The rooster had yet to crow when Lin Tianhai slipped out of his courtyard. Dawn had not broken, and mist still coiled thick over the training grounds. Every stone path was silent, every lantern extinguished. The clan slept, but Tianhai's veins burned with restless energy.
He could still feel it—thin, fragile, like the faintest thread of fire winding through his body. For years, his meridians had been nothing but a wall of stone. Last night, something had cracked. He had to know if it was real, or just a dream born of desperation.
The outer training yard stretched before him, rows of wooden dummies looming in the fog. Tianhai approached one, planting his feet. He drew in a breath the way he had seen others do countless times, focusing on the path described in the Bloodline Resonance Sutra.
Blood is the root, resonance the bridge.
His heart gave a sudden thud, and qi stirred again—this time stronger, pulsing faintly with the rhythm of his heartbeat. A shiver raced down his spine.
Tianhai clenched his fist and drove it forward.
The strike was clumsy, his body too thin, his shoulders narrow. Yet the moment his knuckles struck the dummy, a sharp crack split the silence. The wooden surface shuddered as if something inside the blow had carried weight beyond flesh.
He staggered back, staring at his fist in disbelief.
It was weak, pitiful even, compared to the dazzling techniques of his cousins—but it was qi. His qi.
He laughed, a sound half-broken, half-ecstatic. For years, he had endured whispers of cripple, waste, failure. Yet now, when everyone slept, he had taken his first step.
The Sutra's fragments had spoken true.
But joy quickly curdled into caution. The Lin Clan valued power above all else. If they discovered he was cultivating an unrecognized technique, especially one that defied the clan's orthodoxy, the consequences would be severe. The elders might strip him of even his meager place in the family—or worse.
Tianhai exhaled slowly, steadying his breath. He would hide this spark, guard it like a flame against the wind. When the time came, he would ignite it before all, and none could deny him then.
He struck again, and again, until sweat soaked his thin robes. Each blow carried a faint pulse, the qi weak but undeniable, threading along the fractured routes of the Sutra. With each strike, the images from his vision returned: a blood-red battlefield, a towering figure whose fist could split mountains.
Was that… his descendant? The Sutra claimed resonance not with ancestors, but with those yet unborn. The idea chilled him even as it filled him with awe. To draw strength from those who did not yet exist—was such a thing possible?
The mist thinned as dawn approached. Tianhai finally stopped, his body trembling with exhaustion, though a fierce light burned in his eyes.
"Not crippled," he whispered to himself, voice raw. "Never crippled."
A sudden sound made his blood run cold. Footsteps.
He ducked behind a pillar, heart hammering. Through the mist, he glimpsed two figures entering the yard—young disciples from a side branch of the family. Their voices were low, but Tianhai caught enough.
"…elders say the main branch will cut off dead weight this year. That Lin Tianhai will be the first thrown out."
"Good. A disgrace like him has no place in the clan."
Their laughter faded as they moved deeper into the grounds. Tianhai pressed his back to the pillar, fists trembling—not from fear, but from rage.
One day, he swore, their words would choke in their throats.
He slipped away as the first rays of sunlight touched the estate. The spark of qi still flickered faintly within him, fragile yet defiant. It was not much. But for Lin Tianhai, it was the first step toward rewriting a fate carved in mockery.
And somewhere, deep in the marrow of his blood, something stirred—an ancient resonance that did not belong to this time.