The Sect's Forgotten Servant

CHAPTER ONE — THE SERVANT CARRIES THE BAG

The bag was heavy.

Wei Liang had carried it before. He knew exactly how heavy — he had carried it every training day for three years, since Senior Brother Shen Yao moved to the outer ring dormitories and needed someone to carry his equipment from the storage hall to the practice yards. Forty jin of sword-training weights, two wrapped practice blades, a leather case with three cultivation manuals inside that Shen Yao never actually opened but carried anyway, and a small wooden box of spirit stones that Wei Liang was under strict orders never to drop.

He had dropped it once, two years ago. The box had been fine. Shen Yao had been too busy being furious at himself for losing a sparring match to even notice.

Wei Liang remembered that too.

He remembered everything.

That was the thing about having no cultivation talent, no spiritual roots, no seat in any training hall, no future in any martial path the Iron Sky Sect offered. When there was nothing else to do during the long hours between carrying bags and cleaning rooms and fetching hot water for disciples who didn't bother learning his name, Wei Liang watched. Just watched. The same way a person with nothing to do might stare out a window — except he was staring at sword forms, at footwork drills, at the precise angle of an elder's wrist during a cultivation demonstration.

He had been doing it for ten years. Since he was nine years old and an outer elder had taken him in out of a misplaced sense of charity, or maybe just because the sect needed someone to scrub the training hall floors.

Ten years. Half his life.

He adjusted the bag on his shoulder and kept walking.

"You're slow today," Shen Yao said, not looking back.

"The sword weights are heavier than last month. Someone added to the stack."

Shen Yao glanced back at him then. He was twenty-one, one of the mid-tier outer disciples, decent-looking, with the sort of face that suggested he'd been told he was talented enough times that he almost believed it. He wasn't exceptional. He trained hard and he was honest and he said thank you when Wei Liang brought him hot water in the morning, which was more than most of them did.

"I didn't add to it," Shen Yao said.

"I know. Senior Brother Chen did. He uses your rack when you're in class."

Shen Yao made a face. He didn't like Senior Brother Chen, who was louder and more popular and had slightly better cultivation results in every seasonal assessment. He turned back and kept walking. "Just keep up."

Wei Liang kept up.

They reached the outer training yards as the sun was getting properly above the mountains. Twelve disciples were already there, going through warmup forms. Wei Liang set the bag down beside the entrance post, unrolled the practice mat, arranged the weights in order from lightest to heaviest — Shen Yao liked to start with the lighter ones and work up, which was the opposite of how most disciples did it but produced better results, which Wei Liang had noticed after watching him for two years — and then stepped back to where the servants stood, along the wall.

Nobody looked at him.

Nobody ever looked at him.

He was fine with that. Looking at him was a waste of time. Looking at the disciples was not.

That morning, Senior Brother Chen demonstrated the third form of the Iron Mountain Stance. He'd been practicing it for six months and he finally had the weight distribution right — the problem had been his left heel, which he'd been lifting slightly when he shifted into the second guard position. He wasn't doing that anymore. Wei Liang noted it. Not because he planned to do anything with the information. It just went in, like water finding a crack.

Elder Tao came through the yard around the second morning bell and paused to watch the disciples briefly. He didn't correct anyone. He watched Senior Brother Chen for six seconds, looked satisfied, and moved on. Wei Liang tracked where the elder's eyes went. Always useful to know what the people at the top were watching.

It was an ordinary morning.

Then the notice went up.

A sect steward came through the yards with a board, and disciples crowded around it faster than they moved for anything else. Wei Liang stayed at the wall, but he was close enough to read over shoulders.

Iron Sky Sect, in cooperation with four neighboring sects, would hold a five-sect tournament in forty days. All outer and inner disciples between sixteen and twenty-four years of age were eligible to enter. The top fifteen overall would receive ranking stones and priority access to the inner sect's sealed technique library for one full season.

The sealed library.

Wei Liang had heard about it for years. Every disciple talked about it at some point. Hundreds of high-level techniques, gathered over three generations of sect leadership, unavailable to anyone below inner disciple rank unless they won the access in a tournament or bought it with enough spirit stones to feed a small village.

The yard went loud immediately. Disciples talking over each other, arguing about who would qualify, who had the best chance. Shen Yao was quiet, standing at the edge of the group, reading the notice twice. Wei Liang watched his face. He was thinking hard about something.

Later, walking back, Shen Yao was still quiet.

"You're going to enter," Wei Liang said.

Shen Yao looked at him. "What makes you say that?"

"You read the notice twice. The first time to understand it. The second time to count something. Probably how many of the current top outer disciples are within the age range and how your record compares to theirs."

A pause. Shen Yao had that expression he sometimes got — like Wei Liang had said something unexpected and he wasn't sure if he should be unsettled or just amused.

"You think I have a chance?" he asked.

Wei Liang was quiet for a moment. He thought about Shen Yao's footwork, which was above average. His sword techniques, which were solid but not creative. His cultivation level, which put him in the middle of the outer disc field. His tendency to overcommit in the third exchange of any duel, which was a habit he'd been carrying for two years without correcting.

"I think you have a real chance if you fix something in the next forty days," Wei Liang said.

Shen Yao looked at him for another moment. Then he turned forward and kept walking. "Start packing my tournament equipment tonight," he said. "I'll give you the list."

"Yes, Senior Brother."

Overhead, a pair of sect birds were circling the main pagoda, which they did when the weather was about to change. Wei Liang watched them for a second, then looked back at the path.

Forty days to a tournament. He would pack the bags. He would carry the equipment. He would stand at the wall and watch.

That was all he did. That was all there was for him.

He didn't know that in forty-three days, Shen Yao would be dead and he would have nothing left at all.