The Holy Mountain stretched far beyond what three children could comprehend. To Liangfeng, Chenrui, and Qingxian, even a single courtyard felt endless. Rivers glittered with spirit fish, and groves of pale-leafed trees swayed as if whispering to the air itself.
Liangfeng leaned against a jade railing, staring at a stream whose water glowed with embedded runes. "It's so big…" he whispered.
Chenrui crouched beside him, puffing his cheeks. "Back home, our whole village could fit inside this garden."
Qingxian tilted her head toward mist-veiled peaks. "They said we'll train here. Do you think the ancestors are watching us?"
Their voices carried lightly in the spring air, innocent yet brimming with wonder. They had no way of knowing what lay beyond these peaceful gardens, or how the Holy Mountain itself had been shaped for centuries as a crucible of the Ye bloodline. Nor could they sense the other presence within the pocket world—a courtyard sealed from almost every eye, whispered of only in rumor.
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Far to the west, past terraces and lakes, lay a place even elders seldom named: the Forbidden Moon Courtyard. Its walls were shrouded in layers of sealing arrays, their glow faint but unyielding. Within, flowers bloomed that no mortal had seen—silver blossoms glowing at dusk, frost-petals forming at dawn. The very air was heavy, carrying the rhythm of the Dao.
Beneath a moonlit sakura tree sat a boy, cross-legged on white jade. He was only four years old, yet his posture was steady, his breaths even. Each inhale drew faint streams of qi toward him, as though the world itself wished to serve his cultivation. His name was Ye Xuan.
His features were a delicate blend of his extraordinary heritage: a lean, almost ethereal grace from his elven grandmother, coupled with the subtle, luminous quality of his Spirit Race mother. His skin was fair, with an almost translucent quality, and his hair, the color of moonlight on water, fell past his shoulders. But it was his eyes that held the true depth of his lineage. They were a striking, multi-faceted prismatic white gold, catching the light with an otherworldly shimmer, hinting at both ancient wisdom and a nascent power.
Unlike Liangfeng, Chenrui, and Qingxian, Ye Xuan had not been guided among companions. From the beginning, he had been placed here—not excluded, but set apart. Not for lack of welcome, but because the weight of his bloodline demanded distance, silence, and seals. Even the stewards who tended the courtyard moved softly, never speaking above whispers. None approached the boy too closely unless summoned—not out of fear of the child, but reverence for what he carried.
Ye Xuan's lineage was a tapestry woven from not only his grandparents but also the love and defiance of his parents. His father, Ye Tianlong, had been the clan's brightest sword, a prodigy whose mastery of the blade was so absolute that it was said his strikes moved with the inevitability of the Dao itself. He was not just a warrior, but a force of nature in human form, a legend in his own time whose deeds inspired awe across all the higher realms.
His mother, Yue Lian, was no less extraordinary. As a princess of the Moonveil Court, she bore the Supreme Frost Moonveil Bloodline, a legacy of immense spiritual power. Her aura was cold and radiant, and wherever she stepped, frost and pale light followed. Her presence was one of ethereal, unassailable grace, a living embodiment of the moon's serene and devastating power.
But their union was not arranged by clan decree or courtly politics. It was a bond of choice—a rebellious act of love that enraged her people. To the Spirit Race, humans were tolerated at best, never embraced as equals. For their princess to bind herself to one was an unthinkable disgrace, a threat to their ancient pride and purity. The Moonveil elders demanded Yue Lian's return and Tianlong's execution. The Ye Clan refused, igniting the War That Shook the Heavens.
Ye sword formations split seas of cloud. Spirit Court frost froze mountains mid-sky. Ancient spirit beasts clashed with Ye warships carved of immortal steel. For three months the firmament itself trembled until the Coalition of Neutral Forces of Eternal Sky Realm descended, declaring that if the conflict continued, the entire realm would be shattered. They forced a peace.
The price for peace was a heavy one: Yue Lian's exile and a solemn decree that no child of her bloodline with Tianlong would ever awaken Moonfrost. This was more than a mere edict; it was a powerful, binding spell woven by the Coalition of Neutral Forces of Eternal Sky Realm to sever the Moonfrost Bloodline from any future Ye descendants. The Spirit Race believed the magical compact was unbreakable, ensuring that their power would never be wielded by the very clan that had defied them.
They were wrong. The decree had accounted for a child born of two powerful cultivators, but not for one whose soul, forged in another life, held an unyielding will. Ye Xuan's very existence was a direct defiance of that sacred law, a power so profound it would tear through the spell meant to seal his fate.
When Ye Xuan was born, Skyveil trembled. A colossal eye formed above the heavens, its iris shifting through every hue of the Ye bloodline—gold, silver, crimson, azure, violet—before merging into prismatic white-gold. Gasps filled the ancestral halls. To awaken even one Aspect was fortune. To stir them all was legend.
Then a silver moon rose, flooding Astralis in frost. Rivers froze mid-current, blossoms turned to crystalline snow, and beasts bowed their heads. The Moonfrost Bloodline had manifested—not at adolescence, but in an infant's first breath. Snow fell in midsummer. Cries of newborn life mingled with the silence of awe. The child's skin shimmered faintly with frost, his gaze burning with rainbow light. And though only minutes old, his eyes were calm—not confused, not afraid. As if he had been waiting for this moment.
The elders did not speak of that night beyond the highest council. But whispers bled outward. Servants claimed snow had touched their shoulders. Disciples swore beasts howled in reverence. Some whispered that the infant's cry had followed them into dreams. None dared speak openly, but even silence carried weight.
So when, within the Holy Mountain, stewards glimpsed the sealed courtyard from afar, they lowered their voices. It was not fear that silenced them. It was reverence.
But there was a truth none of them could see. Within that child dwelled a soul from another world, one that had known the weight of a different kind of genius. In a past life, he had been a prodigy, graduating college at seventeen and mastering the intricate systems of the world as a genius programmer. He had risen too swiftly and fallen too hard, his life's end not an end but a crucible.
His soul, tempered by that experience, had crystallized into a clarity that allowed him to see the world not in binary code, but in the flows of qi and the resonance of ancient arrays. By the time he opened his eyes, while still in the darkness of his mother's womb, he had already traced the patterns of qi through the walls, memorized the voices of those who stood over him, and etched into memory the weight of their presence. When the heavens roared at his birth, he had not cried in fear. He had gazed upward, silent, as if recognizing a new chapter in an old promise.
Elsewhere, Liangfeng, Chenrui, and Qingxian played beneath silver-leafed trees, quarreled over glowing fish, and dreamed of futures they could not yet name.
Far away, Ye Xuan sat alone in the Forbidden Courtyard, frost curling faintly with his breath, rainbow light hidden in his calm gaze.
The children did not yet know one another. But already, their fates were bound. The Holy Mountain itself seemed to breathe in rhythm with that bond, waiting for the day when paths divided by silence would finally converge.