The world wasn't kind enough to kill him properly.
Qinyan Wuye stumbled through the ravine like a drunk ghost, barefoot, starving, and bleeding from a dozen places he hadn't bothered to count. The rusted sword he'd scavenged dragged behind him in the snow, carving a crooked trail of red and brown.
Snowflakes fell soft as ash. The light was beginning to fade — not twilight, not yet — but that bruised blue hour where the world held its breath before the cold came roaring back.
His body was failing. Again. No Qi to circulate. No heat to protect his core. The lungs — already wrecked from the poison and his own rebirth — rasped like cracked bellows. His hands trembled. He'd counted four separate collapses already, and the fifth was waiting like a patient beast.
Still, he walked.
Not for hope. Not for survival.
For spite.
For the stupid, vicious, irrational hatred that something — someone — had seen fit to poison a child and throw his body into a ditch. He didn't want to live. He just didn't want to die like that. So when he saw smoke curling through the trees, he didn't think.
He moved.
It might have been a hallucination. Probably was, but his body didn't ask permission. It crawled forward like a dying hound chasing meat. The smoke led him to a cave, half-concealed by snow-draped thickets and shadowed pines. It looked like nothing. Just a crack in the mountain's ribs, big enough for a man to vanish inside.
Warmth leaked from it.
Barely but enough for him. He dragged himself to the edge, using the sword like a cane. The rusted blade bent sideways as he fell against it, and this time he didn't get back up.
His face hit the dirt and wet moss. He tasted roots and soil and something faintly metallic. And then— A footstep.
Light and soft.
Someone was inside the cave.
A fire crackled somewhere in the dark. Wuye forced his head up. Shadows swam across the far stone wall. A hunched figure sat by a small flame, motionless.
Old.
The word came unbidden.
Not just old in age — old like weathered wood, like the smell of temple incense long since burned out. The man was wrapped in faded robes, eyes closed, back straight despite the slight tremble in his spine.
A tea kettle steamed beside him.
The man spoke without turning.
"You stink of rot."
Wuye coughed, blood and dirt spilling from his mouth.
"Thanks," he rasped, "I was going for perfume."
A pause. Then a soft sigh, like wind through cracked shutters.
"Even your jokes are half-dead," the old man murmured. "Why are you here?"
"I followed the smoke."
"Most men follow smoke and find fire. You followed it and found me. Unlucky."
Wuye didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His eyes closed.
Then— Warmth. A hand, bony but not unkind, touched his wrist. The old man clicked his tongue.
"Poison in the blood. Damage to the lungs. Qi shattered, soul unstable. And… something else."
A silence stretched.
"…you are not twelve."
Wuye's breath caught. The old man's eyes finally opened. Pale and sharp.
"Speak," he said. "Before I decide you're a corpse with delusions."
Wuye coughed again, this time wetter. "Does it matter?"
"I decide what matters in my cave."
Wuye laughed once. Bitter. "Then kill me or leave me here. I'm not crawling anymore."
The old man studied him a moment longer. Then, with the sort of sigh reserved for taking in stray dogs or troublesome children, he turned back to the fire.
"Then lay still. If you die, it'll save me the trouble. If not, we'll talk."
Wuye didn't reply.
He slept.
He dreamed of drowning. Not in water, but in silence. Thick, suffocating silence. When he awoke, he was covered in furs. A faint warmth pressed against his skin — too little to be comforting, but enough to keep him alive.
The old man was still at the fire. Still unmoving. But the kettle was full again, and the scent of ginger root teased the air.
Wuye tried to sit.
Pain laughed at him.
The old man didn't turn. "You should be dead but something inside you is too stubborn."
"…story of my life," Wuye muttered.
"Whose life?"
He looked up. The old man's gaze was narrow, cutting.
Wuye met it.
"Doesn't matter. That life's over."
Another long silence. The fire popped once.
"I was a prince," Wuye said, finally. "Poisoned by someone in my own house. Died between many corpses but someone else died the same day… and woke up in my skin."
He didn't know why he was saying it. Maybe because it felt like a joke too cruel to keep to himself.
The old man stirred.
"You were Qinyan Wuye."
Wuye froze.
"…you know the name?"
"I know the court exiled a child. I know that child's corpse was dumped in the northern ravine five winters ago. I know the Emperor declared it a 'merciful correction.'" The man turned his head, eyes glinting. "I do not know how a corpse walks into my cave speaking riddles and dragging a broken rusted sword."
Wuye's lips twisted. "Guess I'm new."
The old man stared for a long time. Then, at last, he reached into his sleeve and withdrew a flask.
"Drink," he said.
Wuye blinked. "Poison?"
"If it is, you've built up an immunity."
He drank.
Fire spread through his chest — bitter, sour, sharp enough to make him cough, but the warmth was real. Qi-infused root brew, if he had to guess. Basic stuff, but his ruined body drank it like nectar.
"…why help me?" he asked.
The old man's expression didn't change.
"You can call me Master Yan," he said. "Once a Sword Saint. Now nothing. I help no one."
Wuye raised an eyebrow. "Then what's this?"
"A moment of curiosity. That's all."
"And if your curiosity fades?"
"You'll die."
Wuye nodded slowly. "Fair."
That night, under the low ceiling of the cave, Wuye lay staring at the flickering shadows. His thoughts were quiet but not still. The old man had taken him in. Not out of kindness. Not out of pity. But because something about him didn't make sense.
Good. Confusion was armor.
For now.
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, maybe, he'd start asking for sword lessons. But tonight, he slept beside a stranger with tea that burned and hands like wind-worn stone and for the first time since waking in the grave… He wasn't cold.