In a high-level martial arts game, a wife is given to you at the start.

Elder Shen froze, cold sweat trickling down his forehead: "You...you're the field officer of the Purification Division? Are you insane? I'm a deacon elder of the Holy Temple—"

"I know who you are," Lin Qiye said. "I also know what these hands of yours have touched. Elder Shen, those dark gold marks—once they're there, they can't be washed off. You touched the relics of the candle, you touched the things at the sealing point. Who gave them to you?"

Elder Shen's Adam's apple bobbed: "I...I don't know what you're talking about."

"Is that so?" Lin Qiye pressed the short knife down slightly, the blade grazing his neck and drawing a line of blood. "Then let me ask you another way. How long have you been feeding Blood Raven? What's the location of the seal point? Where are the Candle's relics? How much did you feed it at once?"

Elder Shen's breathing quickened, but he remained defiant: "What makes you think I fed it? The Purification Division has investigated for thirty years and still hasn't found anything—"

"The Purification Division investigates leads," Lin Qiye said. "I investigate people. You've encountered fake plans, fake clues, and things that shouldn't have been in your hands. The dark gold marks on your hands are evidence."

"That...that is—"

"That's something only found on the remains of a candle," Lin Qiye interrupted him. "Elder Shen, you and I both know you're just a knife, not the one wielding it. I'll give you a chance—tell me where the High Priest is, and I'll pretend I never saw you tonight. Otherwise, I'll make sure the last thing you see tonight is your own blood."

The study remained quiet for a long time.

Elder Shen's lips trembled, and he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence: "...The High Priest is not in the temple."

Where?

"North of the city, at Shili Slope," Elder Shen said. "The Blood Raven's crows are there tonight too. The High Priest said tonight is the day the seal will completely break. He said he wants to go see for himself, to see what that vertical pupil... will look like when it wakes up."

Lin Qiye's pupils contracted slightly.

He released the short sword, slapped Elder Shen on the back of the neck, knocking him unconscious, then dragged him into a corner of the study and tied him securely with the curtains.

The night was deep. He did not ride a horse or take a carriage, but traveled swiftly along the official road north of the city.

Shili Slope is located north of the Holy City. It is a barren hillside with withered grass reaching waist-high, and the wind is so strong that it can make a person stagger.

He saw figures on the slope before he even reached the top.

A person.

The man, dressed in the white robes of the high priest of the temple, stood with his back to him on the hilltop, looking up at the night sky.

A thick, dark cloud had appeared in the night sky sometime earlier. In the center of the cloud, a very thin, fluorescent blue crack was slowly widening.

Something is awakening within the crack.

"You've come." The high priest didn't turn around; his voice drifted on the wind. "I knew you'd come tonight. Elder Shen, that good-for-nothing, was indeed unreliable."

Lin Qiye stopped at the bottom of the slope, the emblem on his palm slightly warm.

"You knew I'd be coming tonight," he said, "so you should also know why I'm here."

"Come and kill me?" The high priest finally turned around.

He was a gaunt old man, dressed in a snow-white robe, with kind and gentle eyes, looking like a compassionate deity. But in his eyes, there was no trace of divinity—only greed, and a hunger that had waited far too long.

"You came to kill me," he repeated, then laughed, "but have you considered that you're killing the very foundation of the entire temple?"

"The foundation of the temple was never you," Lin Qiye said. "It was that skeleton. It was you and your ancestors who stole his name, usurped his authority, and even broke his locks to feed the Blood Ravens—"

"Feed them to the Blood Ravens?" The High Priest laughed. "Lin Qiye, you're too naive. The Blood Ravens are just dogs I released to gnaw on bones and bring back the Candle's relics one by one. You think I raised them to break the seal?"

He raised his hand, pointing to the fluorescent blue crack in the sky: "I've raised them for a hundred years, all for this day. To wait for this door to open."

"What door?"

"The gate to home," said the high priest. "Do you think you are the only one with a home? I am too. My ancestors, the three servants, were banished by the candle to the heavens, wandering for their entire lives. The candle is dead, the lock is loosed, and their descendants should return."

"Three attendants?" Lin Qiye's gaze sharpened.

"Yes," said the high priest. "You think the temple was built by the traitors? No, the temple is merely their descendants, guarding this lock for them. Guarding it until the lock is opened, until the day they return."

He spread his arms, staring at the crack in the sky, his eyes burning with fervor: "Tonight, that day will come."

The crack doubled in size the instant he finished speaking.

A fluorescent blue light poured down from the crack, as if the sky had been split open. The light fell to the ground, landing at the high priest's feet, forming a huge, slowly rotating pattern of light.

Something is emerging in the center of the light pattern.

It's not a vertical pupil.

It is a door.

Lin Qiye looked at the door that was taking shape and suddenly smiled.

"You're right," he said. "Tonight, indeed, that day."

"Only, it's the day you die."

He raised his right hand, his five fingers spread, and the dark gold emblem lit up.

The wind stopped.

The high priest's smile froze on his face.

He did not back down.

"Lin Qiye," he said, "Do you think you can hold back a door all by yourself?"

He lifted his foot and stepped into the center of the light pattern. Fluorescent blue light surged beneath his feet, flowing over his white robe like water and climbing up his veins. His white hair turned black strand by strand, his withered body swelled up inch by inch, and his aged face became younger at a visible speed—the light was "nurturing" his mutated traits.

"Look at me." The high priest opened his arms, his voice trembling with satisfaction. "This body, I've nurtured for a hundred years. The mutated trait is poison? No—to us, it's nourishment, power, and immortality. Your candles suppress it because they fear it. We are different; we nurture it."

Before he finished speaking, the crack in the sky widened again.

This time, a deep, resonant hum, like a thousand voices merging together, came from the depths of the crack. Something was squeezing out of that door.

It wasn't a human figure.

It is a hand.

A pale, slender hand with distinct knuckles reached out from the void at the center of the light pattern and placed it on the high priest's shoulder.

"Welcome back." The high priest's voice trembled. "Welcome back, ancestors—"

He didn't finish speaking.

The hand tightened, its five fingers like iron clamps, lifting the high priest up like a chicken. A look of surprise flashed across the high priest's face, followed by fear—he struggled with all his might, his fluorescent blue light surging wildly, but he couldn't break free from that hand even an inch.

"waste."

A faint, emotionless evaluation echoed from the void.

"A body nurtured for a hundred years can't even defeat a mixed-blood. The descendants of the Three Attendants are getting worse with each generation."