Chapter 9: Something Wrong With the Air
The Lecture Hall of Azure Cloud Sect was a rectangular stone room designed for one purpose: making outer disciples learn Qi circulation basics until their brains leaked out of their ears. It smelled of chalk dust, old incense, and the particular brand of suffering that came from sitting on wooden benches for three hours while a bald man yelled about meridians.
Owen sat in the third row. Third row was his strategy. Not too close — Elder Zhao had a habit of making eye contact with students in the front row and then verbally destroying them for breathing too loudly. Not too far — back-row students were assumed to be sleeping, and sleeping during Elder Zhao's lectures was punishable by extra homework. Third row was the goldilocks zone. Invisible but not suspicious.
Fatty Wang sat next to him, as always. He had brought a steamed bun, which he was eating with the subtle discretion of a man operating heavy machinery in a library.
"Put that away," Owen whispered.
"It's a breakfast bun."
"Elder Zhao will kill you."
"Elder Zhao always looks like he wants to kill everyone. It's his face." Fatty Wang took another bite. "Besides, I'm hungry. The rice this morning tasted like — actually, it didn't taste like anything. It was weird. Gray and chalky."
Owen said nothing.
Around them, roughly forty outer disciples filled the benches in various states of alertness. Some were genuinely attentive — disciples who believed that Qi circulation theory would somehow matter for their careers. Some were faking it. Some were openly asleep, their heads listing to the side like sinking ships.
Elder Zhao stood at the front of the room behind a stone lectern that was older than most of the students. He was exactly as Owen had always seen him: bald, red-faced, wearing the expression of a man who had been promised a distinguished career in cultivation and instead got forty teenagers three times a week.
He was holding a bamboo pointer and a stack of notes. His robes were immaculate. His jaw was set. His remaining hair — three strands that clung to the sides of his scalp like survivors of a shipwreck — trembled with barely contained hostility.
"Qi circulation," Elder Zhao began, and the room went quiet, because even sleeping disciples knew that silence was the price of continued consciousness, "is the foundational skill upon which ALL cultivation rests. Without proper Qi circulation, you are — "
He paused. Looked at his notes. Looked at the students.
"— useless."
He said the word "useless" the way a sommelier said "vintage." With precision. With relish. With the implication that he had considered every possible alternative and chosen the cruelest option available.
"Today we will cover the three primary meridian pathways used in basic Qi circulation: the Conception Vessel, the Governing Vessel, and the Belt Vessel. These pathways—" He tapped the bamboo pointer against a diagram on the wall. "— form the backbone of Qi flow through the body. If you cannot circulate Qi through these three pathways, you cannot cultivate. If you cannot cultivate, you are wasting sect resources. If you are wasting sect resources—"
He looked directly at Owen.
"— you are personally offending me."
Owen kept his face neutral. This was just Tuesday.
"Section one," Elder Zhao continued. "The Conception Vessel runs along the front midline of the body, from—" He paused again. Squinted. His hand went to his temple, pressing against the skin as if checking for a fever. "From the perineum to the lower lip. It governs—"
He paused again. Longer this time.
"Something is wrong with the air," he muttered.
Nobody responded. Elder Zhao often muttered things during lectures — complaints about the heating, the chalk quality, the general existence of teenagers. Nobody took it seriously.
"The Conception Vessel governs the— " He stopped. His eyes narrowed. He turned slowly, scanning the room the way a man scans a dark alley when he hears a noise. His gaze swept across the windows, the ceiling, the walls. Then his nostrils flared.
"The spiritual energy density in this room," he said, very quietly, "has dropped."
Silence. Not the comfortable silence of attentive students — the nervous silence of forty people who had just heard something concerning from an already unstable authority figure.
"What I mean," Elder Zhao clarified, "is that it was at standard formation-enriched levels when we began this lecture." He held up his hand. Qi flickered around his fingertips — then sputtered, the way a candle sputters in a draft. "Now it's at half. Less than half. In the time it took me to say one sentence."
Owen's dantian hummed.
It was a quiet hum. A contented hum. The hum of a cat that had just found a warm spot in the sun and was absolutely not going to move.
"Someone," Elder Zhao said, "is draining this room."
He stepped out from behind the lectern. His eyes moved across the rows of students with the focused intensity of a man who had been personally wronged by the universe and was determined to find the specific individual responsible.
Row one. Normal. Row two. Normal. Row three—
Owen felt the gaze land on him like a physical weight.
"Chen Baijiu."
Owen looked up. "Yes, Elder Zhao?"
"Stand up."
Owen stood. His dantian hummed louder. Around him, he noticed, the air felt lighter — thinner — the way air felt at high altitude. Except they were in a stone room on the ground floor.
"Tell me," Elder Zhao said, walking toward him with the slow, measured steps of a man who was counting to ten and failing at seven, "what exactly you think you're doing."
"Sitting?" Owen offered.
"You are DRAINING the spiritual energy from this lecture hall."
The room went very quiet. Forty disciples turned to look at Owen. Owen looked at Elder Zhao. Elder Zhao looked at Owen with the expression of a man who had been building toward this moment for weeks.
"I — what?"
"Don't play innocent." Elder Zhao was three rows away now. His qi aura flickered around him — it should have been a solid blue shield of Foundation Building energy. Instead it was thin, translucent, flickering at the edges like a candle in the wind. "The testing stone. The herb garden. The formations. The training grounds. The rice—" His eye twitched at the word rice. "And now — NOW — you are draining the lecture hall."
"I'm just sitting here," Owen said. "I'm literally just sitting here."
"Then why," Elder Zhao said, his voice dropping to a register that made the windows vibrate, "has every disciple within ten meters of you lost a noticeable amount of Qi since this lecture began?"
Owen looked around. The disciples nearest to him — two rows in every direction — were indeed looking at him with expressions that ranged from nervous to openly hostile. A girl to his left was gripping her armrests, her knuckles white. A boy behind him had shifted his bench backward, creating a gap.
"Elder Zhao," Owen tried, "I don't think I'm the—"
"EXHIBIT A," Elder Zhao shouted, and Owen realized with horror that the elder had been carrying a stack of papers under his lecture notes. He held up the top sheet. "The testing stone. Eight hundred years old. Destroyed. Cause: Chen Baijiu."
"That was an accident—"
"EXHIBIT B." Another sheet. "The southeast training formation. Level two. Destroyed. Cause: proximity to Chen Baijiu."
"I wasn't even touching it—"
"EXHIBIT C." Another sheet. "The herb garden. Twelve spiritual herbs, including a fifty-year ginseng. Dead. Cause: unknown, but the only variable present was—" Elder Zhao paused for dramatic effect. "— Chen Baijiu."
"The ceiling formation in my own room died too!" Owen protested. "How is that my fault?!"
"EXHIBIT D." Another sheet. "Ceiling formation, Room 14. Repaired. Died again. Cause: proximity to—" Elder Zhao held up the paper. The words "Chen Baijiu" were written in ink so heavy it had bled through to the other side. "— Chen Baijiu."
From the back of the room, a voice spoke. It was small, measured, and carried the calm authority of someone who had been waiting for exactly this moment.
"Elder Zhao."
Every head turned. Lily sat in the back row — the very back, as far from Owen as the room allowed. She was holding a small black notebook. Her expression was neutral, but her pen was uncapped.
"I have additional entries for your exhibits," she said. "Formation deaths at the training grounds: three in the past week, all within twenty meters of Owen Chen. Disciples reporting unexplained Qi depletion: seven in the same period. Spiritual rice supply—" She glanced at Owen. "— six hundred Qi units, completely drained overnight."
"Thank you, Miss Lily," Elder Zhao said, with the tone of a prosecutor receiving evidence from a star witness.
"Also," Lily added, "the ceiling formation in Room 14 died again this morning."
"I'm aware," Owen said.
"SILENCE." Elder Zhao was two rows away now. He stopped. Pointed the bamboo pointer at Owen's chest. "The question, Chen Baijiu, is not whether you are the cause. The question is whether you are doing it deliberately."
"I am NOT deliberately draining—"
"Then explain," Elder Zhao said, "why your dantian — a dantian that every elder in this sect has confirmed is CRIPPLED — is producing effects consistent with a mid-Foundation Building cultivator running a spiritual absorption array."
Owen opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I don't know," he said. It was the truth. It was always the truth. And it was always the worst possible thing to say, because "I don't know" was not an answer that satisfied anyone, least of all an angry bald elder who had lost three exhibits' worth of patience.
"You don't KNOW," Elder Zhao repeated.
"I genuinely don't know why things break around me."
"Things don't just break around you, Chen Baijiu. Things DRAIN around you. Things DIE around you. You are a walking spiritual dead zone."
Owen flinched. The words landed harder than he expected — not because they were cruel, but because they were close to what Fatty Wang had said the night before. Wherever you go, weird stuff happens.
A knock at the lecture hall door saved him from responding.
A kitchen disciple — thin, harried, wearing the expression of someone delivering news that would make someone else very angry — stood in the doorway. He was holding a scroll.
"Elder Zhao," the kitchen disciple said. "A formal complaint. From Elder Peng."
Elder Zhao extended his hand. The kitchen disciple placed the scroll in it and retreated with the haste of a man leaving a blast radius.
Elder Zhao unrolled the scroll. His eyes moved across the text. His expression did not change — it had already been set at maximum fury — but something shifted in the quality of his anger. It went from hot to cold. From personal to systemic.
"Listen to this," Elder Zhao said, and his voice was the pleasant, conversational tone of a man reading a eulogy for someone he disliked. "'On the morning of the fourth day, the entirety of the sect's spiritual rice supply — six hundred Qi units, personally infused and stored in sealed conditions — was found to be completely devoid of spiritual energy. Seventeen outer disciples suffered acute gastrointestinal distress. Investigation revealed that the rice was last accessed by Outer Disciple Chen Baijiu, who consumed ten bowls in a single sitting the previous evening. The Kitchen Division formally requests: immediate expulsion of the responsible party, full restitution of the rice supply, and a written apology from the Disciplinary Office for failing to prevent this catastrophe.'"
The scroll crackled in Elder Zhao's grip.
"Chen Baijiu," he said, "you drained the rice."
"I ATE the rice," Owen said. "There's a difference."
"The rice had Qi in it before you ate it. It did not have Qi after. The difference is YOU."
"That doesn't make me responsible for—"
"Seventeen disciples are currently on the bathroom floor because of your rice."
"They're on the bathroom floor because they ate rice that had no Qi! I didn't DO anything to it!"
Fatty Wang stood up. Owen turned to look at him with the desperate gratitude of a drowning man seeing a lifeline — or, more accurately, the desperate wariness of a man watching his best friend volunteer for danger.
"Elder Zhao," Fatty Wang said. "I was at the rice eating. I ate the same rice. Six bowls. I feel fine."
Elder Zhao looked at Fatty Wang. "And?"
"And if Owen was somehow poisoning the rice, wouldn't I be sick too?"
Silence. It was, Owen realized, actually a decent point. Fatty Wang had eaten the rice. Fatty Wang was fine. Therefore the rice was fine when Owen ate it.
Elder Zhao stared at Fatty Wang for a long moment. Then he said: "Are you suggesting that Chen Baijiu has the ability to selectively drain Qi from food while eating it, without affecting anyone else who eats the same food?"
Fatty Wang blinked. "I... no. I'm saying he's my friend and he didn't do anything wrong."
"Your testimony is noted and irrelevant." Elder Zhao rolled the scroll back up. He looked at Owen. "Chen Baijiu. You will remain after this lecture. We are not finished."
Owen sat down. The wooden bench beneath him creaked. Somewhere in the room, a formation line embedded in the wall flickered and went dark.
Nobody mentioned it.
From the doorway at the very back of the hall, a figure stood watching. He was young — twenty-five, perhaps twenty-six — with silver hair and calm eyes that held the particular amusement of someone watching a play they had already read the script for.
Sect Master Yun leaned against the doorframe. He did not enter. He did not speak. He simply watched — the elder raging, the boy being accused, the girl in the back row scribbling furiously in a notebook, the overweight disciple standing in defiance of authority with a half-eaten bun in his hand.
Yun smiled. Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps making no sound.
The other disciples filed out slowly, the way people filed out of a public execution — in silence, avoiding eye contact with the condemned, carrying the particular guilt of those who had watched something bad happen and done nothing to stop it.
Owen remained on his bench. Elder Zhao stood in front of him. The bamboo pointer rested on the lectern. The lecture notes were stacked neatly. The exhibits were folded.
Neither of them spoke for a full minute.
"Go," Elder Zhao said finally. His voice had lost its volume. It was flat, tired — the voice of a man who had been fighting the same war for weeks and was no longer sure he was winning. "Go, and stay away from my lecture hall."
Owen stood. Walked toward the door. Stopped.
"Elder Zhao."
"What."
"I really don't know what's happening. I'm not doing this on purpose."
Elder Zhao did not respond. Owen left.
Elder Zhao stood alone in the empty lecture hall. The afternoon light came through the windows at an angle, illuminating the chalk dust hanging in the air. The diagram of the three meridian pathways was still on the wall. The lectern was still warm from his hands.
He closed his eyes. Placed his palm over his dantian.
He did this every day. A self-diagnostic. A routine check the way a banker checked his ledgers — not because he expected a problem, but because the absence of a problem was its own reward.
Today, there was a problem.
He felt it the moment his Qi touched the walls of his dantian: emptiness. Not the controlled emptiness of a properly circulated reserve. The hollow emptiness of a container that had been drained.
He pushed deeper. His Qi probed the interior of his dantian the way a doctor probed a wound — searching for the edges, for the scope of the damage.
His cultivation level had been mid-Foundation Building. Fifth level. He had spent ten years — TEN YEARS — building toward sixth level. Every day of meditation, every herb consumed, every formation cycle endured. Ten years of his life, stored as Qi in his dantian, carefully refined and compressed.
Gone.
He reached for the space where that Qi should have been. His fingers — his spiritual fingers, the extensions of his consciousness — found nothing. Not reduced. Not scattered. Gone. As if it had never existed.
He checked again. And again. And again.
The result was the same every time.
His cultivation had dropped from mid-Foundation Building — fifth level — to late Qi Condensation. Ninth level.
He had lost ten years of cultivation.
No. Not lost. Stolen. Drained. Siphoned. The way a straw sucks liquid from a cup, except the cup was his dantian and the liquid was a decade of his life.
Elder Zhao lowered his hand. He stood very still in the empty lecture hall, in the afternoon light, with the chalk dust settling around him like ash.
Chen Baijiu had been sitting three feet away for two hours.
Three feet. For two hours. And in that time, a man sitting three feet away had lost ten years of cultivation.
Elder Zhao's hand was shaking. He pressed it flat against the lectern to make it stop.
His three surviving hairs stood on end.
He did not sit down. He did not cry. He did not scream. He simply stood there, in the quiet lecture hall, and understood — for the first time — that the boy sitting in the third row was not a nuisance. Was not a troublemaker. Was not a walking disaster who got lucky and escaped consequences.
Chen Baijiu was something else entirely.
And Elder Zhao did not know what.
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ SYSTEM NOTICE ║
║ ║
║ Mission 9 available. ║
║ ║
║ Mission: Apologize to the person you just made ║
║ cry. ║
║ ║
║ Difficulty: IMPOSSIBLE (He's not crying. He's ║
║ doing something worse. He's processing.) ║
║ ║
║ Reward: +200 Deception Skill. ║
║ Penalty for failure: Elder Zhao's remaining hairs ║
║ fall out. ║
║ ║
║ NOTE: This is a mercy mission. Take it. ║
║ ║
║ ERROR: Mission reclassified. ║
║ New status: UNAVAILABLE. ║
║ Reason: You cannot apologize for something you ║
║ don't understand. ║
║ ║
║ We're sorry. That was too real. ║
║ Here's a joke instead: What do you call a ║
║ cultivator with no cultivation? An outer disciple. ║
║ ...Oh wait, that's you. ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝