A Waste of Time-Chapter 110: Prismed Hollow

After a windy night full of trickling rain and thunder’s short tempers, dawn pried open the rim of the sky and spilled a pale light over Scattered-Woods Village. Roof tiles steamed. Puddles wore skins of cloud. Smoke rose thin from cookfires, carrying the soft clatter of bowls and the faint, hopeful sounds of a new day.
Only this time, a few people were missing.
Lin Qiu’s stall stood shuttered from first light to last. By the next morning, another pair of hands claimed the space—new canvas, new scale, same corner. The villagers slowed as they passed, looking without looking, a stiffness in their shoulders that didn’t leave. Dissatisfaction sat in the square like a stone that wouldn’t be kicked aside. Lin Qiu’s wholesale offers had been the oil that quieted many kitchens; in their place, numbers grew sharper and voices shorter. Her name kept bubbling up in talk like a lid that wouldn’t stay down.
Old man Lou spent the day posted in his doorway, apron strings damp, butcher’s hands idle more than they should be. He sighed, shook his head, and rubbed the edge of his thumb along a scar that had no right to itch. Whenever a member of the Qi Clan walked past—hats tilted, steps measured—his eyes went hard without asking permission. The look wasn’t a shout, just a flint spark that said enough.
Sales will go down. Of course they will,
he told himself, jaw working as if chewing gristle.
The wonderful boy is gone. And who knows if he’ll ever be back.
A hook clicked against its bar behind him, swinging once and stilling. He didn’t turn.
In a small backyard behind a wall of damp brick, Auntie Fan poured tea for Auntie Ming and Nie Leixu. The rain had rinsed the leaves bright; the path between the doorstep and the table was a dark ribbon of earth. No one tried to fill the silence with cleverness. The cups warmed their fingers; steam touched their cheeks.
The two women prayed in their hearts without moving their lips—simple prayers, practical ones—for safety, for good weather, for the happiness of two daughters walking roads they could not follow.
Let them be kept. Let them be seen with kindness. Let them be returned whole,
Auntie Fan’s thoughts counted, bead by bead.
Let them not need to be brave,
Auntie Ming added, a wish as soft as breath.
Nie Leixu stared into his cup until the tea turned the color of regret.
Fool,
he named himself with a small, humorless twist of the mouth.
A year ago, the boy asked, and I waved him off. Da Wei’s brat, hungry enough to trade anything for a meal and a roof… and I said no.
The old ache of pride pressed against his ribs. He drank anyway.
Wind brushed the yard and found nothing to move. Somewhere beyond the wall, a child laughed and was hushed; a cart rolled; a dog shook rain from its coat and scolded the day for being wet. The village wore on as villages do—turning labor into routine, and routine into a kind of mercy.
By evening, clouds thinned to threads and the square’s puddles remembered how to show the sky. Lin Qiu’s corner stayed taken. Old man Lou locked his shop with a click that sounded tired. In the backyard, the teapot emptied to the last patient drip, and the three sat a little longer, as if sitting could slow anything at all.
Inside the Seven-Gold Pagoda.
Gu Zhu’s legs were practically flying as he took the stairs two and three at a time toward the top floor. At the landing, he forgot to knock—he pushed the door wide and spilled into the office, breath hot in his throat.
“Manager Ling! There’s news!”
“How dare you?” The voluptuous woman’s voice snapped like a switch. Ling Sue’s brows drew tight, the annoyance clean and immediate. Her pretty eyes slid past Gu Zhu to the two guards flanking the doorway, and the glare they received could have shaved wood. Last time, Ru had knocked them out and barged in—she forgave them then; the Swordsman was a Cultivator, and a competent Assassin before that. But Gu Zhu was a mortal like them.
What’s your excuse now?
Gu Zhu felt the floor tilt under him. Still—the message was worth the bruising. He turned, guided the guards back with both hands, and closed the door on their shoulders, offering an apologetic smile as he whispered promises to compensate them and to speak well of them so the manager would go easy
this
time.
When the latch clicked, he faced the beauty again—eyes flicking, just once, to the panel behind her desk. The hidden chamber.
Protector Fu is certainly watching.
He straightened.
“Immortal Ru’s young master, Daemon, has fallen into the hands of the people of the Ten-Thousand Beast Mountain.”
“Impossible.” The side door slid; Fu Jian stepped in, the word riding ahead of him. He crossed to the table with unhurried confidence, took his seat, and shook his head. “There’s no way that boy loses to a bunch of juniors. Monsters only fall to monstrous monsters. And the kid can run whenever he wants. Besides—there are no monsters in the Mountain, not by any information I trust.”
Ling Sue fixed Gu Zhu with a level, stern look. The room cooled a degree. There’s a price for dereliction of duty—and for bringing false information. Gu Zhu knew it.
“The boy beat six of the Mountain’s Inner Disciples,” he said, forcing steadiness, “before an Outer Elder took the stage. Two of those juniors were Peak-Perfection of the Qi Gathering Realm—and one of them was a user of the extremely rare Element of Space.”
He wet his lips. “Those fights drained him—endurance, Elements, everything. But he still put up one hell of a fight against an Immortal in the Foundation-Establishment Realm.”
Fu Jian’s fingers stilled on the table’s edge.
“According to my information,” Gu Zhu pressed on, “he transformed into a giant with many hands and heads, and he demonstrated abilities tied to both Lightning and Space—plus excellent tactics, insane speed, and unbelievable strength.”
Silence pressed for a beat.
Ling Sue and Fu Jian exchanged a look—disbelief shading to calculation. The manager flicked two fingers; the message was received. Gu Zhu bowed out, backing to the door, then slipped into the corridor with a breath he hadn’t noticed he was holding.
Protector Fu Jian remained only a few minutes longer. Then he rose, the air around him quickening. Wind Qi threaded his steps as he left the office—his Movement Technique spilling him down the stairwell like a draft through a narrow flue.
Confirm it yourself,
his eyes said, though his mouth stayed shut.
Ling Sue stood alone for a moment, palm flat on the desk, gaze on the closed door. She would not dare send such a up the chain without proof. Not to her higherups. Not with this boy’s name stitched into it.
Verify first,
she told herself, letting the thought settle like a stamp.
Then speak.
Outside the lattice, wind combed the pagoda’s eaves and carried the last wisps of rain away.
Ding.
The soft chime came again—the Hourly-Rolls. Another chance. He’d rather sink back into the heavy dark and sleep, let the ache ease—but the situation was a blade pressed to his throat.
If there’s any hope of getting out of this, it’s through the submerged path—the Leviathan-Maw Trial, as the Archmage called it. And I need to check on the Orc Camp.
The chimes had become his clock. Even with his real eyes sealed and his body refusing to move—
can’t even see why I can’t move, can’t even tell what’s pinning me like this
—the Trial’s rhythm told him the hours as cleanly as a water clock.
They’d better not be doing anything shameful to me out there,
he thought, sour amusement flickering.
Hopefully that old Archmage is the only one with a taste for parading the defeated butt naked and frozen across a kingdom.
He tossed the red-and-white Dice for the twentieth time since falling into the Bat Lady’s hands.
“Damn it!” The groan punched out of him as the board shoved him back three tiles. “My luck’s fallen to shit. That geezer must’ve smeared a curse on me. Archmage, my ass… he’s a bloody Wizard for sure!”
So far, he’d advanced three times. Forced back seventeen. The only mercy: five Dice-Rolls had hit 1-Red—small wins that kept him from biting his fingers bloody and cursing the old man into falling off his perfect horse and snapping his neck.
The submerged path breathed around him—aquatic life drifting in slow processions through pillar-like weeds, scales flashing like coins in dim light. Tiny hunters darted; lazy giants sailed; the water’s skin trembled with distant currents. Beautiful, if he weren’t counting steps on a board that loved to spit him backward.
“But it’s been almost a day so far… I thought they’d at least interrogate me or something!” he muttered, watching a ribbon-school fold and unfold like a living banner. He narrowed his eyes. “This is odd… what’s the hold-up, you Sect bastards?”
He let the anger cool by degrees. Breath in, breath out. The Trial’s slow pulse ticked in the background, steady as a drum behind a wall.
Fine. Wait it out. One hour at a time.
He set a single thought like a stake in the muck and tied himself to it:
Next chime, I roll. One tile forward is still forward. Rest until then.
The water hummed. He sank into the quiet and let the dark carry him, eyes closed, holding to the rhythm that would wake him when it was time.
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