Li Xuan couldn't remember anything that had happened after he collapsed in Mingdu Forest. His eyes felt hazy, and all around him was nothing but burnt wood.
He looked around, and piles of charred logs surrounded him. The place looked far too familiar. The distant forest edge was still intact, and the familiar trees groaned under the wind.
Thunder boomed above the clouds. Rain was clearly approaching, though rays of light still pierced through the gray sky ,it wouldn't be a heavy downpour.
He got up from the ashes, dazed. At first, he thought he was hallucinating, but then something about the scene struck him with eerie familiarity. The place he stood upon… that was where their small house had been.
Li Xuan's eyes widened as realization hit him.
"No… no, no! Aunt! Aunt!" Li Xuan cried out, trying to piece the fragments together.
If this was their home, then this destruction must surely be the Zhao family's doing. Yet what confused him most was how he had ended up here at all. Maybe this was just another nightmare.
Still, it felt too real.
He stared at his hands as if seeing them for the first time, then slapped himself twice across the face.
He expected to wake immediately, but nothing changed.
"This... I'm not dreaming. What the heck is going on?" He glanced around again when a familiar silver gleam flashed in the ash.
He rushed over and picked up a silver pendant. If he remembered correctly, this was the Li family's inheritance symbol — the one he had given to his aunt. He rubbed away the soot with his fingers, revealing the Li family insignia still engraved on its surface. But his aunt was nowhere to be seen.
Li Xuan crouched down, his gaze fixed on the spot where he'd found the pendant. His palm brushed over the ash, uncovering a small cylindrical silver container half-buried beneath.
He picked it up and slowly opened it. His hands trembled, and his eyes were already red with tears as the lid came loose. Inside was a folded letter.
He reached for it and began to read. As his eyes scanned the words, they widened, his jaw fell open, and the letter slipped from his fingers. His body trembled uncontrollably, tears streaming down his cheeks. He wanted to cry out, but his voice froze. He just knelt there in silence.
His hands fell to the ground, fingers digging into the ash. The first drops of tears splashed into the dirt.
"Second Mother…"
Li Xuan looked at the ground beneath him — once the hallway of their home. If he remembered correctly, this was where Aunt Mei had fallen when the Zhao family brats pushed her down.
After everything he'd been through, why did fate always seem to be against him? First his mother… and now the only other person he loved most.
He didn't know why he couldn't cry out loud, but he could feel a crushing weight pressing on his chest.
"Why? Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this?"
He lifted his gaze to the sky. It was dark and heavy with rain. A droplet fell, striking his forehead and rolling into his eye, mixing with his tears.
Soon, more droplets followed until the rain began to pour. Cold water ran down his face, but his gaze never wavered from the heavens above.
Li Xuan didn't feel the cold , only the hollow emptiness inside him. Something that had disappeared three years ago had returned: the pain he had tried so hard to bury.
His lips parted slightly, welcoming the falling rain. He let out a scream — raw and desperate toward the sky before collapsing backward into the muddy ash.
"Why… why…"
After so much crying, his eyes turned bloodshot, and then blood began to seep from them. Normally, tears couldn't do that, but Li Xuan no longer cared. He lay there motionless, letting the heavens weep with him.
His eyes blinked once, then again. A strained grin formed across his face. He gritted his teeth, holding back a bitter laugh. It was as if the heavens themselves were mocking him , leaving him utterly alone in this world.
"Why is this world so cruel? What did I ever do to deserve such a horrible fate? Was it really necessary to lose everything I loved?"
He clenched his fists and slammed them into the ground, splattering muddy ash all over himself.
Li Xuan began crying again — this time, bloody tears streaming uncontrollably down his face.
"Second Mother…" he called softly. "I'm sorry for being so selfish. I always let you down. I couldn't even protect you from those Zhao family bastards. I'm so sorry… I'm so sorry…"
He pressed his fists against his head, gripping his hair tightly, nails digging into his scalp.
"I'm so sorry…"
He drove his nails deeper, flinching at the pain.
"I'm so sorry…"
He dragged his nails down his cheek. Blood oozed from the fresh wounds as pain shot through his body.
He bit into his lower lip — already torn from his fight in Mingdu Forest — only adding pain upon pain.
"I'm so sorry…"
His nails scraped down his skin in one long, raw motion. A scream tore from his throat, echoing through the trees and reaching even a distant figure walking under a red umbrella. She moved gracefully despite the mud, her heels clicking softly against the wet earth.
The woman lifted her gaze toward the lightning-filled sky.
Li Xuan's strength was fading fast. His breath came in short gasps, his body trembling from exhaustion and cold — or perhaps from grief.
He looked like a madman now, five claw marks slashed across his cheek, as if a wild beast had mauled him.
"I'm so sorry…" he muttered again through clenched teeth. No one could count how many times he'd said those words — they were all he could speak.
In his mind, he heard the soft, worried voice of his mother whenever he got hurt. He remembered when she and his aunt had taken him in. His mother was often away, always traveling, but she never forgot them. She would visit at least twice a year, bringing herbs for her sister. Whatever her reasons, she had cared for both of them deeply.
Those memories stabbed at him now. Everything seemed to scream that he hadn't been strong enough, not responsible enough.
Humans are meant to endure hardship — but he had always tried to run from it. Still, the nightmares always returned.
The Zhao family — it was all their fault. If only he had been strong enough to destroy every last one of them, maybe these tragedies could have been avoided.
Yet at this moment, there was nothing he could do. His new master, Xue Bai, was in no condition to help him, and Xiao Fengqi had recently rejected him. They were the only two people, apart from his family, who had ever shown him kindness.
Mud and rain pooled around him, some of it stained with his own blood, but he didn't care.
Li Xuan raised a trembling hand toward the sky, as if reaching for something — anything to pull him out of his despair. But there was nothing. Only cold air brushing against his skin.
The rain began to ease, but the pain did not. His body burned and ached; every nerve screamed.
A silver light shot up from his outstretched hand. A sword, at least a meter long, materialized in the air above him with its tip aimed directly at his chest.
It hovered there, trembling slightly, as though it could feel its master's anguish. It was, after all, a spirit sword. Even with its underdeveloped consciousness, it could still sense his sorrow.
Li Xuan's hand fell limply to his side. His eyes drifted shut. After so much pain and loss, he felt numb and done with everything.
The sword rose higher, floating straight up until it was ten meters above him. Its surface began to glow with a silvery light, which grew even brighter as a single ray of sunlight broke through the clouds.