Shallow Night was ending when Qin Ming woke. The sunstone in its brass basin cast soft rose light. The house was still.
He was parched. His throat burned. He downed bowl after bowl of ice-water before he could breathe.
Then he noticed: his shirt was tight.
He stood in the doorframe and marked his height. He'd grown. Not much — but visibly. Overnight.
*One sleep. And it did this.*
The New Life had bred dense force in a single night, rebuilding his root foundation a second time.
He walked to the yard and lifted both millstones. Easy. He shifted to one hand — heavy, but he could hold it.
He was stunned. Four hundred jin, single-handed. That was the bright city's standard for its famed prodigies.
He pulled off the tight shirt. The shoulder wounds from the Donkey-Head Wolf — scabs gone, scars gone. Clean skin. Another sign of New Life: old damage erased.
He cooked. Meat soup. Wolf ribs on the fire, fat dripping, smell thick enough to chew. Mutated-beast meat — exactly what his body craved.
He ate. His body ran hot — hotter than before. Sweat poured. Heat flooded outward from his core.
New Life was in its final stage, but not done. He wanted to push it.
He ran through the old forms. The high-difficulty movements that used to strain him came easy now — loose, casual.
Something burned inside him, trying to break through his skin.
Then it happened.
Golden points surfaced across his body. Tiny, almost invisible — but there. Emerging from his flesh like seeds breaking soil, trailing faint blood.
*Gold filaments.*
They pushed from his body in clusters, carrying old impurities with them. Not painful — if anything, he felt cleaner. Lighter. His body was purging.
More came. Denser. Like gold needles threading through his skin, moving, interweaving.
Combined with the white mist on his skin, he looked unreal. Almost immortal.
He didn't tire. When hungry, he ate. When spent, he rested. Then he pushed again.
He flipped through Lu Ze's Dark Night Meditation Art Primer. It was basic — but he noted the breathing patterns.
All night, his body sweated. Metabolism roared. He felt it — new tissue growing, vitality surging like spring.
When sleep finally dragged him under, the silver light on his skin was still visible, and gold threads wove across it like embroidery — dividing the silver into dense, grid-like squares.
*Golden Thread Jade Garment.*
The phrase surfaced in his fading mind. In the old empire, emperors were buried in jade suits laced with gold thread, begging for immortality even in death.
His childhood exercises — the "wild path" — could produce this? Silver mist and gold threading, naturally forming a jade-garment pattern on his skin?
*Did the old emperors hear fragments of this and copy it?*
He shook his head. Too far. Sleep took him.
---
Shallow Night came. Qin Ming woke.
His skin was tight and dry — a thin crust of dried sweat, blood residue, and impurities from the gold-thread stage.
He broke ice in the water barrel, boiled it, scrubbed clean. Fresh clothes. He felt new.
His temperature had dropped. The furnace had cooled.
*New Life is done.*
He lifted both millstones. Easy. Single-handed — he could hold them a long time now.
He added a hundred-jin stone lock on top.
Five hundred-plus jin. His arm strained. Heavy. But it held.
Lu Ze had told him the bright city's prodigies could lift six hundred.
Qin Ming smiled. Both arms — a thousand jin of force. Not far off.
---
He carried half a deer and a wolf leg next door.
"Xiao Qin — this is too much!"
"Brother Lu, Sister-in-law, I can't eat it all. I'll go back to the mountain regularly. Variety is better anyway."
Without Lu Ze's care, he would have starved.
"Uncle's the best!" Wen Rui beamed. "Mama said we were almost out of food."
Qin Ming ruffled his hair. "With your uncle here, you won't go hungry."
The red squirrel bounced in its cage, chittering furiously. The little creature held grudges.
---
Village head Xu Yueping arrived — square-jawed, thick-browed, bright-eyed, solidly built. Mid-forties.
"Uncle Xu."
The man grinned. "Knew you had it in you. This step — you've planted a golden footprint." He wanted to know how strong the New Life had made him.
"Xiao Qin, you've grown taller. Is New Life finished?" Lu Ze asked.
Before Qin Ming could answer, wind hit his neck.
Xu Yueping's right hand chopped at his throat — a knife-edge strike, no warning, no wind-up. Point-blank range.
Qin Ming swayed aside and caught the wrist. Precise. Clean.
"Reaction speed — far above other New Lifers," Xu Yueping said, amazed. At this range, even a mountain beast would have been hit.
Liang Wanqing gasped, then realized: a test.
Xu Yueping tried to pull free. Couldn't budge. His eyes jumped.
"The strength—"
Lu Ze and Liang Wanqing watched, hoping.
Qin Ming let go.
Xu Yueping's eyelids twitched. He was Twin Tree Village's strongest New Lifer — and the boy hadn't used full force.
"Six hundred jin," he said slowly. "You're close to six hundred."
Liang Wanqing's mouth fell open. Five hundred was the regional ceiling.
Lu Ze's voice shook. "Even in the bright city — you wouldn't be outclassed."
"Uncle's the strongest!" Wen Rui clapped.
"Old Xu! Patrol's here," Yang Yongqing called from the gate, having caught the tail end.
He understood: Qin Ming had broken the local ceiling.
Xu Yueping and Yang Yongqing left quickly. A patrol visit meant trouble.
A boy came running. "Brother Qin, they want you at the village head's house."
"Why?"
"All New Lifers are to attend. The patrol is briefing on the mountain situation."
---
Xu Yueping's house was crowded. Seven New Lifers — counting Qin Ming — plus Old Liu, who was past seventy. Sunstones lit the room bright.
The patrol member was named Feng Yi'an — big-bearded, blunt, rough-mannered. He drained his tea in one gulp and got to it.
"The mountain's magnetic field has been unstable. People get lost deep in. Some dangerous fire springs are dying out. And new high-grade springs are surfacing in the fog." He poured another cup. "That's why the big creatures have been pushing into the outer zones."
The creatures' territories were disrupted. Named beasts and raptors had been flushed from the deeps, driving lesser animals outward.
"Will it get worse? What if a high-tier species breaks through?" someone asked.
"Don't worry. The high-ups will go in and negotiate with the major beings. Get the region calm again. And if talks fail, they'll hold the line against the top-tier creatures."
The patrol was on full alert. Every village's New Lifers had to be ready.
"There's a chance some 'small fish' slip through the net. That's where you come in."
Faces went grim. New Lifers might have to fight.
Feng Yi'an waved his hand. "Don't tense up. It's not as bad as it sounds. And if things go wrong, the bright city sends noble sons and daughters — elites. They help sweep the mountain."
The room exhaled.
"Brother Feng rode patrol all night and came straight here to warn us. Hard man," Xu Yueping said.
Feng Yi'an waved it off. "That's the job. If anything comes out of that mountain, it steps over my dead body first or it doesn't step at all."
Xu Yueping set a whole roasted rock sheep on the table. "Nobody leaves. Drink with him."
The room warmed.
"A few cups won't hurt," Feng Yi'an said. "Don't worry — the city lord who governs this region is coming personally. And they've sent for an expert from far away. The real concern is the Moon Bug, or a mountain lord appearing unexpectedly."
Qin Ming listened, absorbing everything.
He didn't drink. The cups held harsh spirit and black ants — a tonic mix.
"Xiao Qin, a man needs to learn to drink," Xu Yueping said. "And those black ants — powerful tonic. Real treasure."
Feng Yi'an looked over. "This young brother's face is new to me."
"Call me Xiao Qin."
Xu Yueping introduced him. "Qin Ming. Sixteen, just completed golden-age New Life. Best prospect this region's produced. I want to send him to Chi Xia City for advanced study."
"Fine timber," Feng Yi'an said, genuinely moved. "Golden-age root foundation — who wouldn't envy that?"
The table drank. Feng Yi'an warmed and told mountain stories.
"Boys — have any of you heard of the mysterious fields? Crops of pure gold, deep in the mountains. Fog can't hide them. Golden light stabs through the black sky. Whose harvest is that?"