YEARS LATER
The village of Liangxu groaned into existence.
Long before the sun dared to peek over the jagged silhouette of the eastern peaks—those distant, mocking reminders of the immortal realms—Yuan Qing was already alive. The air was a cold, damp shroud that clung to his lungs, smelling of stagnant creek water and the charcoal of a thousand dying hearths.
He stepped out of his family's leaning shack, his breath hitching in the frost. Seventeen years of age, yet his frame carried the gauntness of a man twice his years who had spent every winter starving. His cotton tunic was a mosaic of patches, the original color lost to decades of lye and sweat.
He began his ritual.
It was a pathetic sight to any passing magistrate, but to Yuan Qing, it was sacred. He picked up a heavy branch of ironwood, its surface smoothed by years of his calloused palms. He didn't just swing it; he fought the air. Swoosh. Swoosh. The sound was hollow.
"One hundred," he wheezed, his muscles screaming. His spirit core—that elusive knot of energy at the center of a man's being—remained as cold and silent as a tombstone. He tried to visualize the Qi flowing from the earth, through his heels, and into the wood. He tried to imagine the heat that the storytellers spoke of—the "Internal Fire" that could shatter boulders.
Nothing. Only the dull ache in his shoulders and the rhythmic thud of his heart, which felt too large and too frantic for his narrow chest.
"You're going to break yourself before the sun even finishes rising," a voice drifted from the mist.
Yuan Qing didn't stop. He thrust the branch forward, his boots slipping slightly in the mud. "I have to be ready, Li Mei. Today is the final recruitment for the Azure Lotus. If I miss this, I'm stuck hauling grain for the rest of my life."
Li Mei stepped into the faint gray light. She was wrapped in a thick, wool-lined shawl, carrying a small ceramic jug of warm water. Her face was a landscape of quiet concern. She had watched him do this every morning for five years—watched him grow taller but not broader, watched his eyes grow hungrier even as his body failed him.
"Drink," she commanded, stepping into his path.
He stopped, chest heaving, sweat steaming off his skin in the cold. He took the jug, the warmth of it grounding him. "The Azure Lotus Sect... they say their outer disciples get three meals a day and a silk robe. Imagine that, Li Mei. A life where we don't have to count every grain of rice."
"I don't care about the silk," she said softly, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair from his damp forehead. "I just want you to be able to breathe without coughing up blood."
The trek to the Azure Lotus Sect's mountain gate was an exercise in humiliation. The path was crowded with the sons of merchants and minor officials, boys draped in fine linens, carrying swords forged from real steel. They laughed, their voices bright and healthy, radiating the confidence of those whose bellies had never been empty.
Yuan Qing walked at the edge of the road, his wooden practice sword wrapped in a burlap sack. He felt like a ghost haunting a feast.
When they reached the Sect's outer courtyard, the scale of it nearly crushed his spirit. The stones were white marble, polished so bright they reflected the sky. Banners of pale blue silk snapped in the wind, emblazoned with the lotus emblem.
"Look at them," Yuan Qing whispered, his eyes wide.
On the high dais sat the Sect Elder, a man named Elder Feng. He looked ancient, yet his skin was smooth as a baby's, and his presence felt like a mountain sitting on the chest of everyone in the courtyard. This was a man who had transcended the mortal coil—a man who lived in the realm of "Spirit Refining."
"Next!" a disciple shouted.
Yuan Qing stepped forward. The crowd fell silent, a few snickers erupting from the back. He looked like a beggar who had wandered into a palace.
"Name?" the Elder asked, not even looking up from his ledger.
"Yuan Qing... of Liangxu Village."
The Elder finally looked up. His eyes were cold, analytical. He didn't see a boy with dreams; he saw a biological failure. "Your skeleton is narrow. Your meridians are clogged with the impurities of common food. Why are you here?"
"I want to seek the Way," Yuan Qing said, his voice cracking. He bowed low, his forehead nearly touching the marble. "I have trained every morning for five years. I have the will."
"Will is the wind," the Elder replied dryly. "But even the strongest wind cannot move a mountain if it has no weight. To enter the Azure Lotus, one must possess the Seed of Light. Prove you have it. Duel the gate-disciple, Lu Han."
Lu Han stepped forward, a boy with the build of a young bull. He didn't use a wooden sword; he used a training staff of heavy oak.
The circle formed. Li Mei stood at the front, her knuckles white as she gripped the fabric of her skirt.
"Begin!"
Lu Han moved like a predator. He didn't see Yuan Qing as a rival; he saw him as a nuisance to be cleared away. With a grunt of effort, he swung the staff.
Yuan Qing raised his ironwood branch. CRACK. The vibration nearly shattered his finger bones. He was thrown back three paces, his heels skidding on the marble.
"Is that all?" Lu Han mocked.
Yuan Qing didn't answer. He lunged. It was a desperate, ugly move—a commoner's strike. Lu Han simply stepped to the left, caught the end of Yuan Qing's branch, and twisted.
The sound of Yuan Qing's shoulder popping out of its socket was audible to the first three rows of spectators.
Yuan Qing screamed, a raw, guttural sound, but he didn't drop the wood. He swung again with his good arm, aiming for Lu Han's ribs. The strike actually landed, but it was like hitting a wall of stone. Lu Han's cultivation—the thin layer of Qi protecting his skin—absorbed the blow effortlessly.
"Pathetic," Lu Han hissed. He delivered a roundhouse kick to Yuan Qing's stomach.
Yuan Qing folded like a piece of parchment. He hit the ground, gasping for air that wouldn't come. His vision began to swim with black spots. Through the haze, he saw Li Mei's face—she was crying out his name, but the guards were holding the spectators back.
"Stand up," Lu Han taunted, looming over him. "Show the Elder your 'will.'"
Yuan Qing pushed his face out of the dirt. His mouth was filled with the metallic taste of blood. With a strength that came from a dark, deep place in his soul, he grabbed Lu Han's ankle.
"I... I'm not... done..."
Lu Han's face darkened. He raised his staff high and brought it down with the intent to break bone. THWACK. The staff struck Yuan Qing's back.
Yuan Qing didn't scream this time. He just went limp.
"Enough," Elder Feng said, his voice bored. "He is a 'Stone Body'—incapable of holding Qi. To waste resources on such a one would be a crime against the Heavens. Throw him out."
The walk back to Liangxu was a journey through purgatory. Yuan Qing was slung over a donkey they had borrowed, his body a map of purple bruises and swelling. Li Mei walked beside him, silent, her eyes red-rimmed.
The dream was dead. But life, in its cruelty, demanded payment even from the dying.
By the time they reached the village, a new terror awaited. Sitting on a palanquin of dark mahogany, carried by four burly men in black silks, was Zhao Bo.
Zhao Bo was the "Ghost of Liangxu." He didn't cultivate immortality; he cultivated debt. He owned the land, the tools, and, by extension, the lives of everyone in the valley.
"Ah, the little hero returns," Zhao Bo said, fanning himself with a silk fan decorated with gold leaf. "I heard you went to the mountain to become a god. You look more like a sack of bruised peaches."
Yuan Qing tried to sit up, but the pain in his ribs forced him back down. "What... what do you want, Master Zhao?"
"I want what the earth wants, boy. Interest," Zhao Bo smiled, but his eyes remained as cold as a snake's. "Your father's old debt for the farm tools. The interest has compounded. Since you failed to become a wealthy disciple of the Lotus, you now have a choice. You can go to the labor camps in the northern mines..."
He paused, looking at Li Mei, who recoiled under his gaze.
"...or, you and the girl can come work for me. I need people who are desperate. People who have nothing left to lose. You will be my 'Collectors.'"
"Collectors?" Li Mei whispered.
"The muscle and the mind," Zhao Bo said. "You, girl, will keep the ledgers. You, boy, will remind the villagers why it is a bad idea to be late with my silver. If you do this, I will hold the debt in stasis. If not... well, the mines are very deep, and very few people ever come back up."
The weeks that followed were a blur of misery.
Yuan Qing's life shifted from the dream of the sword to the reality of the fist. As a collector for Zhao Bo, he was forced to visit families he had known since childhood. He stood in doorways, his face set in a stony mask to hide his shame, demanding copper coins from widows and old men.
He was the "muscle," though he felt like anything but. He learned that while he couldn't move Qi, he could move a club. He learned where to strike a man to make him talk without killing him. It was a dirty, soul-eroding strength.
Li Mei was the only thing that kept him from walking into the river. She sat in the dim light of Zhao Bo's counting house, her fingers stained with ink, her sharp mind finding ways to soften the blow for the poorest families when the Master wasn't looking.
One evening, as the sun set in a bloody streak over the village, Zhao Bo summoned them. The mansion was filled with the smell of roasting duck—a smell that made Yuan Qing's stomach ache with a familiar, gnawing hunger.
"You've been soft, Yuan Qing," Zhao Bo said, leaning back in his chair, picking his teeth with a silver splinter. "The Widow Ming is three weeks behind. You went to her house, but you came back empty-handed. You told me she was ill."
"She is ill, Master," Yuan Qing said, his voice low.
Zhao Bo stood up, the floorboards creaking. He walked over to Yuan Qing and poked him hard in the center of his bruised chest. "I am not running a charity. Tomorrow, you go back. You take her grain. All of it. If you come back with 'excuses' again, I will find a more... permanent... use for you."
He leaned in closer, his breath smelling of wine and rot. "And perhaps I'll keep the girl here, in the mansion. To ensure your loyalty."
Yuan Qing's heart hammered against his ribs. He looked at Li Mei, who was trembling in the corner.
The pressure was no longer just about a sect or a dream. The world of mortals was closing in, a vise made of gold and iron, and for the first time, Yuan Qing realized that the monsters weren't just on the mountain peaks. They were right here, in silk robes, holding the keys to his life.
As he walked out into the cold night, the moon hidden behind thick clouds, Yuan Qing looked up at the stars. Somewhere up there, the Seven Immortals were probably feasting. Somewhere in the dark, a Demon Lord he knows nothing about had been missing for years.
But here, in the mud, Yuan Qing gripped his club until his knuckles turned white.
"I will rise," he whispered to the dark. "Even if I have to tear the world down to do it."