The next morning dawned soft and cool, the mist still clinging to the tiled rooftops of the Zhenlong estate.
Yangshen waited in the quiet of the training courtyard, his hands clasped behind his back. Haotian trotted in alongside Lianhua, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, his small frame bundled in a fresh training robe.
"Today," Yangshen said with a gentle smile, "we begin something new. Very simple. Nothing more than breathing."
Haotian blinked up at him. "Breathing?"
"Mm," Yangshen crouched to meet his eyes, "but proper breathing. The kind that makes your body strong even when you're not moving." He didn't speak of the Heaven-Sundered Trinity Scripture, nor of the three hidden cores. To Haotian, it would be no more than a game.
He guided the boy to sit cross-legged on the mat, Lianhua settling nearby to watch. "Inhale… slow. Let it sink low," Yangshen instructed, placing a hand lightly against Haotian's lower abdomen. "Now exhale—quiet, steady."
The boy obeyed, cheeks puffing at first, then settling into the rhythm. No glow. No flicker. No telltale hum of hidden power. Just the sound of morning sparrows beyond the courtyard wall.
Day after day, Yangshen returned to the same "breathing game." And day after day, Haotian's small shoulders rose and fell, his face placid, but no hidden surge stirred.
A week passed. Then two. Then four. Still—nothing.
At the sixth week's end, the ancestors gathered once more in the inner hall.
Yuying poured tea but did not drink. "No changes?"
Yangshen shook his head. "None. If the Scripture is working, it is buried deeper than even I can sense."
Meiyun tapped a slender finger on the table. "Then perhaps it requires his conscious effort. If Alter designed this for him, the child may need to see it to understand."
Jinhai's brow furrowed. "You suggest giving him the scroll outright?"
"He is young, yes," Meiyun replied, "but he is not ordinary. He reads like one twice his age. Let him study it as text. His mind may awaken what our guiding cannot."
After a long silence, Yangshen nodded. "Very well."
The following morning, Haotian sat at a low desk in his chamber, brush and ink at the ready for his daily copywork. Yangshen entered, carrying the same lacquered scroll case from weeks before. He placed it gently on the table.
"This," Yangshen said, "is something I think you will like. A special story—written long ago. Read it carefully, and copy it as you would your lessons."
Haotian's eyes brightened. He slid the scroll free, the parchment whispering open to reveal the flowing characters of the Heaven-Sundered Trinity Scripture. To him, it looked like a riddle of dragons and stars, the strokes almost dancing in the morning light.
Yangshen smiled faintly, watching the boy's fingers trace the first lines—unaware of how much rode on those words.
The candle in the corner had burned down to a hunched stub.
Wax bled over the stand in slow, glossy drips, pooling like frozen tears at its base. Each flicker of flame sent shadows crawling over the walls, long and restless—like silent figures pacing in the dark. Outside, the night was utterly still. No wind. No crickets. No sound at all, save the faint pop of the candle's wick.
And in the center of the chamber, Haotian sat cross-legged, small and motionless.
The scroll rested across his lap, edges weighted with smooth river stones to keep it from curling. The parchment was plain—too plain. No shimmering ink, no radiant glow, no aura of divine craftsmanship. To anyone else, it was just… a scroll.
But when his fingertips grazed the fabric—
—it breathed.
Not with a gasp. Not with the roar of awakening. Just… a subtle pull. Like the page was testing him before deciding if he was worth speaking to.
He read the first line again, tracing the brushstrokes with his eyes.
"To break the sky, one must first anchor the soul."
His brow creased.
"…Anchor?" he murmured.
He expected diagrams, postures, meridian charts—something physical to copy. Instead, the next line sat alone beneath it, smaller:
"Do not force the breath. Let it return to you."
The words caught on his lungs.
Meditation?
He inhaled slowly through his nose, held the air, then let it spill out.
Nothing.
He tried again—deeper this time—straightening his back, centering his weight the way Wuhen had taught him during stance drills.
Still nothing.
"…Return to me?" he whispered.
Frustration prickled along his spine. His legs ached from training earlier. His back itched beneath the rough cloth of his tunic, clinging to faint bruises.
He tilted the scroll, squinting, hoping for hidden runes to glimmer under the candlelight.
Nothing stirred. No voice. No vision.
Alone. Again.
His jaw tightened. Both palms pressed flat to the parchment. His heartbeat thudded—not from excitement, but from the gnawing sting of failure.
Why did great-grandfather give me this?I don't understand any of it…
His fingers curled into the silk—
—and something pulsed.
THMM.
The warmth was faint, but alive.
His head snapped up.
The scroll didn't shift, but the first line of text wavered. Not fading—moving. Brushstrokes curled inward, folding and looping until the sentence had become… something else.
Not a word. Not quite a picture.
A breath cycle.
A shape to follow.
Haotian's eyes widened. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the formation unraveled—just words again.
"…What was that?" he breathed.
His pulse drummed in his ears. He adjusted his seat, shoulders tensing, not from instruction this time—but because the scroll had responded when he stopped forcing it.
Anchor the soul.
No pressure. No chasing. No proving.
He placed both hands on the parchment again. Closed his eyes.
And simply… existed.
The candle flickered once. Twice. Then held steady.
And in the stillness of that small, dim-lit room—watched by neither master, nor ancestor, nor god—a six-year-old boy took his first true step into a method that no one else in the world could ever teach.
For days, the estate moved in quiet rhythm.
No elder spoke of the scroll. No faint glow touched its edges. No whispers slipped between the columns of the great hall.
But Haotian trained.
At dawn, before the servants had finished setting out the morning tea, he would rise and kneel beside his bedding. Breathwork. Visualization. Meridian alignment. Every step methodical, every motion born of patience.
He read the scripture as if peeling it apart one grain at a time—word by word, line by line.
Practice.Pause.Re-read.Adjust.Begin again.
The four ancestors—Zhenlong Yuying, Jinhai, Meiyun, Yangshen—watched from a distance.
They expected the moment to come suddenly: a flare of qi, a shift in his aura, some undeniable sign the method had taken root.
But nothing stirred.
The boy's breathing deepened. His stance grew sharper. His mind, impossibly steady for his age.
Still, the world remained still.
Until the final night.
—
The candle in Haotian's room swayed gently, its flame throwing soft amber light over the open scroll. Outside, the estate slept. The courtyard trees swayed just enough for their leaves to whisper against each other.
Haotian sat cross-legged on his bed, eyes closed, hands resting on his knees. The scroll lay on the table untouched—he no longer needed to look.
"Anchor the soul.""Breathe through the spiral.""Open from the center."
Inhale.Exhale.Even. Controlled.
The candle quivered—then died.
A low breath escaped his lungs, but it did not fade into the air. It moved the air. The parchment shivered. The bedding curled at the edges. Each breath drew the world closer, as though the room itself leaned in toward him.
Then—A faint tingling, deep within his abdomen.
The dantian.
He almost faltered—but the rhythm held.
Elsewhere in the estate, Meiyun leaned over a scrying mirror, her gaze fixed on the boy. At first she thought the surface of the image had warped—until she realized the branches of the old pine outside his window were thrashing in a wind that should not exist.
Her eyes narrowed.
The grass beyond the courtyard swayed. Roof tiles shifted. Faint glyph-wards along the eaves shimmered to life, one after another.
"…What is going on?" she whispered.
A low tremor rolled through the mountainside.
THRRMMM.
Thunder—distant, but wrong for the season.
Meiyun was already rising to her feet, voice cutting sharp through the ancestral link.
"Come quickly. Something is happening."
Across the mountaintop sanctum, Yuying's head lifted from meditation. Jinhai's eyes opened in an instant. Yangshen's hand stilled over the scroll he'd been studying.
Without a word, the three of them stepped from their chambers—vanishing in the next heartbeat, descending toward the boy's room before the echo of Meiyun's call had faded.
Back in the chamber, Haotian's breathing deepened.His small frame never moved, yet the air began to thicken—dense, heavy, charged with a tension that made the shadows lean toward him.
From nowhere and everywhere, threads of golden light began to stir.They came like whispers through silk—drawn from the void, from the wind outside, from the memory of the mountain itself.
They spun in lazy coils at first. Then faster. Sharper.One by one, they dove toward his dantian—warming it. Feeding it.
More followed.But not all went to his core.Some curled upward toward his heart.Others climbed the unseen path into his mind.
Three points.Three radiances.
His breath hitched, then quickened—unaware. Unstoppable.
Outside, the air shifted.The clouds above the estate twisted into a slow spiral, dragging the spirit wind into their wake.
The spiral widened.It became a vortex—an enormous whirling mass of cloud, wind, and crackling lightning.
Down in the city, the night's stillness shattered.Lanterns swayed. Civilians pointed skyward, voices breaking into panic.Shouts echoed through the streets.Cultivators flared barriers in reflex.Alarm bells rolled across the rooftops in deafening waves.
The vortex grew—one mile wide. Two. Then three.
At its heart, a column of gold speared downward from the sky—straight through the estate roof and into Haotian's chamber.
On the outer wall, Meiyun stood with the wind tearing at her robes, her voice barely audible over the storm."…I've never… seen this."
In streaks of movement, Yuying arrived, then Jinhai, then Yangshen.
Within the estate, Wuhen and Wukang were already sprinting toward the source—only to be staggered back as if struck by a hammer of air.
Wukang raised an arm against the brilliance, teeth gritted. "What is this force!?"
Yangshen's gaze sharpened—and then his eyes widened.He seized both men, pulling them back in a blur of motion.
"Don't go near it! That's not normal spiritual pressure. That's divine compression."
They landed beside the others, Yangshen's voice clipped and urgent. "We seal the area. Now."
No hesitation.The four ancestors burst apart in four directions, each vanishing toward a cardinal point of the estate.
Hand seals struck the air in perfect synchronicity.
Four-Pillar Barrier: Heaven's Hold.
Light surged upward.A translucent dome folded over Haotian's chamber just as the vortex above the estate… broke.
The sky shattered.
And from the golden storm, they came.
Ninety-nine dragons.Each vast as a mountain range, each woven of pure gold and light.They roared in unison—a sound that shook the marrow—and spiraled around the beam, their bodies cracking the air with thunder each time they passed.
Then, without warning—They dove.
All ninety-nine slammed downward, racing along the pillar into the heart of the chamber.
BOOOOOOMMMMM!
The impact blasted the barrier from within, bending it outward under the force.The four ancestors gritted their teeth, their hands shaking as they fed more qi into the formation.Energy waves rolled out like tidal surges, hammering the dome in relentless succession.
Then—The wildness broke.
The force no longer pressed outward, but drew upward—pulling the chaos with it.The sky tore clean. Clouds ripped apart.The vortex dissolved into nothing.
And the golden beam… remained.Calm. Gentle. Radiant.
Inside, silence fell.
The ancestors released the barrier, descending toward the open chamber.
Dust hung in the air.The tatami mats lay untouched.The walls stood unmarked.
And there, at the center, Haotian floated three feet above the floor—legs crossed, hands resting lightly on his knees.Not a thread of his robe was out of place.His face… serene.
Then—
His eyes opened.
The four froze mid-step.
For in those eyes, they saw it again—That same endless tapestry they had glimpsed when he was still an infant.
Not mortal irises, but an ocean of starlight.Galaxies turning in silence.A gaze that pulled the world inward and left it suspended in awe.
The Sea of Consciousness.
The same eyes… as Alter.
The clouds were gone.
All of them.
The sky above the Zhenlong estate stretched wide and open—blindingly clear, as though the heavens themselves had been washed clean. Not a single wisp of vapor remained. The golden beam that had torn through the night still stood, humming like a celestial pillar, anchored from the shattered roof of the chamber below and stretching endlessly into the void above.
Its glow wasn't harsh. It was soft—pure.Like sunlight without heat.Like the breath of a divine lung exhaled upon the mortal world.
Beneath it, at the epicenter of the ruin—
Haotian hovered.
Suspended in perfect lotus, his small frame turned ever so slightly in the unseen currents. His hair fanned out around his shoulders, caught in a slow spiral of invisible wind. Faint luminescence traced his veins in threads of molten gold.
With each breath, gentle waves of energy rolled outward.
They warmed the flagstones.They cooled the tiles.They stirred the branches in the courtyard—yet never burned, never harmed.
It was not fury.
It was arrival.
From the southern walkway, Wukang and Wuhen arrived first. Their boots crunched against fractured flagstone as they reached the boundary where the barrier had only moments ago been lifted.
They stopped at the archway, staring into the ruin.
Haotian's small figure floated there, bathed in light that seemed almost too soft to belong to such a display.
"What… is this?" Wukang whispered.
Yangshen's jaw tightened. "We don't know. It came from the method."
Wuhen took a step forward—then froze. The air was not oppressive. If anything, it felt… warm. Gentle. Comforting. Like standing beneath a spring breeze after the passing of a bitter storm.
Haotian's arms rested loosely over his knees, his breathing slow and even, his aura expanding like the quiet tide.
"It's him," Jinhai murmured, voice low with disbelief. "All of this… came from him."
—
The estate doors slammed open.
Ruolan burst into the courtyard, her robe sleeves streaming behind her, heart pounding with every step. Lianhua was close at her side, her face pale with worry. Behind them, Wuhen's first wife entered with a guarded expression, her three children fanning out behind her with careful, uncertain steps.
They emerged into the open just in time to see it:
The sky split wide and bare.The golden beam like a sword through the heart of heaven.And Haotian—six years old—floating at its center.
Ruolan's breath caught. "Is he… flying?"
"No," Yuying said quietly from the side. "He's being held."By what, she did not say.
Lianhua pressed a trembling hand to her lips, unable to speak. Her eyes never left Haotian.
—
The pillar began to fold.
Slowly, the golden light curled inward, spiraling down toward the boy. The unseen wind that held his hair began to fade. The gentle wave of his robes stilled.
His legs uncrossed.
Feet lowered beneath him.
Haotian drifted downward until his toes touched the splintered remains of his bedframe—cracked but still standing as if the storm itself had spared it.
He stood with perfect posture, head tilted back toward the vast, cloudless sky.
No one spoke. No one dared move.
Then his eyes closed.
The golden radiance vanished in an instant, as though drawn into his skin.
A final pulse of warmth rippled outward—like the last breath before dawn.
And Haotian's body tilted forward.
"Haotian—!" Ruolan cried.
Yangshen moved before anyone else could blink. With a flash of gold beneath his feet, he crossed the distance in a single step, catching the boy before he could fall.
The child's head rested against his shoulder, his breathing steady—unconscious, but utterly at peace.
Yangshen looked down at him, voice low, almost reverent. "…This is beyond reason."
The other ancestors descended in silence.
Wukang and Wuhen stepped aside without a word.
Ruolan started forward but faltered, her hands hovering near Haotian without touching him. Tears glimmered at the edges of her eyes.
Lianhua moved in close beside her, resting a steadying hand on Ruolan's arm. Her gaze softened as it fell on Haotian's sleeping face. "He's safe," she whispered. "Whatever this was… it didn't hurt him."
Everyone stood there—matriarchs, ancestors, siblings, warriors—all eyes fixed on the boy in Yangshen's arms.
And in that moment, they all understood.
This was not the awakening of talent.This was the unveiling of something far greater.
The storm had passed, but the ground had not stilled.
Cracks spidered across the courtyard tiles. Several of the roof spires had collapsed inward from the earlier shockwave. What remained of Haotian's chamber was already being cordoned off by elite formation warders.
Inside the ancestral council hall, a fire burned low in the central brazier, casting long shadows over the mosaic of celestial beasts carved into the floor. Silken banners trembled from the faint aftershocks still pulsing beneath the foundation.
This was not a meeting of formality.This was a summoning.
Yangshen sat at the central mat, spine straight, jaw locked.Beside him, Zhenlong Yuying—calm but pale—kept her gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the hall.To her left and right sat Jinhai and Meiyun, twin pillars flanking the matriarch.
Wukang—son of Yangshen and Yuying, father to Wuhen—sat forward on one knee, commander's presence tempered by familial concern.Wuhen himself stood at full height before the brazier, arms folded, head bowed slightly in thought.
The First Wife, demure but sharp-eyed, knelt in silence with her three grown children at her side. They were not asked to speak—only to remember.
No servants were allowed.No scribes.No recordkeepers.
Only truth.
Yangshen was the first to break the silence."This cannot be explained as mere talent."
His voice was steady, but his fingers tightened against his knees. "Golden vortex. Ninety-nine dragons. Divine pulse. Meridian awakening in three centers at once. I have seen calamity-class tribulations… but nothing like this."
Jinhai exhaled slowly. "It wasn't a tribulation."
"No," Meiyun murmured. "It was a response."
Wuhen lifted his head, looking between them. "Then what did it respond to?"
All eyes shifted to Yuying.
"You were there when he was born, Great-grandmother," Wuhen said. "You've known he was different from the start."
Her voice came slowly. "…I had hoped it would fade."
"Fade?" Wuhen echoed.
"He is not cursed," Meiyun clarified. "Nor possessed. But there is… a presence within him. One we have kept hidden."
Wukang's gaze sharpened—both as a commander and as a grandfather. "Then speak it plainly. If this concerns my grandson, I will hear it without riddles."
Yuying's eyes lifted to meet his.
"The night Haotian cried for the first time," she said quietly,"…was the night Alter vanished from the Sea of Consciousness."
The air thickened.
Wuhen's arms fell to his sides.The First Wife's eldest son frowned faintly, but said nothing.Wukang's breath left him in a single slow exhale. "…I remember that night."
Yuying continued. "Alter was not simply a cultivator. He was a god. A sovereign who fought in wars beyond the mortal sky. He bore the weight of realms… until he could no longer stand beneath it. And when the last of his strength faded, he sought rest—not in the heavens, but here. In this world. In this family."
She looked to the brazier's flame."He gave himself willingly. Poured what remained of his divinity into the empty vessel of an infant… and slept."
Meiyun added softly, "What you saw tonight was not awakening by effort alone. It was the echo of a god remembering how to breathe."
Wukang's jaw tightened, his hands curling into fists on his knees. "A god… inside my grandson."
"He is still Haotian," Yangshen said firmly. "We have watched him for years—his choices, his nature, his heart. They are his own. Alter sleeps within him, but the boy lives unbound."
"And yet," Wuhen said grimly, "that power will draw eyes the moment the wrong person senses it."
Yuying's voice hardened. "Which is why this will remain sealed. Outside these walls, let them call it a miracle. Let the historians name it a prodigy's first ascension. But none may know whose name still echoes beneath his skin."
Wukang's gaze swept the room, his tone like steel. "Then we stand guard over him. As commander, as father, as son of this house—I will see no harm come to him."
Wuhen took a step forward. "…He is my son. Second wife or not. And I will raise him as such—without chains, without fear. But the truth stays here."
Yangshen inclined his head once. "Agreed."
The First Wife and her children bowed silently. They understood the political weight; this would alter the line of succession in quiet, unseen ways.
Jinhai broke the final silence. "Then it is settled. His training will continue, under the pretense of talent. His safety will be absolute. And one day—when his spirit is ready—he will learn who sleeps within him."
Yuying's eyes turned toward the high skylight, where the last golden shimmer still faded into the night.
"…Alter has not left us," she whispered. "He only dreams."
The courtyard lanterns had long since dimmed, their embers reduced to a soft orange glow beneath the wind.
The estate slept.The golden pillar of light that had split the heavens hours earlier was gone, its aftertaste lingering only as a faint metallic tang in the night air. Haotian now rested within one of the inner healing chambers, wrapped in twelve interlocking protection seals. Ward-keepers stood at silent watch, their robes unmoving in the stillness.
And yet, for some, the night had not truly ended.
Beneath the silver-washed boughs of the inner plum garden, Zhenlong Yuying sat beside the koi pond. Her back was straight, her hands folded neatly in her lap. The water before her reflected the drifting petals above—each one catching moonlight before kissing the surface and sending ripples across the mirrored sky.
A soft crunch of gravel broke the stillness.
Ruolan stepped into the garden, the loose fall of her dark hair trailing over a robe tied hastily in a single knot. Her eyes were rimmed with exhaustion—not from lack of sleep, but from the weight of a fear that no rest could loosen.
She crossed the stepping stones without speaking, her shadow joining Yuying's in the pond's reflection.
"…Why didn't you tell me?" she asked at last, her voice even, yet so thin it might snap.
Yuying did not turn. Her gaze remained fixed on the water."Because even knowing," she said quietly, "would not have changed what was required of you."
Ruolan's fingers curled at her sides."I gave birth to him. I waited by his side when he wouldn't move. I prayed to gods I no longer trusted. I held his hand while he stared through me for years."
"I know," Yuying said.
"You all watched him," Ruolan pressed, stepping closer. "With that look—like you were guarding a treasure I didn't understand. And still you said nothing."
"…Because we feared hope would destroy you more than silence would," Yuying replied.
Ruolan's breath wavered, and she dropped to her knees beside the elder matriarch."Then say it now. What is inside my son?"
This time, Yuying turned. And for the first time, her gaze met Ruolan's without the veil of hierarchy—no matriarch before a daughter-in-law, no ancestor before a junior. Only one mother facing another.
"…He carries the soul of a man who once defied heaven," she said.
Ruolan's breath caught.
"His name was Alter," Yuying continued. "Not a god, but one who stood among them as an equal. When the gates between realms tore open, it was he who stood alone to seal them. He could have claimed a throne in the sky, but instead… he chose to be reborn here, inside your child."
Ruolan's voice trembled. "You mean he took over my son?"
"No," Yuying said firmly. "He sleeps within him—beneath the soul, not over it. He did not replace your son. He joined him."
A faint rustle of silk came from the garden's edge. Lianhua stepped into the moonlight, her hands clasped before her. She had heard enough to understand.
"I felt it," Lianhua said softly. "When the storm broke. It wasn't just Haotian's qi. There was… an older rhythm beneath it. Like the echo of a great bell struck long ago."
Yuying inclined her head. "Exactly so."
Ruolan's eyes glistened. "And all these years… you knew?"
"I knew the night he cried," Yuying said. "When your tears touched his skin, golden light rose beneath it. In that moment, I saw a door open in his sea of consciousness—one no infant could possess."
"…I thought I imagined that glow," Ruolan whispered.
"You didn't," Yuying said simply.
The plum petals drifted between them, their shadows sliding across the koi as they circled in slow, deliberate arcs.
"…Will he awaken?" Ruolan asked at last.
"Haotian already has," Yuying answered. "What remains to be seen… is whether Alter ever will."
A long silence stretched.
Ruolan turned to the pond, watching the moon's reflection break in ripples."I should be angry," she murmured. "But I'm not."
Yuying's brow lifted slightly. "…Why not?"
"Because when I saw him in the heart of that storm, I understood," Ruolan said. "He wasn't frightened. He wasn't fighting. He was simply… himself."
Yuying's gaze softened. She reached out and took Ruolan's hand—not as the matriarch, but as a grandmother—and laid her other hand gently over Lianhua's.
"Then raise him with that strength," Yuying said, her voice quiet but steady. "And love him without letting this truth cast a shadow between you."
Ruolan nodded slowly. Lianhua lowered her eyes but held her hand firm in Yuying's grasp.
And in the silver hush of the garden, the silence between them no longer felt like distance—but peace.