The path from Silent Peak to the dueling hall was the longest path in the sect.

Lin Xuan walked it slowly. The path had not held him in two years.

[ Are you ready, Xuan? ]

’Of course I’m ready, Mira. I’ll tell you something. You know what I never liked about xianxia novels? The protagonists. The ones who lose, walk away crying tears of blood, vanish for fifty Chapters to train in a hidden valley, and then come back to face-slap the guy who beat them. I hated those guys.’

[ Xuan. ] The little silhouette tilted its head. [ That is more or less the situation you are walking into. Your chances of beating your brother on raw strength are close to nothing. He is five stages above you. (・_・;) ]

’True. He’d flatten me in a fair exchange. But what did Elder Ren say about him.’

[ That he has not lost a formal duel in five years. That his confidence is through the roof. ]

’Bingo. And since I’ve been off the field for two years, the entire compound has him walking onto that platform expecting a corpse with a sword. He won’t read me right.’

[ So you have surprise. (◉‿◉) ]

’I have surprise.’

[ Which means you have one shot. ]

The path bent into Madam Mei’s courtyard.

’And one shot is all I need.’

Two maids stood at the far end with arms full of folded cloth. The older one’s load hit the stone with a thump when she saw him, and the basin in the younger one’s hands rang once before tipping over.

He passed within five paces of them.

"Try to focus on your work, please. We wouldn’t want anything broken on a duel morning."

The older maid bent for the cloth so fast her knees cracked. The younger one just stared.

He did not soften the line. He had not forgotten the two years they had spent making Lian’s life miserable.

The hall doors stood open at the far end of the courtyard. He climbed the last three steps and stopped just inside the doorway.

The hall was full.

Two long galleries of seated elders ran down either side of the central platform, inner disciples standing behind them, outer disciples filling the back tiers all the way to the rear wall. The platform sat raised in the center, ten paces across, its wooden edge polished hard by six years without use.

Lin Kai stood on the near corner, already in his dueling robes, the heirloom blade his mother had given him strapped diagonally across his back. His mouth carried the controlled half-smile of a young man waiting for a victory he had been told would arrive.

At the head of the hall, on the dais opposite the platform, sat the patriarch.

Lin Zhen.

Tall even seated, hair gone half gray at the temples, tied in the Lin family knot in the same gold thread Lin Xuan now wore at his chest. Formal black robe with red and gold along the collar. His sword rested upright against the arm of his chair, scabbard dark and well used. Two years of capital politics had carved a tiredness into his face that the borrowed memories had not prepared Lin Xuan for.

He had not noticed the doors.

[ That is your father. ] Mira’s voice came in quieter than usual. [ He came back for this duel. The elders kept him buried in ledgers all evening so he could not come to you last night. He is going to see you for the first time in the next minute. ]

The duel referee stood, unrolled a small scroll, and called the room to order.

"Five minutes remain. If the second contestant has not entered the platform by the bell, the duel will be ruled in favor of Lin Kai by absence, and Lin Kai will be confirmed as the Lin family representative at the Six Sects Regional Tournament."

A low ripple ran through the gallery. The whole sect had spent the morning waiting for that exact sentence.

Lin Kai’s half-smile widened.

Lin Xuan stepped through the doorway.

He did not announce himself.

He walked down the central aisle, hands behind his back, the Plain Steel Sword rocking once against his hip with each stride. The first inner disciple to see him reached for a doorframe. The second made a sound. By the time he was halfway down the aisle, the murmur of the hall had collapsed into a quiet that ran from the front of the room to the back wall in three breaths.

He climbed the platform steps. He turned to the dais and inclined his head.

"Apologies. Apologies, everyone. I lost track of time. I almost did not make it."

His voice carried in the quiet the way a stone drops into a deep well.

His red-rimmed eyes found Madam Mei.

Pale blue winter robe, hair gathered with a single white pin shaped like a lotus closing on itself. Her face wore the elegant blank it always wore. She had been smiling, very faintly, when he stepped through the door. The smile was no longer there.

He held her gaze for one slow breath. He winked at her.

Then he turned to the dais.

"Patriarch. That is the right thing to say in these situations, isn’t it. I have not done one of these in a while."

Lin Zhen rose from the dais.

He rose the way a tired man rises when something he had stopped allowing himself to hope for has just walked into the room. His hand caught the arm of the chair, left it, and he was on his feet.

"Xuan’er."

His voice came out rougher than the occasion called for.

"Father. I hope the road back was kinder than the one out."

"...Kinder, Xuan’er. Much kinder." The patriarch’s mouth pulled at one corner, the smallest pull, the one a man gives when he has not earned a smile yet but is trying. "Welcome to the hall."

Three of the elders in the right gallery exchanged a glance. Bao. Shan. Wu. Their hands had gone still.

In the back row, Elder Ren had folded his hands into his sleeves and was wearing the most ordinary face a man had ever worn while watching three of his colleagues swallow small frogs in public.

The capital elders on the visiting bench leaned forward a fraction. The careful sideways rumor of the capital had told them the patriarch’s adopted son was bedridden, cursed, slowly dying. What they were looking at was a nineteen year old in a freshly tied gold knot, walking up onto a duel platform on his own feet, sword at his hip, red still in the corners of his eyes.

Their heads turned to the patriarch. He had not sat back down. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

Lin Xuan turned to the referee.

"I think I made it in time, didn’t I, Elder."

The old referee opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. The scroll in his hand had gone slack at one end.

"...Yes. Yes, Young Master, you made it in time."

"Good."

He stepped to the center of the platform.

Lin Kai had not moved. The half-smile was gone. His right hand rested on the hilt across his back without him noticing it had drifted there.

"Brother."

"Lin Xuan."

"You look surprised."

"I am surprised."

"That is fair. I would be too."

Lin Xuan drew the Plain Steel Sword. The blade came out of the scabbard clean. The Sword Affinity passive ran through the leather like a hand briefly taken.

He turned to the referee.

"Whenever you are ready, Elder. I am."

[ One chance, Lin Xuan. ]

’I know.’

The patriarch sat back down very slowly. He did not turn away from his son.

The referee raised his right hand, held it for a breath, and brought it down.

"Begin."

The platform exploded.