THE REAL PROTEGE

Ling Li knelt beside the pool, extended both palms, and summoned windfire threads from her own aura. They wrapped around Pharsa like silk and heat, sinking into her skin where old seals had faded.

Shinsei, solemn and focused, chanted from the Phoenix Scroll, verifying each strand of soul filament, watching as her energy realigned in clean spirals. His gaze softened — a rare shift in his usually austere demeanor.

The water pulsed once.

Then twice.

Then stilled.

Pharsa's breath slowed. Her aura crystallized — no longer leaking, no longer vulnerable.

Ling Li pressed one palm to Pharsa's heart.

"You are yours again."

Shinsei closed the scroll and bowed his head in affirmation.

From the tree line, Chatty exhaled, hands still clenched in prayer.

And somewhere beyond the veil, the spirit that had once watched her weep — the mother who had sealed her for safety — paused, and wept in peace.

A New Presence: The Seer Who Fell from Light

Later that night, while the family slept beneath reinforced dream veils and Pharsa rested in ceremonial silence, the gate alarm pulsed.

Outside the estate, through curtains of mist and pine, a figure appeared.

He was cloaked in tattered monk robes, his prayer beads scorched, eyes veiled in glass. His name was once Master Jirou — a disciple of Shinsei.

Thought dead after vanishing during a Void Spiral, now twisted from contact with Dale's corrupted ether.

Ren drew her blade.

Shi Min raised a flame ward.

Ling Li stepped forward confidently, amused by her children's decisiveness. She wondered when her daughter Ren had first learned to wield a sword. However, she set those thoughts aside for the moment.

The man bowed low, trembling.

"I do not come to fight," he said hoarsely. "But to warn. Enchanted Dale is using our old rites. He has found the Codex of Ancestor Binding — the one we swore never to use."

Shinsei emerged, eyes tight.

"Then you've walked too close to silence."

Master Jirou nodded in admission.

"Presently, he no longer wants to claim Pharsa. Or the twins. He knew he had already failed on this. So he wants to rewrite blood instead — remove them from the line of protectors and insert his own. That kind of ritual… it turns truth into myth."

Ling Li's aura flared faintly.

"And what do you seek?" Ling Li asked.

A pause.

"Redemption," the man whispered. "Or at least permission to die beside the gate that guards what I failed to protect. Not to be forgiven. Only to be useful before my thread is cut. Let me serve the gate I once betrayed. Let me sense his next move through the fragments he left in me."

Ling Li studied him for a long breath.

Her eyes flicked briefly to Shinsei. No words passed, but the elder gave a minute nod.

Ling Li watched Master Jirou for a long moment.

"You may stay. But mark this: if your shadow stretches longer than your soul—"

Her voice dropped into a whisper laced with elemental finality:

"—I will unmake it myself."

The mist recoiled.

Shi Min lowered his flame ward. Ren sheathed his blade.

Jirou bowed low once more and stepped back, not into comfort, but into captivity.

After Master Jirou had been escorted to the east meditation hall, the corridor fell into a hush, broken only by the soft flicker of lanterns and the distant hum of protective wards.

Shi Min, arms crossed and brow furrowed, turned to his mother with a skeptical grunt.

"Mom… who exactly is this guy?"

Ling Li paused mid-step, her gaze lingering on the closed doors behind them. Her voice was calm, but laced with the weight of old memory.

"Jirou was Shinsei's disciple. We believed he died during the Void Spiral. But it seems Enchanted Dale found him first."

Shi Min's eyes narrowed.

"So Dale learned from him?"

Ling Li nodded slowly.

"Yes. But from what I understand, Enchanted Dale's obsession with conquering the world grew beyond anything Jirou could contain. He learned the Codex. Twisted it. Jirou couldn't stop him— and eventually came to Shinsei to confess."

Shi Min scoffed, voice sharp.

"So, in short, this man is the root of Enchanted Dale's madness. How could he not see Dale's character before training him? Hmph."

Ling Li chuckled softly, the sound like wind brushing silk.

"Let's see how he helps. He knows Enchanted Dale's mind better than any of us. If he's sincere, he might be the key to unraveling what Dale left behind."

Ling Li turned, then paused, her eyes flicking toward the training grounds beyond the courtyard.

"By the way… since when did Ren learn sword skills?" She asked.

Shi Min blinked, then smirked, the tension in his shoulders easing.

"That brat snuck into my room and found my old spiritual sword. Ever since, she's been pestering me to teach her. It turns out she has talent — real instinct. She's been training with me at dawn; if I'm not around, she trains with Reginald."

He chuckled, a rare warmth in his voice.

"Tutor Chen's teaching her sword dance, too. She's picking it up fast. Even started improvising her own steps."

Ling Li's eyes softened.

"Then all is well. I was worried about your sister. But it sounds like she's finding her path."

Shi Min nodded, pride flickering behind his usual stoicism.

Ling Li reached out and gently touched his arm.

"Come. The night's long enough. Let's rest."

"Goodnight, Mom."

"Goodnight, Shi Min."

They walked together down the lantern-lit corridor, the quiet between them no longer heavy — just shared.

And high above, wrapped in dream veils, the twins stirred for a brief moment — sensing not the man… but the shifting tides he carried

Master Jirou had not entered through the estate's ceremonial hall, nor was he offered a guest room. At Ling Li's command, he was given quarters beneath the east wing shrine, nestled between frost-tempered stone and shelves of ancestral scrolls — where moonlight barely reached, and silence clung to everything.

He spent the first two nights re-aligning his fractured perception: fasting on pine ashes, tracing breath across cracked prayer beads, reciting incomplete mantras Shinsei had once taught him under waterfall mist. He slept little. But what he listened to was not sleep — it was the estate's heartbeat.

He had become a living sensor, attuned to anything that pulsed against natural flow.

Even Ling Li, perceptive and immortal, had noted it.