There was a simple courtyard, gleaming with the beauty of simplicity rather than grandeur. A young man lay stretched out in a hammock, letting the sun burn his body.
Behind him, a maidservant held a parasol in her hands and shielded herself from the blazing sun with it. Her eyes were closed, her back was straight, and her face was expressionless. They looked like contrasts in a painting of a sunlit, solitary courtyard.
The young man in the hammock was Xue Yanluo, and he was waiting for the right moment to move. A cloud dared to cover the sunlight reaching him, and he frowned, opened his eyes, and looked up at the sky. It was a large cloud.
His small window of time had been ruined. It took effort to peel his body from the hammock's embrace, having to separate himself in parts so as not to surrender again to its comfort. The feat accomplished, he stretched his body, cracking his bones, and finished with those of his neck.
The maidservant opened her eyes after hearing the hammock creak and waited for her young master to finish stretching before delivering a message sent by her mistress.
"Whose message is it?"
"The mistress's."
Neither of them enjoyed talking much, and they fell into silence, looking at each other. Xue Yanluo extended his arm, and Ruan Xueling handed him the letter.
Xue Yanluo tore a small piece from the letter, slipped his finger through the gap, and opened it in one motion. He removed its contents—a single sheet—and read it.
When he finished, he folded it and kept it in his hand. From the top of the letter, smoke rose; then the paper darkened, and flames broke through. The fire ate everything in its path as it crept downward from the top, sparing nothing. The last pieces rested in his palm, no safer than the rest.
The surviving ash was blown from his palm and drifted away on the day's gentle breeze.
"Tell my mother I'll see her in three days… I'll go in the afternoon. Tell her I'll have a training bout against the sun in the morning and won't be able to see her, and that she needn't worry—I'll come out victorious."
Ruan Xueling nodded and said her goodbyes, leaving the courtyard. Xue Yanluo watched her back as she left and didn't look away from the door through which she'd gone until a few seconds later.
Then he lifted his head, fixing a hard stare on the large cloud covering the sun, and a few moments after, took the hammock and carried it to a small shed in the courtyard.
He went to his room, sat on his bed, settled into a comfortable position, and closed his eyes—he was cultivating. A few hours later his body was relaxed, his focus entirely on the technique, and he could feel he was on the verge of breaking through the wall that had been standing in his way for several days.
His mind bore down completely on breaking through, his body tensing, his brow furrowing with great force. He had the confidence to shatter his current realm and step into the iron foundation realm.
An hour later, the invisible wall within him was riddled with cracks; after a few more strikes, it gave. Xue Yanluo felt a surge break loose inside him—spiritual energy flooding through, circulating within, widening his meridians, fusing with his muscles, reshaping his bones—but all at once, that energy seemed to vanish.
His body collapsed weakened onto his bed. He couldn't move. He felt his body losing strength; the energy he should have felt upon reaching the next realm had disappeared, and now the energy he had gathered before was beginning to disappear too.
His eyes wept—not tears, but blood. His eardrums burst, leaving an unrelenting ringing in his ears; he coughed blood, his bones cracked, and his voice seemed locked inside him, escaping only as faint murmurs barely audible even to himself. He tried to drag himself, strike the bed, and call for help, but any effort only weakened him further.
Moments later, his eyelids moved to close over his eyes, to take the light of the world from them, as he fought against them. Exhaustion played against him, and his eyelids shut; the world went dark, and shortly after, he was gone.
Even unconscious, his body twisted faintly from the remodeling taking place within it; small twitches ran through his muscles, firing them. His bones broke and knitted themselves back together.
Some time later, Xue Yanluo saw the world again. He opened his eyes slowly, making out his room without light, buried in darkness lit only by the frail moonlight coming through his window.
For a moment he thought it had all been a dream—but it hadn't. He coughed blood, and his body refused to answer his commands, utterly spent.
He tried to circulate the qi in his body to repair it, finding there was not a trace of it anywhere. Not only that—he could feel that his meridians had transformed completely, unrecognizable, unable to carry the technique.
Tears fell from his eyes, clear rivers that were stained along their course by the dried blood already on his face.
After weeping for a long time, he had lost all strength to weep; now he replaced that strength with an unbreakable will not to give in. He bit his lower lip hard, resolved not to surrender, to move his body and find help—but his body did not answer.
He turned his attention back to his body, now more carefully, tracing each meridian, each part he could reach, and at last found something. In his heart, a reddish crystal seemed to have appeared, suspended within it.
When he touched it with the little residual energy he had left, it resonated with him and released a crimson energy that began to spread through his body. It passed through his meridians, amplifying their strength, and completed one full circuit through him, covering every inch of his body.
When it seemed to finish, the energy within him shuddered, driving into his bones and muscles, sending his body into uncontrolled convulsions. Shortly after, he had the mercy of losing consciousness again and felt no more pain.
A ray of sunlight came through the window in the early morning, sliding across the floor, creeping slowly toward Xue Yanluo. It touched his cheek, and the feeling it brought was not comfort—it was sharp pain; his skin was burning.
He opened his eyes and leapt to his feet, reacting to the pain. He touched his cheek with his hand and felt it raw. While he was still pressing his hand to his cheek and thinking about the pain, his movements stopped and his mind recalled what had happened before.
His eyes opened fully, and his lips parted in surprise. He pulled his hand from his cheek and pressed it to his body, feeling it. A few moments later, a hum ran through his mind; he swayed and fell back onto his bed.
His mind was filling with strange knowledge and events, blurred fragments he didn't know how to piece together.
Several minutes passed before the hum faded and his mind quieted. His hand rested against his forehead, trying to buy himself a little time to put his disordered world back in order.
A vampire… he murmured to himself. Am I a vampire now? In the new memories rising in his mind, he could see he had stopped being entirely human; his body had mutated, his bones had transformed, and his meridians had remodeled.
In his genes, in his bloodline, he felt a primal pull toward drinking human blood. He stood from his bed on unsteady legs, looked at the door of his room, and decided to go outside for some air.
Passing in front of the window, a ray of sunlight touched his arm; his blood warmed, and the patch of skin struck by the sun became raw, a sharp pain shooting through him, and he pulled his arm back by reflex. He looked at his arm: the irritated patch was completely red. He felt that a little more would bring a real burn.
His pupils were clouded, fixed on his arm. He stood there for a few minutes, appearing to stare at it.
Then all at once he laughed—laughed until the laughter came out ragged and worn. His throat shook, forced to laugh without end. By the end, his laughter came out as a whisper, barely travelling a few inches from his mouth before disappearing.
He turned and sat back down on his bed, staring at the window, staring at the rays of sunlight, staring at himself.
Some time later he stood, made sure to cover his body well with clothing, and tested his armor against the sun. He carefully extended his covered arm into the light. The light fell over his arm. This time he felt no pain, no burning.
Xue Yanluo breathed out in relief—he had won against the sun. That reminded him of the day before, and he laughed drily at himself. Now he needed to find something to cover his face, and the only thing he could think of was Ruan Xueling's old parasols.
With that settled, he had to think about how to reach the shed without burning his head entirely—he would rather not look like a tomato. His only solution was to wrap his head completely in cloth and leave a small opening to see through.
When he'd finished, he first tested his cover at the window; it held. Before leaving his room, he took a slow, deep breath and opened the door with resolution. He shot out of his room and into the shed, arriving unscathed.
His body felt heavier than yesterday, having lost all his cultivation, but at the same time more robust than ever—not so different from when he had been at the intermediate stage of qi awakening.
He rummaged through the objects inside and finally found the parasol. After reviewing it and making sure it wasn't broken, he stepped back out into the courtyard, somewhat embarrassed, beneath it.
It was a pink parasol, with drawings of lotuses and winds along the top—a design meant for a little girl. He tried to swallow his embarrassment and found some comfort in knowing he could go outside without dying as long as he stayed protected.
While lost in his thoughts, distant footsteps rang out, so faintly that they went unnoticed by Xue Yanluo. The footsteps slowed, and a voice took their place.
"What are you doing with my parasol?"