CHAPTER 23: CHAPTER 23

On his way back to the hut.

Ethan found himself drifting through a scene that belonged more to a tranquil painting than to the harsh world of cultivators.

By Serene Mirror Lake, beneath the snow-laden branches and the icy mantle covering every stone, the village still showed signs of life even this late into winter.

Couples—disciples young and old, lovers and confidantes—moved up and down the lakeshore, little islands of warmth in the brilliant cold. Oil-paper umbrellas glowed softly in their hands, sheltering whispered jokes and hand-in-hand laughter, their breaths blooming clouds between them.

Ethan made little noise as he walked, the soft crunch of snow beneath his boots muted by the thick layer of white.

He paid little mind to the others, until the voices of four disciples—a pair of young women and two young men—echoed behind him.

Their words, at first casual, quickly snapped with the familiar bite of judgment.

"That’s Ethan. I heard he just fishes in the Serene Mirror Lake every afternoon," one woman mused softly.

"He looks so ordinary," the other agreed, barely above a whisper but sharp with disappointment.

"Yeah, exactly—normal," said one of the young men, disdain clear in his voice.

"What kind of achievements could a physical cultivator have anyway? Why would someone like that stand out, much less look handsome to us?"

The second man, sounding almost bored, took up the refrain, "A physical cultivator exiled to Serene Mirror Lake for fifty years... what else can he do? People like him just fish, sweep the ancestral tomb, and wait for death."

The second young woman, still innocent in her curiosity, turned to her companion with a small frown.

"Senior brother, who is this Ethan? I’ve been in the Azure Origin Dao Sect for almost two and a half years, but this is the first time I’ve heard his name."

Their senior, Max, puffed up slightly with the pleasure of explanation.

"That story? It’s old. Nearly ten years back—at the outer sect’s ten-year trial, Ethan actually stole the show. The Empress herself noticed him, wanted to take him as an inner sect disciple, make him a direct disciple, and—get this—she intended him to become the fourth protector of the saint."

He paused for effect, letting the importance of his words ring through the chilly air before his tone soured.

"But the saint, she suddenly remembered something. Turns out, when Ethan first entered the sect, he got caught peeping at the female disciples’ bath. The saint herself caught him. The Empress found out, stripped away his chance at being an inner disciple, and tossed him down here to sweep tombs and waste away fifty years."

"He peeked at a female disciple bathing? Hiss..." the first woman exhaled sharply, shaking her head, her features marked with clear distaste.

"That’s right! As a disciple of the Azure Origin Dao Sect, to do something so filthy—it’s disgraceful!" agreed the first man, voice pitching higher.

"Luckily, the Empress was wise—he deserved worse. They should’ve gouged out his eyes, broken his hands and legs, and expelled him from the sect!" His jaw clenched with fake righteousness.

Ethan, too far ahead to turn, almost smiled. Even as the young man parroted justice, Ethan could hear the cloying smell of hypocrisy—the same sort who would sneak into the outer sect’s gardens under cover of night to catch a glimpse of the unattainable, but would spit poison in public to look clean in front of pretty girls.

The conversation rolled on—one of the women piped up, "Speaking of protectors, I heard her highness, the saint, is back from her ten-year training. The sect is holding a new trial meeting to choose the next protector."

Another man, voice softening, said, "Only someone like the saint could complete ten years of training alone. If it were us, we’d lose our minds after a year."

All voiced their agreement, their awe loud, their scorn for Ethan louder.

Ethan didn’t turn.

Instead, he listened—his perception, boosted by a decade of body refinement and the system’s rewards, easily cut through the wind, snow, and distance.

Every syllable.

Every scornful glance.

Every pretense.

It seems that ten years is a long time, but memory is always shorter than rumor, Ethan thought as he paused on his path.

He stood quietly, letting the memory of the past and the fresh bite of present slander wash over him.

Ten years since the spar with Kael, ten years in which fear of him carried through the disciples of the Serene Mirror Lake—long years in which none had dared cross him.

But time and silence dulled fear. With the saint’s return and his old story fished up yet again, people had forgotten.

They forgot the chill he could summon, the strength, the will that marked the Ethan of today from the boy of a decade ago.

Fearless, some thought him finished. Others thought him a relic.

A sudden sound broke the snowfall—a sharp, slicing whistle through the air.

The four disciples, startled, stopped abruptly as a leaf fell at their feet. Where it landed, snow melted instantly, and the stone it touched split with a spiderweb of cracks. All color drained from their faces.

"Who...?" Max instinctively stepped forward, tense, trying to shield the girls standing behind him.

Through the swirling snow, they saw a figure advancing—tall, blue-robbed, carrying a fresh-green branch.

Ethan.

He plucked a leaf from the branch, his hand casual but precise.

"That’s right—I’m Ethan. And weren’t you just talking about me?" Ethan’s bamboo hat tilted, his smile gentle, voice so cool it froze the air again.

The disciples blinked, confusion and fear warring on their faces.

They’d been sure Ethan couldn’t possibly have heard them from so far away. How?

And when one of the young men finally gathered his courage to answer, his words came out defensive and mean-spirited, not realizing how thin the mask of righteousness was on his face.

"You act as if we’re in the wrong, but you’re the dirty one! You dare to do scandalous things, and now if people talk about it, you attack them for it?"

Ethan said nothing for a moment, only smiled—snow falling, the past surging, the future uncertain, but the man in the blue robe steady as a mountain.