dead," he reasoned. "If I don't get stronger, I’m dead anyway."

The pragmatist in him won the argument before it even started. Ren didn't value his life for its comfort; he valued it for its potential. He closed his eyes, beginning the internal process of smoothing out the three conflicting energies. 

Fire in the heart. Wind in the lungs. Stone in the bone.

Suddenly, a voice rang out through the bamboo—sharp, arrogant, and unmistakably familiar.

"I don't care where he is! Search the groves! No one burns my wrist and just vanishes to haul water! I’m going to peel his skin off while he’s still conscious!"

Ren’s eyes snapped open. Zhao. And he wasn't alone. He heard the footsteps of at least four or five others. Zhao had clearly convinced a few of the low-level bullies to help him restore his wounded pride.

Ren stood up, his fractured radius clicking as it set itself. His breath went cold. 

He looked around. He could run, or he could test the Pattern again. 

Zhao wanted blood. Ren wanted data. 

What happens, Ren wondered, a dark thrill of curiosity overriding his fear, if I get hit by four of them at once?

The eyes of Elder Zhou might be watching, but in this thicket of bamboo, only the soil would be a witness to the carnage. Ren stepped out from the shadows of the stalks, a jagged piece of wood in his hand to act as a decoy. 

"Are you looking for me, Zhao?" Ren called out, his voice calm and strangely hollow. "I hope your wrist is feeling better."

He stood in a patch of filtered light, waiting for the wolves to find him. His meridians thrummed—a chorus of fire, wind, and stone, singing a song of imminent destruction.

He didn't just feel like an ant anymore. He felt like a trap. 

As Zhao burst through the foliage, his face twisted in a snarl of rage, Ren tightened his grip on his stolen power. He would let them strike. He would let them "kill" him as many times as it took to strip them of their strength.

The eyes above might be watching, but down in the dirt, the "trash" was about to start a collection.