The night lay draped over Yangshui Village like a suffocating shroud, heavy and breathless, as though the heavens themselves paused in silent anticipation. Mud-brick houses clung to the mountainside like ancient scars, whispering tales of forgotten generations. A damp wind swept through the narrow paths, carrying the mingled scent of rain and dust—an omen of something stirring.
Within one of those humble dwellings, behind a crumbling courtyard wall, a young man sat upon the worn threshold, alone with the darkness. His gaze stretched toward the distant horizon, fixed and unwavering, as though a voice from beyond the mountain peaks beckoned him.
His name… was Lin Tianhan.
His hair was thick and black like ink, his eyes equally dark—quiet, unreadable, almost lethargic. Yet within those calm pupils lay a weight far beyond his years: the silent pressure of a man who had survived a hundred battles, though he had not fought even one. Words rarely left his lips, and smiles appeared even less.
But beneath that tranquility… beneath that suffocating stillness… something else smoldered.
A desire.A void.A flaw etched into his soul since childhood.
Tianhan possessed no strength.No talent.No cultivation.
He was merely the son of a weary farmer who reaped wheat beneath the blazing sun and fed livestock until nightfall. But Tianhan had always sensed—deep in the marrow of his bones—that this simple life was not meant to be his final path.
On this night, his father slept within the dim house, worn down by labor, while his mother sat beside Tianhan, stitching an old shirt with patient fingers.
"Tianhan… You stare at that mountain every night," she said softly. "Are you thinking… of leaving?"
He did not answer. His gaze drifted toward the shadowed peak shrouded in clouds.
She released a tired sigh."I heard you quarreled with the village chief's sons."
Silence.
"They said you defended that small child they were bullying… Is it true?"
Only then did his lips form words."They were beating him for no reason."
A sorrowful smile touched his mother's lips. She knew her son was not cruel… yet he refused to stand aside, even when silence would save him trouble. He was like a lone stone resting in the current: battered endlessly by flowing water, yet never moving.
"My child…" she murmured, a suppressed tear glimmering in her eyes, "the world does not reward the kind."
He looked at her with those still, dark eyes—depths no one could truly read."Maybe," he whispered. Then, firmer:"But I will never allow the weak to be trampled."
She smiled faintly, warmed by his stubbornness… and frightened by it.
When she finally drifted into sleep, Tianhan remained outside, swallowed by the night. The sky had turned pitch-black, the cold seeping beneath his skin. Yet something inside him churned fiercely.
A "wall" existed within his chest—an invisible barrier.Whenever he tried to pierce through it, it mocked him, cold and unyielding.
Once again, his eyes rose to the looming silhouette of Mount Qinglan—ancient, solemn, like a slumbering primordial beast. Rumors spoke of a buried spirit root within its depths, capable of reshaping a person's destiny entirely. Nothing more than legend… and legends, according to the villagers, devour the fools who chase them.
Yet his heart thundered every time he thought of it.
Then—the heavens shuddered.
A streak of crimson light tore across the sky.A spark, as red as blood.
It flashed but for an instant, yet Tianhan felt as if a hammer had struck his heart.
One pulse.A second.Then stillness.
He rose at once, eyes locked on the fading trail of red. A strange scent drifted through the air—hot, metallic… like burning blood.
"This… isn't natural," he muttered.
Not long after, footsteps approached.His only friend, Liu Fan, came running with a flickering torch.
"T-Tianhan! Did you see the red light? The whole village is terrified. They say it's an omen!"
Tianhan didn't respond.
To him, that spark felt like a summons—as if some unseen existence in the heavens whispered: Rise.
"Where are you going?" Liu Fan asked anxiously.
"To the mountain," Tianhan said.
"What?! Now?! Are you mad? It's dark—monsters roam the forest!"
But Tianhan was already moving. His voice remained calm, almost cold."Something is waiting for me."
He walked as though guided by a force not his own. Wind lashed the trees like warning cries, but his steps never faltered. Before the forest's edge, he told Liu Fan:
"Go back."
"Going there now is suicide!"
"If I turn back… I will regret it for the rest of my life."
Liu Fan hesitated, then retreated.
And so Tianhan entered the forest alone.
Each step deepened the darkness. The air grew heavy, carrying a metallic tang—the taste of blood. After an hour of silent trekking, he reached a split in the rocks, where the earth had collapsed into a vast pit. A faint crimson glow pulsed from within.
His heart pounded."This… is the source."
He descended slowly. The deeper he went, the hotter the air became—wild, fierce. At the bottom lay a single, unimaginable thing:
A drop of blood.
Frozen inside stone.Glowing crimson.Beating faintly… like a dead heart forcing itself to awaken.
He approached.
The ground crumbled.He fell into darkness.
The shock knocked the breath from his chest, and before he could recover, his fingertips brushed the glowing drop.
In that instant—light exploded.
The forest above screeched with a piercing cry. Flames of pain ripped through his body, and a raw scream tore from his throat.
"AaAAAH!"
The drop melted into him—Sinking.Flowing.Until it reached his heart and pulsed.
His consciousness shattered.
When he awoke, darkness surrounded him, but something new stirred within his chest. A tiny force breathing with him… beating with him.
He stood, body lighter, stronger. When his fingers brushed his hair, he froze.
A single strand—just one—had turned crimson.
He didn't know how.He didn't know why.
But that spark… that drop…was the beginning of everything.
Tianhan gazed at the sky without a word. Deep in his heart, a whisper burned:
"This is not my original fate.This is only the beginning."
Slowly, he climbed out of the pit and began the long walk back toward the village—silent, steady—his calm black eyes faintly rimmed with the color of blood.