Gifts from the Shadow

The stalking began the next day.

Jing was weeding the Azure Root patch when he found the box. It was made of black lacquer, sitting perfectly centered on his doorstep.

He opened it. Inside lay three high-grade Spirit Stones, glowing with pure energy. A fortune. Beside them was a jade hairpin, clearly expensive.

"Did someone lose this?" Jing muttered, looking around.

He took the box to the lost-and-found. The elder in charge laughed at him and told him to keep it.

Two days later, there was another gift. A rare cultivation manual: *The Verdant Emperor’s Breath*. It was a wood-attribute technique far above his clearance level.

And then, the bullies disappeared.

Jing had always been an easy target. A group of disciples from the Beast Taming Hall liked to kick over his buckets and mock his weak cultivation. They usually came on Tuesdays.

This Tuesday, the garden was silent.

Jing waited. He worried. Had they gotten sick?

He was eating his lunch—a simple rice ball—on a rock near the stream when he felt eyes on him. He turned.

Standing in the shadow of a large willow tree was the girl. The Elite Disciple.

She looked different. Her robes were pristine, and the blood was gone, but her intensity remained. She was staring at him with unblinking focus.

"Oh! Hello!" Jing waved, wiping rice from his lip. "Is the wound healing okay?"

Xiulan stepped out of the shadow. She moved like a ghost. She stopped three feet away.

"They won't bother you again," she said.

"Who?"

"The ones who stepped on your flowers."

Jing tilted his head. "Oh. Did you speak to them?"

"I removed them," Xiulan said.

Jing beamed. "That was very kind of you! I hope they found a better place to train. Sometimes the Beast Taming Hall is too stressful."

Xiulan stared at him. She had broken their legs and thrown them off the lower plateau. They were currently in the infirmary, terrified to speak. But looking at Jing’s pure, untainted face, she decided not to clarify.

"Yes," she said. "A better place."

She looked at his rice ball.

" are you hungry?" Jing asked. He split the rice ball in half. "I made it with spicy pickle."

Xiulan hesitated. She took the half-rice ball. She took a small bite.

"It is... warm," she whispered.

"It's the sun," Jing said happily. "Everything tastes better in the sun."

Xiulan sat down next to him. She didn't look at the sun. She looked at him. She erected a silent, invisible barrier of killing intent around the garden, ensuring that no bird, insect, or disciple would dare interrupt them.

Jing, oblivious to the terrifying aura radiating off her, simply hummed and ate his lunch. He thought she was shy. A socially awkward Elite who didn't know how to make friends.

* She's lonely,* Jing thought, his heart squeezing with sympathy. *I'll be her friend.*