The Li Clan was not merely a family.
It was an institution vast enough to bind a world.
Seventy billion souls lived beneath its shadow. Farmers plowed soil under skies watched by Li clan talismans. Armies marched under banners of black and gold. Cities thrived under barriers woven by arrays. Elders sat in marble halls and decided the fate of provinces with words that carried like edicts of heaven.
Even within the innermost estate, where jade roofs gleamed and banners stirred, one could feel it. The clan's presence was not loud, but it was everywhere, like the gravity of a planet itself.
And here, at its very heart, in the Nursery Pavilion of the Direct Line, Li Heng opened his eyes to a world both strange and magnificent.
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The nursery was no ordinary chamber. It was a compound in itself, guarded and maintained as carefully as a fortress. Its walls shimmered faintly with energy, a protective barrier that hummed against the skin. Stone paths curved through gardens arranged with geometric precision, each corner adorned with bamboo groves and carved stone lanterns that glowed faintly at night.
Here, dozens of children from the direct bloodline were raised together. Some barely able to crawl, others already toddling, their nursemaids hovering close. To be born of the Patriarch's sons or the Elders' lines was to be claimed by the clan from the moment of breath.
Servants rotated in shifts measured like clockwork. Guards marched with qi-imbued spears, their armor polished to gleam. Attendants with tablets of jade recorded each milestone: weight, height, the first tooth, the first stumble. No detail was trivial. Every child was accounted for, every development tracked.
To most infants, the days passed in a haze of milk and sleep.
But for Li Heng — reborn professor, mind sharpened by decades of Earth — each moment was catalogued.
He learned to recognize the voices that surrounded him.
The gentle one, always near, was his mother. Her touch carried warmth, her voice soothed, her scent faintly tinged with lotus and ink. Yet beneath the love, he sensed restraint — as if she too knew that the boy in her arms belonged not solely to her, but to the clan.
Another voice, deeper, came rarely but carried a weight that bent the atmosphere. His father. Servants stiffened at the sound, attendants lowered their heads, even his mother's tone grew softer. A man of status, measured and reserved.
And then, there was the voice that came less often still, but pressed upon the air like stone upon earth. Old, heavy, commanding silence from all. The Patriarch — his grandfather, though to the clan he was more than blood. He was emperor, general, and priest all at once.
Li Heng could not yet speak, but he understood. Even at one year, he knew hierarchy when he heard it.
His curiosity reached further still.
The walls of the nursery hummed faintly when touched. Nursemaids laughed as other children pressed their palms against them, sparks of light dancing across their skin. To them, it was amusement. To Li Heng, it was mystery.
An energy barrier. Continuous, self-sustaining. No sound of engines, no flicker of weakness. What powers it? Arrays beneath the stone? Cores buried in the walls? A closed system of circulation?
At night, when the nursery quieted, he listened to the faint thrum of qi moving through conduits beneath the floor. To others, silence. To him, rhythm. Like electricity in wires… but here, invisible, flowing in air and stone.
When attendants brought medicines for the children — bitter draughts of herbs crushed and boiled, infused with faint light — he watched their reactions. Some children cried, others spat. He swallowed calmly, filing the taste in memory. A solution infused with energy. Pharmacology reshaped. Not chemistry alone, but a system of fire, intent, and flow.
Even toys carried secrets. Wooden blocks were carved with faint sigils that glowed when stacked correctly, humming with energy. The other children giggled when they lit. Li Heng frowned in concentration, tracing the lines with his gaze. Logic gates, he thought. Input-output. Arrays for children. They are taught patterns before they can read.
Servants whispered, thinking him too young to understand.
"Too quiet."
"Strange eyes."
"Always watching, never laughing."
They feared him, a little. Admired him, a little. But to Li Heng, their whispers were data. He recalled lessons from Earth: those who stood out too soon became targets. In cultivation novels, it was always the same — arrogance bloomed early, and arrogance died early.
So he stayed silent.
He watched.
He remembered.
His words would come. But not yet. Not until the moment served him.
The Li Clan was a system vast enough to govern a world.
Even in the nursery, one could feel its weight: guards in formation, barriers thrumming with energy, attendants recording data like scholars. Every child here was not merely a son or daughter. They were heirs, investments, threads in a tapestry spanning billions.
And though Li Heng was small, he already understood:
This was no family hearth.
This was an empire.