The morning bell of Green Leaf Sect rang across misty peaks, its sound a declaration that separated the worthy from the worthless. Li Tian had learned to hate that bell.
He stood in the outer courtyard, a broom in calloused hands, sweeping the same stone path he'd swept for seventeen years. Around him, disciples in emerald robes flowed like a river toward the cultivation halls, their faces bright with ambition. They never looked at him. To acknowledge the sect's greatest shame was to invite bad luck.
"Still playing servant, cousin?"
The voice carried the kind of casual cruelty that came from never being told no. Li Ming descended the steps of the inner pavilion, his jade token marking him as a core disciple glinting in the dawn light. Three years younger than Li Tian, yet already at Spirit Foundation realm. The sect called him a prodigy. They called Li Tian a cripple.
"Someone has to keep the paths clean," Li Tian replied, not looking up. The broom continued its rhythmic sweep. Left, right, left, right. There was a meditation to menial work, if you let yourself find it.
Li Ming's laugh was sharp. "Ever the humble servant. Tell me, does it hurt? Watching everyone else ascend while you scrape moss from stones?"
Li Tian finally met his cousin's eyes. They shared the same sharp jawline, the same proud Li family nose. But where Li Ming's eyes burned with the golden fire of awakened cultivation, Li Tian's remained stubbornly, hopelessly mortal brown.
"Does it hurt watching me not care?" Li Tian asked mildly.
The smile froze on Li Ming's face. His hand drifted to his sword—an instinct, nothing more. He wouldn't draw it. Even cripples were still family, and the sect had rules about kinslaying. But the thought was there, naked and obvious.
"You should care," Li Ming said softly, and now there was something else in his voice. Confusion? Guilt? "You were supposed to be the genius. Father always said your spirit was—" He stopped himself, shook his head. "Never mind. Enjoy your broom, cousin."
Li Tian watched him go, watched the way other disciples gravitated toward Li Ming like moths to flame. Natural. Effortless. The way water flowed downhill.
He returned to sweeping.
What Li Ming didn't know—what no one knew—was that Li Tian's eyes, those disappointingly mortal eyes, saw more than any cultivator's spiritual sense ever could. He saw the tremor in Li Ming's left hand, the sign of unstable qi circulation. He saw the scorch marks on Chen Wei's sleeve, evidence of a failed technique. He saw Tang Hua favoring her right leg, a pulled meridian from overextension.
He saw everything. He understood everything. He could diagnose cultivation problems better than the sect's elders.
He just couldn't cultivate himself.
The hollow in his chest where his dantian should be remained precisely that—hollow. Empty. A void that swallowed any qi he tried to gather and returned nothing. Seventeen years of meditation, breathing exercises, spiritual herbs, and forbidden techniques. All of it met the same ending: silence in his soul.
"You're doing it wrong."
The voice made him turn. Su Lian sat on the courtyard wall, legs dangling, a scroll open in her lap. She wore the simple gray robes of outer disciples, her hair tied back in a practical braid. No jade ornaments. No spirit beast companion. Nothing that marked her as anyone special.
She was the most special person Li Tian knew.
"Sweeping?" he asked. "I assure you, I'm quite expert after seventeen years."
"No, the not-caring part." She hopped down from the wall with the easy grace of someone at Qi Condensation realm. Not genius level, but competent. Steady. "You care very much. You're just better at hiding it than Li Ming is at hiding his insecurity."
Li Tian smiled despite himself. "Careful. Someone might hear you criticizing the sect's golden child."
"Let them hear." She moved to his side, studying the swept path with mock seriousness. "Besides, I'm not criticizing. I'm diagnosing. His third meridian is constricted—you've noticed, obviously. He's compensating by overloading his primary channels, which will cause a deviation within two months if he doesn't correct it."
"Six weeks," Li Tian corrected automatically. "His foundation is weaker than it looks. The rapid advancement left microfractures in his qi circulation."
Su Lian's eyes sparkled. "Six weeks. I'll adjust my estimate." She paused. "You could tell him, you know."
"He wouldn't listen."
"No," she agreed. "He wouldn't. But you could tell Elder Wen. Save your cousin from himself."
Li Tian resumed sweeping. "Why would I? He called me a cripple last week. A waste of Li family blood the week before that."
"Because you're better than him," Su Lian said simply. "In all the ways that matter, you're better than everyone in this sect. Including me."
The broom stilled. Li Tian looked at her—really looked at her. At the girl who'd never once treated him like broken goods. Who sat with him in the library and debated cultivation theory for hours. Who brought him tea when his hands shook from another failed attempt to gather qi. Who saw him as human.
"I'm not better," he said quietly. "I'm just observant. It's all I can do."
"It's enough." She stepped closer, close enough that he could smell the jasmine oil she used in her hair. "Li Tian, answer me honestly. If you could cultivate, would you save Li Ming? Would you use your knowledge to help people who mock you?"
He thought about it. Really thought about it. The honest answer surprised him.
"Yes," he said finally. "Not because I'm noble. Because I've spent seventeen years watching people hurt themselves through ignorance. I know too much about how cultivation should work to watch them do it wrong. It's like watching someone use a sword as a hammer. It offends me."
Su Lian's smile was radiant. "There. That's why you're better. You care about the craft more than the credit."
"The craft I can never practice," he pointed out.
"Yet." She tapped his chest where his hollow dantian sat. "You can't practice it yet."
Before he could respond, a commotion erupted from the main gate. Disciples were running, their excited voices carrying across the courtyard like autumn wind.
"Imperial Guard!"
"Someone said there's a princess!"
"Why would royalty visit our sect?"
Li Tian felt Su Lian go very still beside him. When he looked at her, her face had gone pale, her eyes wide with something that looked like fear. Or recognition. Or both.
"Su Lian?" he asked.
She grabbed his hand—the first time she'd ever done so—and squeezed hard enough to hurt.
"I need you to listen very carefully," she whispered, her voice urgent. "Whatever happens in the next hour, whatever they say, whatever they do—I need you to remember that none of it was a lie. Do you understand? None of it was a lie."
"What are you talking about—"
The Imperial Guard swept into the courtyard like a crimson tide. Twenty cultivators in blood-red armor, each radiating Soul Formation realm power that made the air shimmer. At their head walked a woman in golden imperial robes, her crown of phoenix feathers marking her as someone who could command empires.
The woman's gaze swept the courtyard, dismissing disciples like dust, until it landed on Su Lian.
Her voice carried absolute authority: "Su Lian, Third Princess of the Vermilion Bird Empire. Your period of seclusion has ended. By imperial decree, you will return to the capital to fulfill your duties. Gather your belongings."
The courtyard exploded into chaos.
Li Tian's hand went numb. Su Lian's grip had tightened even further, her nails digging crescents into his palm.
Princess.
Su Lian was a princess.
She looked at him, and her eyes were full of tears.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so, so sorry."
Then the Imperial Guard surrounded her, and she was gone from his side, and Li Tian stood alone in the courtyard with a broom in one hand and the ghost of her touch in the other.
The morning bell rang again.
The worthy separated from the worthless.
And Li Tian finally understood which category he truly belonged to.