The Whispering Pines lived up to their name.
Each branch swayed with the weight of old secrets, and the wind carried more than leaves—it carried voices. Not loud, not words exactly, but broken sighs. A quiet song of loss.
Luo Feng stepped lightly across cracked flagstones choked with moss. The remains of a long-abandoned Sect outpost rose around him—half-buried towers, training halls overrun by vine and rot, spirit lamps shattered by time. Even beasts avoided this place.
Bai Xueyin walked beside him, her presence calm but alert. A-Yan kept to the shadows, silent as moonlight. Tianya trailed them, her hand never straying far from the hilt of her new soul-bound dagger.
And beneath their feet, the earth hummed.
Ding! Host proximity to marked target: 360 meters.Spiritual signature: Suppressed, but flaring irregularly.Soul-fluctuation match: Hollow-Echo Physique – unstable.System Advisory: Approach with care. Cultivator is experiencing delayed resonance backlash.
Luo Feng signaled the others to stop.
"There's an underground layer," he said. "I feel a collapsed hall. The sound is echoing too hard to be surface-level."
Bai knelt, placing a frost-laced palm to the cracked stone. "There's a hollow cavity beneath us. No more than five meters down."
Tianya raised an eyebrow. "So… we knock?"
"No," A-Yan said, already climbing the half-fallen wall beside them. "We drop in."
She vanished.
Then her voice floated up from below.
"Found the opening. Looks like a torn-up meditation hall. He's here."
Luo Feng and the others followed.
The lower hall smelled of damp dust and iron—blood, old and dried, but thick in the air. Fallen pillars rested in the rubble like broken bones. A cracked altar of stone sat against the far wall, still marked with a forgotten symbol: a flute bound in chains.
And beneath that altar, curled in a tight ball, was a boy.
Thin. Hollow-eyed. His skin pale from exposure, and his limbs trembling like a fevered animal. He gripped a flute in one hand—blackwood, splintered at the mouthpiece.
When Luo Feng stepped closer, the boy flinched violently.
"Don't," he rasped. "Don't touch me. I'll… it'll scream again…"
Luo Feng stopped.
"I'm not here to bind you," he said gently. "I came to listen."
The boy opened one eye.
His gaze was grey. Not clouded, not blind—just… muted.
"You're not with them?"
"Depends who 'them' is," Tianya muttered.
The boy coughed, and it sounded like static. "The ones who made me a warning."
Ding! Target Identified: Lin WushenPhysique: Hollow-Echo (Soul-Resonant Type)Condition: Spirit-sick, bloodlocked, cursed with sound-feedback trauma.Background: Former Inner Disciple, Songblade Sect. Exiled for 'awakening forbidden resonance.'Bond potential: High.Recommendation: Initiate low-pressure recruitment via voice-based memory anchoring.
Luo Feng sat cross-legged in front of him, leaving three full meters of space.
"You played something you shouldn't have, didn't you?"
Lin Wushen gave a bitter smile.
"I played the Song of Mourning," he said. "They said it was for mourning ancestors… but no one told me it would wake them."
His hands trembled around the flute.
"I didn't mean to call the ghosts. I just… I was trying to say goodbye."
A-Yan knelt beside him now, quiet. "To who?"
"My brother," Wushen whispered. "He died in a spirit collapse. I wasn't allowed to grieve. So I played. And then…"
He swallowed.
"They said my song unraveled a seal. That it woke something buried in the Sect's tombs."
Tianya tilted her head. "Did it?"
"I don't know," he said. "I passed out. When I woke up, I was bleeding from the ears, the halls were cracked, and the Sect was chanting exile rites."
Luo Feng nodded slowly.
"So they didn't see power. They saw fear."
Wushen looked up. "You believe me?"
"No," Luo Feng said. "I hear you."
He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a plain reed flute.
Passed it forward across the stone.
"Play," he said.
Wushen stared at it like it might explode.
"I can't. If I play again—"
Luo Feng's voice was soft. "You're not alone anymore. If the song breaks something… we'll break it back."
The boy took the flute.
Held it like a wound.
And brought it to his lips.
The note he played was soft. Not pure—shaky, cracked. It trembled with pain that had nowhere to go. A single breath of sorrow.
And around him, the dust in the air glowed.
Not a golden light.
Not power.
Memory.
Luo Feng's system surged.
Ding! Bond-Seed Established: Lin Wushen – Initial AcceptanceEcho-Borne Skill Unlocked: "Soundrift Thread" – Wushen's melodies temporarily delay qi collapse and memory erosion within affected radius.Unique effect: "Soul Reverb" – When a disciple's emotions are aligned with his own, both receive double spiritual attunement for 3 minutes.
The song stopped.
Lin Wushen slumped forward, exhausted.
Luo Feng caught him before he fell.
"Rest now," he said. "We'll talk more after."
And quietly, in the softest voice the boy could manage, he said:
"...Master?"
Luo Feng didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
System Update: New Disciple Acquired – Lin WushenGender Balance Notice: 4 Female, 1 MaleGroup Resonance: "Incomplete Harmony" – Team synergy slightly unstable. Introducing another male disciple will optimize emotional equilibrium.System Note: Future recruit pattern unlocked – "The Silence Born of Fire."
Back at Dawnmist Peak, Yiran sat up in her bed as if jolted from a dream.
She clutched her chest, trembling.
"He's awake," she said.
Kaelen turned from the doorway. "Who?"
Yiran stared at the window.
And whispered:
"The boy who sang alone."