The moon sank back to its slumber, retreating beyond the western mountains like a tired sentinel finally allowed to rest.
Dawn came with reluctant light, painting the sky in shades of pale gold and gray. Morning dew clung to every leaf and blade of grass, each droplet catching the first rays like tiny mirrors. The wind blew gentle across the trees, carrying the scent of earth and growing things. Light woke the world slowly, tenderly, as if afraid to disturb the peace.
But peace was fragile. It always had been.
Zhung ran through the bushes, branches whipping against his legs with stinging force. Leaves slapped at his face. Sweat slid down his temples, mixing with the dirt and scratches that painted his skin. His breath came heavy and ragged, each inhale burning in his lungs. Behind him, the wolves snarled with primal fury—bloodlust gleaming in their eyes like crimson stars, massive paws pounding the earth in rhythmic thunder, the sound of pursuit that promised only one ending.
*If another day comes, another tomorrow, another chance at life—who will simply wait for the ending of their existence? Who accepts their fate without struggle?*
The thought came to him clearly even as his feet hit small rocks on the forest path, even as his clothes stuck to his skin with sweat and fear. Rain began to fall, light at first, then heavier. The clouds turned dark again, swallowing what little light the morning had offered.
*I, a mortal who is not foolish enough to believe in fate, will take every possible benefit from this situation.*
His eyes—which had seemed dark and almost lifeless for most of his eight years in this world—now sharpened with the keen edge of someone gambling everything on a single desperate throw. A smile crept across his lips, small and cold, belonging to someone far older than his body suggested.
*If even one of these wolves carries demonic blood, or divine blood in its veins—if even one has mutated beyond the ordinary—I can begin cultivation. I can open my Aperture. I can start the path.*
That idea warmed a place inside him where hope had been slowly dying, suffocated by the mundane reality of poverty and powerlessness.
He thought of the merchant who'd told him about beast mutations. He thought of the hunters who bragged in taverns about wolves with strange colorations. He thought of chances, probabilities, desperate gambles.
And he cursed the hunter who'd brought him here—cursed him with gratitude.
*Thanks to that foolish hunter who invited me to hunt and so conveniently decided to use me as bait. He made this possible.*
The wolves' mouths dripped with fresh blood from an earlier kill. Their noses twitched, tracking his scent through rain and fear and the sharp tang of adrenaline. Saliva fell in long strings from their bared fangs. They were cruel in the way that nature is cruel—without malice, without thought, simply hungry and efficient.
The pack had an alpha—larger than the others by half, uglier, with scars crossing its muzzle and one ear torn to a ragged remnant. The two smaller wolves moved like disciplined soldiers flanking their general, responding to subtle shifts in the alpha's posture.
Zhung ran. But he did not run with the blind desperation of prey accepting its fate. He ran with the calculated urgency of a man who wanted more than mere survival. He wanted the spark that could change everything—the blood that could transform him from nothing into something that mattered.
His mind was already three steps ahead, planning, calculating, gambling with his own life as the only chip he had left to play.
---
**One hour earlier, before the dawn had fully broken...**
The sky was still caught between night and day, stars losing their light to the approaching sun. The moon's edge bled pale light across the horizon, fighting its losing battle against the inevitable dawn.
"Zhung! I'm going to the far village to trade!" Zheng Han's voice called from outside their small hut, carrying clearly in the cold morning air. "Behave yourself. I'll be back in two days, maybe three if the merchant drives a hard bargain!"
Inside, Zhung sat cross-legged on the floor, reading his stolen cultivation book by the light of a single candle. He was on chapter forty-two, and the frustration of finding chapter forty-three torn out—right at the section on identifying beast bloodlines—made his jaw clench with annoyance.
"Yeah, Mom!" he called back, forcing his voice into the range of a normal eight-year-old. "I will! Be safe on the road!"
The door shut with a soft thud. Footsteps faded down the path. The hut felt suddenly larger, emptier, full of possibility.
Zhung smiled—a quick, sharp expression that vanished as quickly as it appeared. He let out a low laugh that echoed strangely in the small space, bouncing off wooden walls and out through gaps in the construction toward the unmoved mountains beyond.
"No chapter forty-three," he muttered, running his finger over the torn edge where the missing pages should have been. "Whoever ripped that section out is either a genius hoarder or a complete monster. Probably both."
He tucked the book carefully under his arm, tied his messy brown hair back in a rough knot with a strip of cloth, and walked out of the hut with deliberately casual steps. He had plans today—small plans that most would consider foolish, reckless, suicidal even.
Plans that could change everything.
---
**Twenty minutes later, arriving at Black Water Village...**
Black Water Village looked alive even at this early hour. People walked with purpose—farmers heading to fields, merchants setting up stalls, children running with sticks they pretended were swords, playing at being cultivators they'd never become. The main road was steep and perpetually muddy from the spring rains. Garbage lay piled near the roadside shrine where travelers left offerings to minor spirits. Life went on in its ordinary, grinding way.
The smell of boiled vegetables mixed with manure and smoke. The sound of a woman loudly scolding a pig that had escaped its pen. The creak of a heavily loaded cart struggling down the slope, its owner cursing the mud.
Zhung paid little attention to the noise and bustle. He had a specific destination in mind. A bookshop stood tucked in the corner where two streets met, its sign faded but readable: **Chen's Books & Scrolls**.
He pushed open the door. A small bell rang, announcing his entrance.
The bearded bookseller—a man named Chen whose face carried the scars of someone who'd lived through interesting times—looked up from the ledger he was updating. Recognition sparked in his eyes, followed by genuine warmth. He smiled wide, showing missing teeth.
"Young Zhung! Back again so soon?"
Zhung approached the counter and carefully placed his stolen cultivation guide on the worn wood surface. "Mister Chen, I want to trade this for another book. Something about beasts, specifically those found in the Spring Plains region."
Chen's eyebrows rose as he picked up the book and examined it with experienced hands, checking the binding, flipping through pages to assess condition. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, the sound of stubble scratching rough.
"This is rare," Chen said slowly, meeting Zhung's eyes with a searching look. "Cultivation texts like this—even incomplete ones—people pay good money for. Desperate mortals who think they can learn cultivation from books alone. You're certain you want to trade it?"
Zhung's face remained expressionless, calm as still water. "I want something practical. Something I can actually use."
The bookseller hesitated, clearly torn between his merchant's instinct to make a profitable trade and his genuine fondness for the strange, quiet boy who sometimes came to his shop. "Some lunatic cultivator will probably buy this as a manual. Many mortals are that desperate for even a taste of power."
Zhung's lips curved into a small smile—controlled, precise, like a blade being drawn just far enough to show its edge. "I understand the value, Mister Chen. But what good is knowledge of cultivation when I have no master, no sect, no access to beast blood? I need information I can actually apply."
"I want a hunter's guide," he continued. "Specifically, a book detailing the beasts common to the Spring Plains area. Their habits, their weaknesses, how to identify them and track them."
Chen sighed—the sound of a man who recognized a customer who wouldn't be swayed—and reached beneath the counter. He pulled out a thin volume, its leather cover worn smooth from many hands, showing sketches of wolves and boars, detailed drawings of tracks and basic trap designs.
**The Beasts of the Spring Plains**
*A Hunter's Practical Guide*
The pages felt familiar in Zhung's hands, substantial and real—like a tool he could actually use, unlike the empty promises of cultivation techniques he had no way to practice.
"Are you absolutely sure about this?" Chen asked one more time, genuine concern in his voice. "That cultivation text could buy your family food for months."
Zhung's expression didn't waver. His voice was steady, final. "I am sure."
He left the shop clutching his new acquisition, walking with purpose to a small abandoned storage shed he'd discovered weeks ago. He hid the hunter's guide there, tucking it carefully beneath loose floorboards where no one would think to look. Secrets were valuable. Knowledge was power. And both were best kept hidden until the moment they were needed.
When he emerged back onto the street, his entire demeanor had shifted. The cold calculation vanished, replaced by the innocent curiosity of a normal eight-year-old boy. The mask was perfect because he'd had three hundred years to practice wearing different faces.
He wandered toward the village market with lazy, unhurried steps, observing everything while appearing to notice nothing in particular.
That's when he saw the hunter.
The man was impossible to miss—tall and broad-shouldered, with an axe hanging from his belt, a bow strapped across his back, and a quiver of arrows positioned at his left hip for easy drawing. His beard was thick and unkempt, his clothes practical but worn. He had the confident, slightly arrogant bearing of someone who'd survived enough dangers to consider himself skilled.
Most importantly, he was reading a book as he walked—*The Basics of Cultivation*, the very text Zhung had just traded away.
The hunter looked up from his reading, and his eyes met Zhung's. A smile spread across his weathered face—friendly on the surface, but with something calculating beneath it that Zhung recognized immediately because he wore the same expression himself, just better hidden.
"Hey, kid!" the hunter called out, waving him over. "You look like a strong young man! Want to join me on a hunt? I've got extra gear, and I'll keep you safe. We can share whatever meat we bring down. What do you say?"
Zhung let his face shape into an expression of naive excitement, his eyes widening just enough to sell the performance. "Hunt? Really? You'd take me hunting?"
"Of course!" The hunter laughed, loud and hearty. "I'm an experienced hunter. I know these forests like my own home. You'll be perfectly safe with me, boy."
"Wait here just ten minutes!" Zhung said, bouncing slightly on his feet with apparent enthusiasm. "I need to run home and tell my mother where I'm going!"
"Take your time, kid. I'll be right here."
Zhung ran off with the energy of genuine excitement, playing his part perfectly.
The hunter watched him go, then smiled to himself—a different smile now, one with sharp edges and cold intent.
"Sorry, kid," he muttered under his breath, patting the cultivation text tucked in his belt. "But I need divine or demonic blood to start my cultivation. Can't do that without proper bait to draw out the strong beasts. You'll serve your purpose."
What the hunter didn't know—what he couldn't know—was that he wasn't the only one planning a betrayal. He'd simply found someone better at it than himself.
---
They walked together into the forest, following game trails that wound between ancient trees. The hunter talked constantly, his voice loud and boastful, telling exaggerated stories of past kills and near-misses, trying to establish himself as the experienced veteran guiding a naive child.
Zhung listened with apparent wide-eyed wonder, asking innocent questions at exactly the right moments, playing the role of impressed student perfectly. He didn't mention the hunter's guide hidden back in the village, the one he'd spent the previous night memorizing by candlelight.
They reached a small clearing where the hunter had obviously prepared earlier. A rope trap was already set, partially concealed. Bait—old meat starting to turn—was positioned exactly where it would attract predators.
"You wait here behind this fallen log," the hunter instructed, pointing to a spot with good cover but poor visibility. "Stay quiet, stay hidden. When the beast comes for the bait, I'll take it down from my position up in that tree. Easy meal, no danger. Understand?"
Zhung nodded obediently. "Yes, sir. I'll stay very quiet."
The hunter smiled and patted his head in a gesture that might have seemed paternal if not for the calculation behind his eyes. He moved toward his chosen position—a thick oak tree with low branches, perfect for an archer's perch but positioned so he could watch both the bait *and* the area where he'd told Zhung to hide.
The hunter settled into his spot, checking his arrows, adjusting his position for the best line of sight. He hummed softly to himself, confident in his plan. The kid would panic when the wolves came. Would probably run, making noise, drawing them closer. Perfect bait. He'd take his shot at the alpha once it was distracted, harvest the blood he needed, and be gone before anyone in the village knew what happened.
What he didn't notice—what his confidence had blinded him to—was that Zhung hadn't moved to the position he'd been directed to.
Instead, Zhung had circled silently around behind the hunter's tree.
He'd found a fist-sized stone, heavy and solid, perfect for what he needed.
He waited, patient as death itself, until the hunter was fully settled, attention focused forward on the bait and the expected position of his human lure.
Then Zhung struck.
The stone came down hard on the back of the hunter's skull with a dull *crack* that sounded impossibly loud in the forest quiet. The man's eyes rolled back. His body went limp, slumping forward against the tree trunk.
Zhung didn't hesitate. He'd planned every movement. Using rope from the hunter's own pack, he quickly bound the man's hands and feet, then gagged him with a strip torn from his shirt. He struck again with the stone—carefully, precisely—ensuring the man would stay unconscious long enough.
He worked quickly, methodically stripping the hunter of useful items. The bow, far too large for his child's body but he could manage. The axe, heavy but necessary. A money pouch that jingled promisingly. A small bag of dried meat that would serve as better bait than the rotting scraps the hunter had prepared.
Zhung dragged the unconscious man to a new position—still visible from the clearing, but now *he* was the bait, not Zhung. He arranged the body to look like someone who'd fallen and injured himself, helpless, bleeding slightly from the head wound. Perfect prey for opportunistic predators.
Then Zhung climbed into the branches of a different tree, one that gave him a clear shot at multiple angles. He positioned himself carefully, the stolen bow awkward in his small hands but manageable. He'd practiced archery in his dream-life as a cultivator. The muscle memory wasn't there, but the knowledge was.
He waited.
The forest hummed with life—insects buzzing, birds calling, the rustle of small creatures in the underbrush. Time stretched. Minutes passed like hours.
Then—movement. A shadow slinking between trees. Then another. Then a third, larger, moving with the confidence of an apex predator.
Three wolves emerged into the clearing: two smaller ones, lean and hungry, flanking an abnormally large alpha. The alpha's eyes were wrong—not quite the normal yellow of common wolves but tinged with red, catching the light strangely. Its size was wrong too, easily twice what a natural wolf should be.
Mutation, Zhung thought with a surge of cold hope. Please let it be blood mutation. Please let this gamble pay off.
His heart hammered in his chest, but his hands remained steady. He nocked an arrow, drew the bowstring back as far as his child's strength could manage, aimed carefully at the alpha's eye.
Released.
The arrow flew—and missed, deflecting off a branch he hadn't accounted for. Instead of the alpha, it struck one of the smaller wolves directly in the skull. The animal dropped instantly, dead before it hit the ground.
Silence. Then chaos.
The alpha's head snapped toward the tree where Zhung hid, red-tinged eyes locking onto him with terrible intelligence. It snarled—a sound like tearing metal. The remaining smaller wolf joined its cry.
Behind them, the hunter began to wake, groaning against his gag, thrashing weakly against his bonds.
"You little bastard!" the man's muffled scream came through the gag. "I'll kill you! I'll—"
The wolves' attention shifted. They'd found easier prey.
The alpha lunged, and Zhung's last clear view of the hunter was the man's eyes going wide with ultimate terror as massive jaws closed around his throat. The smaller wolf joined in, and what followed was brutally efficient—the wet sounds of tearing flesh, the crack of breaking bones, crimson spray painting leaves and earth.
The screaming stopped quickly. The feeding continued.
Zhung forced himself to watch, to wait, to not feel anything about what he'd just engineered. The hunter had planned to use him as bait. He'd simply reversed the roles. This was survival. This was the way the world worked.
When the wolves had their fill and began to move away from the corpse, Zhung nocked another arrow. This time he waited for the perfect moment—the alpha pausing, head turned just right.
He released.
The arrow flew true—but the alpha moved at the last instant, and instead of its eye, the projectile caught it in the ear, tearing through cartilage. The beast roared in pain and fury but didn't fall.
It charged toward Zhung's tree.
Time to run.
Zhung dropped from the branches, hitting the ground hard, rolling to absorb impact the way he'd learned centuries ago in training that may never have happened. He came up running, abandoning the bow, pulling the axe free from his belt.
The two wolves—alpha and the smaller one—pursued with single-minded intensity. Their paws thundered against the earth. Their breath came in savage pants. The distance between them closed with terrifying speed.
Rain began to fall harder, turning the forest floor slippery, treacherous.
Zhung ran, his eight-year-old legs pumping desperately. His lungs burned. His muscles screamed. He was fast for a child but nothing compared to wolves built for the hunt.
Then he saw it—the spot he'd prepared earlier, marked with three stones in a specific pattern. The trap he'd spent hours setting up before dawn, when his mother thought he was still sleeping.
He measured the distance with his eyes. Calculated angles. Committed to the gamble.
He leaped.
His body sailed over the covered pit—barely, his foot catching the far edge, stumbling but staying upright. He spun around in the same motion, nocking his last arrow with shaking hands.
The alpha, massive and murderous, followed his trajectory with perfect precision—directly toward the trap.
Zhung's arrow flew.
It struck the alpha's remaining good eye with a wet *thunk*. The beast howled, stumbling blindly forward.
Its weight crashed through the concealing branches. Wooden stakes—sharpened to cruel points and planted firmly in the pit's bottom—punched through fur and flesh and vital organs. The alpha's howl became a scream, then a gurgle, then silence.
But the smaller wolf had seen. Had learned. It leaped over the pit with animal grace, jaws wide, aiming directly for Zhung's throat.
Zhung swung the axe desperately. The wolf twisted mid-air, and instead of its skull, the axe blade caught the wooden handle of its own momentum. The old wood splintered, cracked, broke completely in half.
The wolf's jaws clamped down—not on Zhung's throat as it had aimed, but on his desperately raised left arm.
The pain was immediate and absolute. He felt bones crack, splinter, break like dry twigs. The wolf's teeth punctured through skin, through muscle, grinding against bone. Blood poured hot and fast.
Zhung screamed—a raw, animal sound—and brought the broken axe handle down again and again into the wolf's skull. The sharp end of the snapped wood punched through the beast's eye, into its brain. Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
The wolf's jaws released. Its body went limp. They fell together into the mud, Zhung's ruined arm trapped beneath the corpse.
For several long moments, Zhung couldn't move. Couldn't breathe properly. Could only stare at the gray sky through the canopy of leaves, rain falling directly into his eyes, mixing with blood and tears he refused to acknowledge.
His left arm was destroyed. He could see white bone through torn flesh. The pain was a living thing, trying to pull him into unconsciousness.
He fumbled with his right hand for the small flask he'd stolen from a traveling doctor weeks ago—a painkiller, temporary but potent. He uncorked it with his teeth and drank, tasting bitter herbs and alcohol and desperation.
The medicine hit like a hammer, dulling the worst of the agony to something merely unbearable.
He pushed the dead wolf off him with his good arm, gasping with effort. Staggered to his feet. Looked at his prizes.
Two dead wolves. One alpha caught in his trap.
With shaking hands and blurred vision, Zhung pulled out the knife he'd taken from the hunter. He approached the alpha's corpse carefully, as if it might still attack. Cut open its chest cavity, searching for the signs his stolen book had described—discolored organs, crystalline structures in the blood, the telltale glow of divine or demonic essence.
Nothing. Just normal wolf organs, normal blood, normal death.
The hope that had sustained him through the entire nightmare drained away like water through his fingers. No divine blood. No demonic essence. Just mutations, probably from eating contaminated prey or drinking from tainted streams.
All of this—the betrayal, the violence, the permanent injury—for nothing.
Zhung stood there in the rain, cradling his destroyed arm, tasting his own blood mixed with rainwater, and laughed. A horrible, broken sound that belonged to no child.
*It was a gamble,* he thought distantly. *High risk. High reward. I knew the odds. This is just... this is just how gambling works.*
He stumbled back toward the village as noon approached, keeping his injured arm hidden beneath his shirt as best he could, forcing his face into calm neutrality whenever anyone passed. The pain was a constant scream inside his skull, but he'd learned in three hundred dream-years how to smile through agony.
Back at his empty hut, with privacy and time, he faced the reality of his situation.
The arm was broken in multiple places. The flesh was torn. Without proper treatment, infection would kill him within days.
He had no Chi to help healing. No master to guide him. No access to proper medicine.
But he remembered. He remembered treatments from his dream-life, techniques that didn't require cultivation, methods that mortal doctors used when spiritual healing wasn't available.
He heated stones in his small fire until they glowed red. Cleaned the wound with boiled water and the last of the alcohol. Then, methodically, terribly, he pressed the heated stone to the torn flesh, cauterizing the worst of the bleeding. The smell of burning meat—*his own meat*—filled the hut.
He didn't allow himself to scream. Screaming would attract attention.
He found the needles he'd stolen months ago from that traveling healer, thin steel meant for acupuncture. Using his right hand and his teeth, he threaded them with boiled thread. Then, working from memory and instinct, he set the bones as best he could—feeling them grind together, feeling them find their approximate positions.
He stitched the flesh closed with crude, ugly stitches that would scar terribly but would hold.
The pain was transcendent, pushing him to the edge of consciousness multiple times. Each time, he pulled himself back through sheer stubborn will.
When it was done—when the arm was bound and splinted with wood and cloth—he lay on his bed, tasting blood, feeling the mark over his heart pulse faintly with that strange warmth that never quite went away.
*I don't regret it,* he thought clearly, despite the pain, despite the failure. *It was a gamble with high risk and high reward. The mathematics were sound. I would make the same choice again.*
The afternoon crawled by in a haze of pain and fever. He forced himself to eat the wolf meat he'd managed to bring back, cooking it over his small fire, tasting the ordinary gamey flesh that offered no transcendence, no power, just calories and protein to help his body heal.
He drank water. He changed the bandages when blood seeped through. He did all the small, mundane things that kept him alive, treating them like sacred rituals because that's what they were—the rituals of survival.
As the sun sank and painted the sky in oranges and golds, as the two suns seemed to kiss the mountains farewell, Zhung sat at the edge of his hut with his ruined arm cradled against his chest.
He watched the moon rise, pale and patient.
He whispered to the darkness, his voice carrying a promise that the night sky couldn't ignore: "Saint or demon, success or failure—I will be what I need to be. I will walk the path I choose, even if Heaven itself tries to bar my way."
He wrapped the arm more securely in clean linen. Drank a little water. Felt the mark over his heart pulse with its strange, persistent warmth.
That night, he slept with his hunter's guide beneath his pillow, its pages full of information he'd already memorized, already internalized, already begun to apply.
He dreamed of running through forests, of wolves with eyes like stars, of blood that glowed with divine light, of doors opening in his flesh to let power flow through.
The morning would come. His mother would return in two days. He would heal, or he wouldn't. The arm would work again, or it wouldn't.
But the Broken Path—the path between saint and demon, between success and failure, between giving up and pushing forward—that path had room for wounded gamblers who refused to accept defeat.
He would try again. And again. And again, until either the world broke him completely or he broke through to something more.
Life was experience, death was process. Every choice made was part of life's experience, and every consequence was death's progression toward its inevitable conclusion. Time helped you experience both—life and death, success and failure, joy and agony—in equal, unmerciful measure.
*Don't regret your choices,* his own voice whispered in the darkness of his small hut. *Move forward toward victory. Move forward to experience everything life offers, whether sweet or bitter.*
*That's the only way to truly live.*
The moon watched. The stars observed. And in his small hut at the edge of a forgotten village, an eight-year-old boy with a shattered arm and unbroken will closed his eyes and prepared for tomorrow.
**End of Chapter 5**