The world I live in is a strange one.
Every person is born with something extraordinary—flames dancing in their palms, winds that bend to their whispers, shadows that obey their will, or skin hard as steel. Some can fly, others can split boulders with a flick of their finger, and a rare few can heal wounds with a touch. Power is woven into the very fabric of life, as natural as breathing.
Everyone has something.
Everyone… except me.
It's funny, in the most bitter way. I spend hours every night devouring manhua, manhwa, webnovels, and light novels about murim cultivation—worlds where people ascend through sheer will and perseverance, where talent matters but the protagonist claws his way through heaven's arrogance. I read about sects, martial clans, immortal realms, and heavenly tribulations like I was meant to be there. Sometimes, when the world outside my window grows quiet and the city lights bleed into the ceiling of my room, I swear I can hear the echoes of swords clashing and qi resonating.
And then I look at my hands. Empty. Powerless. Just flesh and bone.
I turn the page, and reality doesn't change.
It never does.
My apartment smells faintly of boiled cabbage and the lemon-scented cleaner I used earlier today. The wallpaper is peeling near the kitchen, and the hum of the old refrigerator is constant, like a tired guardian barely holding the line. It's a small place, two rooms and a narrow hallway, the kind of apartment that would feel suffocating to most people. But it's home.
And it's hers.
"Are you still awake?" A voice drifts from the bedroom, soft but strained. My mother's voice.
"I'm awake," I answer, closing my phone and setting it aside. The glowing panel of a webnovel app fades into darkness.
Her door creaks open, and I step inside. She lies on her bed, thin under the heavy blankets, her back slightly arched from the slow, merciless curve of scoliosis. The medication bottles line the shelf like tiny glass soldiers, all standing in neat formation but utterly useless in battle. Her breathing is uneven, though she hides it well behind a smile when she sees me.
"You should sleep," she murmurs. "You have school tomorrow."
I sit beside her and shake my head. "I'll manage."
She frowns lightly, and for a moment I see the woman she used to be—strong, sharp, someone who could cut through life's difficulties without flinching. But scoliosis doesn't care about strength of will. It bends you regardless.
Her hand, cool and bony, reaches for mine. "You shouldn't spend so much time on those stories. You'll ruin your eyes."
"I like them," I reply simply.
She chuckles, though it turns into a small cough. "Of course you do. You always liked the impossible."
Impossible. The word sits heavy in the air, heavier than the silence that follows.
At school, the difference between me and everyone else isn't just obvious—it's suffocating. While others talk about their latest ability awakenings or spar in the training fields, I sit on the sidelines. Some pity me. Most ignore me. A few mock me, because cruelty comes easy when you're standing on solid ground looking down at someone stuck in the mud.
It doesn't matter. I'm used to it.
In the manhua I read, there's always an underdog. Always someone spat on by fate, abandoned by their clan, crippled in some way. They rise. They shatter expectations. They burn the heavens.
But me? I can't even light a candle without matches.
I once thought I'd awaken late, that maybe the heavens were testing my patience. The years passed. Nothing. Just silence in my veins, no spark, no resonance, no qi. The doctors called me "null." A statistical anomaly. The world's cruel joke.
Do you know how it feels to live when everyone else is extraordinary? It's like drowning while everyone around you breathes air effortlessly. They don't even notice you gasping.
But I don't hate them. Not anymore.
I hate myself.
After checking on Mom again and making sure she's comfortable, I return to my room. The glow of the screen welcomes me back into a world where the impossible feels inevitable. I scroll past dozens of titles, each promising epic tales of martial ascension, betrayal, and triumph.
Tonight, I open a story about a young man abandoned by his sect, forced to start from nothing. He gathers herbs, learns forbidden techniques, and forges his own path to immortality. The words blur and sharpen as I read, my mind painting pictures of vast mountains, celestial rivers, blades slicing through the sky.
In those worlds, effort matters. Persistence matters. Even when the heavens curse you, you can defy them.
Here, persistence just means I can hold down three part-time jobs after school, barely earning enough to pay rent, buy food, and cover Mom's medicine. Effort means collapsing on my bed at 2AM, hands trembling from exhaustion, before waking at 5:30 to start again.
There's no dao to walk. No sect to join. No destiny waiting for me. Just bills, pain, and the endless ache of being ordinary in a world that doesn't allow it.
Yet still… I dream.
Sometimes I imagine what would happen if my life were the start of a cultivation story. If an old master suddenly appeared in my apartment, hidden behind the disguise of a beggar. If I stumbled across a jade slip in the library, glowing faintly as it whispered forbidden techniques into my mind. If the next time I looked into my reflection, I saw my eyes burning with the trace of a heavenly bloodline I never knew I had.
I imagine it, and for a second, I believe it.
Then I glance at the cracked paint on the ceiling, the water stains shaped like continents that no map has ever known, and I'm reminded of the truth.
Reality doesn't bend for me.
Not yet.
The night grows deeper, silence wrapping around the apartment. My mother sleeps, her breath uneven but steady. I sit cross-legged on the worn carpet, my phone glowing in the dark.
Some people pray before they sleep. I don't. I just whisper to myself, as if the universe might listen.
"If this world has a place for me, I'll find it. And if it doesn't… I'll carve one out."
My voice is quiet, but it feels like an oath.
The manhua heroes I admire never asked permission from fate. They seized it. They fought. They bled. They rose.
And maybe, just maybe, someday I will too.
For now, I read.
And I wait.