Chapter 10 · Root Check

The door slammed open before I could hide the box.

Lin Yuan stood there with three elders behind him, all robes and righteous faces. My cousin's smile was the kind that made you check your back for knives.

"Sect Leader." He bowed, but his eyes were on me. On the bed I was sitting on. On Gu's hand still gripping my wrist. "Forgive the intrusion. We've come to conduct the monthly root inspection."

I felt Gu's fingers tighten. Just for a second.

"The schedule was next week," Gu said. His voice was flat. Controlled. Nothing like the guy who'd been on his knees an hour ago calling me by my dead mother's name.

"Elder Feng suggested we move it up." Lin Yuan's gaze slid to the poison box on the table. The one with his seal on it. "There have been... concerns. About unauthorized spirit root usage."

My stomach dropped.

They knew. Or they suspected. Either way, if they checked my root now, they'd see it was half-drained. They'd see I'd been using it. And then they'd ask why the Sect Leader's personal servant girl had a pure Yin root that shouldn't exist.

Gu stood.