After the tour of the Wen Family’s compound, it was finally time to conduct the first Ancestral Tree cleansing session.

  Liu Mingchen instructed Wen Yuanfeng to put out the lights in the ancestral hall.

  The air was thick with moisture and smelled of tree-sap; the faint glow of spirit light pulsed through the space in uneven intervals.

  In the darkness, the tree was only available in fragments: the branches and trunk emerged in brief flashes before fading back into blackness.

  Liu Mingchen snapped his fingers and candlelight filled the room. The aroma of incense soon drifted into the noses of all present. Yuming could finally make out the face of Qin Yueshan—she was staring intently at the four juniors.

  Under the tree, an intricate spiritual lattice appeared—illusory yet completely stable. The lattice’s edges seemed to dig into the earth below.

  Wen Yuanfeng coughed once, then smiled and motioned towards the four.

  “Please, take your seats.”

  The four were confused, and Liu Mingchen stepped in to explain.

  “I’m sure you remember—our Liu Family needs Harvest Qi to support an important Senior.”

  The four nodded.

  “Harvest Qi comes from Ancestral Trees—and Ancestral Trees form a network with each other. When some Ancestral Trees are tainted, the output of all trees decreases.”

  Qin Yueshan’s eyes narrowed.

  Liu Mingchen continued. “Juniors below Dantian Awakening—who haven’t fully developed spiritual sense—are ideal nodes to test the purity of the Ancestral Trees. You are mediums without much interference, so you do well.”

  He stopped speaking, and Liu Zhong asked a question: “Senior, would mortals not work better?”

  Liu Mingchen shook his head. “Do mortals even count as mediums?”

  Liu Mingchen gestured to Wen Yuanfeng, who produced a cloth-lined box. Inside were six wooden tokens. Each was pale and inscribed with faint formation lines.

  Seeing that Liu Mingchen had no intention of speaking further, Wen Yuanfeng hurriedly explained the items. “These are interface tokens,” he held one up, “during the session, hold it to your navel. They can sense the readings in your spiritual roots.”

  Yuming took the token. It was heavier than he expected, and slightly warm despite the increasingly damp surroundings. He couldn’t help but recall the token Liu Tianjue had given him prior to his Qinglu Market assignment.

  After getting acquainted with the process, the group finally took their seats. Yuming moved to a cold stone chair and the formation lines that connected it to the Tree came to life.

  As soon as the session started, Yuming felt his vision strengthen and narrow: the root cluster in front of him seemed to brighten—it became his entire field of vision. The uneven pulse of luminescence emitted from the tree became hypnotic; Yuming couldn’t help but feel slightly lethargic.

  He could feel the Tree's presence more clearly. Conversely, he felt as if something ancient had noticed him in return.

  Liu Zhong took a position next to Yuming, his breathing intentionally even. It was performative competence. The two other juniors, Liu Yuhao and Liu Qingyu, settled into two other seats somewhat nervously.

  Two other juniors clad in crimson walked into the Ancestral Hall, moving with the ease of those who had done this before. Yuming felt like the Tree’s attention swept by them more gently.

  It already recognizes them.

  Qin Yueshan circled the juniors, her hands sweeping across each junior. When she reached Yuming, she paused. Her hand hovered near his token for a moment—Yuming noticed the stare.

  What she was thinking, Yuming didn’t find out. She moved on to the next junior and remained silent.

  Liu Mingchen pulled out a small jar from his sleeve, filled with dark paste. He pressed it around the formation, causing the existing incense to thicken rapidly. Yuming could feel the Tree extending itself through the smoke, reaching out and touching each token.

  The token grew warmer against him.

  Wen Yuanfeng said that the tokens were there to sense the readings in their spiritual roots. But he didn’t feel like he was being sensed—he almost felt like something was being faintly inscribed on him.

  He cycled a trace of qi through his Ren and Du Meridians, enhancing his perception. He received the feeling and held it, trying to process it.

  He felt as if the token was a barrier between his identity and the Tree’s attention.

  He looked at Liu Zhong, who was still breathing steadily, his eyes closed. Liu Yuhao and Liu Qingyu still gripped the shoulders of their seats, but their faces had regained composure. It seemed they felt that the token was working normally.

  A mark began to form on the token; it didn’t touch Yuming yet it felt as though it was pressing into his skin. The Tree itself was making the inscription, claiming Yuming and the others as kin.

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  The other juniors had inscriptions carved easily. They all felt the token warming, something was happening.

  But Yuming felt slightly differently.

  Just a few months ago, Yuming might not have known the mechanism, but now he could tell that the token was trying to write against his “self”—his identity. His identity should have been a clean slate, easy to make an imprint on. But his identity contained a fault line.

  So the inscription went through the crack, through the token, and passed on towards him. It flicked him with a twinge of raw recognition. Not much, but enough for Yuming to sense it.

  “Second naming,” Liu Mingchen announced. “Trunk activation.”

  Before the original mark had time to try, another resonance mark from the Trunk needed to be written. He felt a faint pressure from the northwest, from the direction of Zhenyuan. The lattice array around him sparkled and emitted waves of blue and orange qi.

  The resonance from the northwest landed on him gently and naturally—it recognized him before it even landed. The resonance flowed down into the Ancestral Hall, into the lattice, into the tokens held by the six juniors.

  This process was much easier than the previous one. The inscription was made easily in a single stroke.

  This time, it didn’t pass through the fault line.

  The dual-resonance was uneven. The resonance from the Liu Tree rested fully on him, completely evenly. But the branch resonance—the inscription from the Wen Tree—was split between the token and the fault line.

  Yuming realized: the Liu saw him one way, the Wen Tree saw him another. The gap between those two perceptions lay along the fault line.

  Wen Yuanfeng spoke to comfort the juniors. “Hold steady, don’t resist, the impact only reaches the token.”

  The lattice by the Tree continued brightening, the edges slowly weaving into each other as it crawled out to envelope the entire formation. After a few moments the braiding completed; the six juniors formed a single, functioning bridge.

  Harvest Qi then rose from the roots.

  It was beautiful. Qi rose like autumn leaves through wind, dazzling specks of red, purple, and gold humming and intertwining as they ascended towards the six tokens.

  The qi met the tokens, which accepted the spirituality comfortably. The token at Yuming’s chest warmed further—nearly to the point of discomfort—bathed in an amber phosphorescence.

  The qi passed through Yuming before quietly departing. Through his fault line, he could barely perceive a melancholic lethargy, the weight of a slow drain.

  We’re doing this to the Tree.

  He wasn’t sure if the thought belonged to the Tree, or Chenming, or both. Yuming held onto it.

  The feeling left before he could examine it further.

  The session continued. Harvest Qi flowed, the lattice stayed sturdy. The tokens recorded improving purity in the spiritual qi.

  “Session closed,” Liu Mingchen finally announced. The Tree stopped its pulsing, the lattice flickered off, and the main lights in the room lit up. The other five juniors appeared completely normal.

  Qin Yueshan consulted something in her palm. “Minor variance at the third position,” she noted down. “Within acceptable parameters.”

  Wen Yuanfeng thanked the juniors and collected the tokens, summoning a group of attendants to lead them to their dwellings.

  Yuming remained still for a moment, feeling the faint mark where the Tree’s touch had slipped through his fault line and plastered itself unevenly against him.

  Maybe something like this has happened before. I just never noticed until I was aware of the fault line.

  The mark pulsed faintly for a few moments as his circulation flowed past it before it faded away.

  Maybe faded was the wrong word. It settled.

  The Trunk mark on the token was already dissolving, and most of the branch mark from the Wen Tree was dissolving as well. But the fragment that slipped through his fault line was unaccounted for.

  He rose from his seat and followed the other juniors toward the door, his face showing nothing but some fatigue.

  But his mind was beginning to turn.

  The Trunk was from the Liu Tree, and the Liu Family—in particular, the Zhan Branch—had spent years shaping him. Every gift they gave him was molding him, every favor was constructing the form he would take.

  And when they saved his life, it was as if he was locked into taking that form from now on—as if he had no other choice.

  My cultivation progress now accelerates when it’s through Zhan Branch resources, while it’s nearly impossible without their help.

  He’d been pondering this for the past few days. Ever since he realized he could shed his old identity when he reached Qi Condensation, shedding had become his goal—his escape plan.

  But he couldn’t reach Qi Condensation without the Zhan Branch’s permission. That was the paradox.

  Through Zhan, I have a ready-made mold. They expand the mold for me to fill at their discretion.

  He glanced at the mortal attendant leading him to his dorm.

  My condensation points in one direction—if I don’t do it through them, I’m directionless.

  The attendant showed him his dorm; it was clean, spacious, and smelled faintly of honey.

  “Thank you,” Yuming said warmly.

  The attendant bowed and left, the door closed gently behind her.

  Yuming sat on a cheap meditation mat and began circulating qi through his meridians. Ren fell, Du rose.

  He felt that the fragment was still there.

  Every pass of his circulation touched it, giving him some sensation he couldn’t quite name.

  The Zhan Branch had claimed him with gifts, debt.

  Debt flows down, gratitude flows up. Those six words described the axis he was strung along.

  But the connection with the Wen Tree was different; the Tree had acknowledged him without demanding repayment. It was a mere witness.

  Perhaps it’s the feeling of recognition.

  The Zhan axis was clearly defined up and down. But what was this new axis? It was simply there, observing while remaining indifferent and tired.

  Sideways.

  Yuming’s eyes narrowed.

  When I don’t condense towards Zhan, I don’t have direction. Perhaps I can find another direction.

  He thought about the Unbroken Ledger True Sutra. It stated that most condensation begins after the dantian awakens.

  But Yuming hadn’t even awakened his dantian. Even if he found a new route it was useless unless he could awaken it.

  Unblocking his remaining twelve meridians wasn’t too difficult now that Ren and Du were opened. He first needed to form a microcosmic orbit between his Ren and Du, and then use that power to unblock the twelve.

  That just requires a bit of time, not resources.

  The hard part was already done.

  He next needed to focus the center of his orbit towards his navel, forming a basin that could serve as a proto-dantian: a pressure depression where qi starts pooling automatically.

  This also required time and precision, but it was a fundamentally internal process. He figured he could do it on his own.

  The hardest step was Dantian Ignition: stimulating the proto-dantian so that the “orbit breaths on its own.” In simpler terms, he’d begin subconsciously pulling qi towards the dantian. Achieving this would awaken his dantian.

  But where would he get the stimulus? The methods described in the Unbroken Ledger all required external resources or vast amounts of time that he didn’t believe he had.

  Unless…

  His mind raced faster. Since he’d been at the Wen Family, he felt a familiar faint pressure at the edge of his perception. The pressure of being watched. He couldn’t trace the source, but he assumed it was someone from Zhan.

  I doubt they’d let me out from under their gaze. I’m an expensive investment, after all.

  He clicked his tongue. I doubt it would be a Foundation Establishment ancestor. Perhaps it’s Liu Tianjue… it seems that fellow has nothing better to do than babysit.

  The more he thought about it, the more he felt like he might be able to ignite his dantian after all.