The wind before the eclipse of the moon carried a smell of rust and rotting soil, and it pressed heavily over the Qinglan Sect's outer gate medicine garden. Lin Shi's back was hunched, his fingertips were covered with dirt, and he carefully pushed aside a "condensation grass" whose leaves had turned yellow and curled around the edges. The old burn mark on his wrist bone, through the rough gray cloth of his shirt, was sending waves of needle-like dull pain, worse than before, as if there was a small piece of red-hot iron buried underneath.
