The floorboard settled back into its place with a dull, muffled thud. It was a small sound, but it seemed to echo in the absolute silence of the room. Su Chen sat on the edge of his bed for a long time.
His hands rested heavily on his knees. He did not move a muscle. He just listened to the rhythmic sounds of the house. He needed to be sure no one had heard him.
The estate was deep in its midnight slumber. The silence was not empty. It was heavy and thick, like a physical weight pressing against his eardrums. He could hear the wind whistling through the small gaps in the roof eaves.
It was a low and mournful sound. Farther away, the rhythmic, metallic clink of a guard's armor signaled a patrol on the perimeter. But despite those sounds, the loudest thing in the room was the echo of Meiling's voice in his head.
'Creator,' he thought. He rubbed his tired temples with his fingers. 'Who is that supposed to be?'
There was a lingering sense of bone-deep coldness. There was a silver river of energy flowing through his gut. And now, he had a stolen scroll that promised him a way to stop being a victim.
He reached under the bed once more. His fingers brushed against the rough, unfinished wood until they found the loose board. He pulled the parchment out.
He spread it across his lap with care. The moonlight through the window was sharp and pale. It provided just enough light for him to see the angular, aggressive ink strokes.
'Seven Star,' he whispered. The words were barely a breath in the dark.
The diagrams were nothing like the Su Clan's manuals he had glimpsed. Most cultivation paths were about gathering Qi and storing it like water in a lake.
They spoke of harmony and natural balance.
It spoke of seven specific points along the spine that needed to be forcibly opened. These points were the stars. The text claimed that once opened, these stars would not merely hold energy.
They would pull it from the world around the cultivator with a violent, unyielding hunger. It was a method of consumption rather than accumulation.
He spent the next hour memorizing the first posture. He sat in the center of the bed. He crossed his legs in a tight lotus position.
He straightened his spine until he felt the vertebrae align one by one. He placed his hands on his knees with his palms facing the ceiling.
He closed his eyes and began the breathing pattern. It was a slow, shallow inhale that barely moved his chest. This was followed by a sharp, forceful exhale that pushed every bit of air from his lungs. He did this for ten minutes.
'Empty the lungs,' the scroll had instructed. 'Empty the mind.'
He focused all his attention on the very base of his spine. This was the first star. He imagined a small, black spark sitting at the center of his marrow.
For the first few minutes, he felt nothing but the drafty air of the room. He felt the slight ache in his hips from the sitting position.
Then, the silver liquid in his Dantian reacted. It began to drain away. It felt like someone had pulled a plug at the bottom of his soul. Su Chen gasped.
His body jerked slightly. The sensation was jarring. It was as if his very essence was being tugged downward by an invisible weight.
He fought the instinct to stop. He leaned into the emptiness. He focused entirely on that black spark at the base of his spine. Suddenly, a massive surge of pressure hit him.
It did not come from inside his body. It came from the room itself. The air around him seemed to tighten. It turned thick and heavy. He felt a sudden, violent pull in his chest. It was as if the room were trying to collapse into his lungs.
'What is this?' he thought. His eyes snapped open in shock.
The shadows in the corners of his room seemed to stretch and warp. They crawled toward him like ink in water. The energy in the air was being sucked into his pores at a rate that made his skin sting. It felt like being pricked by a thousand cold needles all at once.
He looked toward the window. His breath came in short, ragged bursts. Outside, in the small courtyard, stood a peach tree. It was Meiling's favorite tree. She spent hours every week pruning its branches. She talked to it as if it could understand her.
It was a spirit-plant. It was nurtured by the rich Qi of the estate. Its leaves were usually a deep, vibrant green. Small pink blossoms were just starting to bud on the tips of the branches.
As Su Chen pulled the energy toward him, he saw the tree shiver. The vibrant green began to drain away right before his eyes. It started at the tips of the leaves and raced toward the stems.
They turned a dull, sickly grey. The blossoms shriveled into black, charred-looking specks. They crumbled into dust and blew away.
'Stop,' he thought. His heart was hammering against his ribs. 'I have to stop!'
He broke the posture. He gasped for air. The vacuum effect vanished instantly. The room felt heavy and stagnant again. But the damage was already done.
He crawled to the window on his hands and knees. He looked out into the courtyard.
The peach tree looked like it had survived a decade of drought in less than five minutes. Half of its leaves were grey and brittle. They looked ready to shatter at a single touch.
The grass around its roots was yellowed and flat. Every bit of life had been stripped from the soil.
"Shit," he whispered. His voice was trembling. "She is going to kill me."