Xiao Yao's gaze softened marginally as he looked upon his newly claimed disciple. The cosmic awe had receded from his eyes, replaced by a more practical, assessing focus.
"My good disciple," he began, his voice now carrying a paternal warmth that hadn't been there moments before. "Are you alone here? Do you have a guardian?"
Han Li bowed deeply, the motion feeling both strange and instinctive. "Replying to Master, my parents are with me."
He didn't wait for permission. He turned and pushed back through the stunned crowd, his green-azure robe a beacon against the drabber clothes of the villagers. He found his parents still clinging to one another, their faces pale with shock. Gently, he took their hands—his mother's work-roughened, his father's scarred from tools—and led them through the parting crowd back to the dais.
"Master," Han Li said, his voice firm. "This is my mother. And my father."
Xiao Yao studied them, not with the impersonal scan from before, but with a nod of genuine respect. These were the mortals who had raised the cataclysm. He turned his attention back to the assembled village, his voice amplifying once more to a declarative boom.
"Everyone! I stated that the one selected would be my sole inheritor. But I have a surprise for the family of my disciple." He paused, letting the anticipation build again. A different kind, now—one laced with greed and wonder. "It is the custom of my Verdant Dawn Sect to bestow a gift of gratitude upon the mortal family that gifts us a disciple. A token to ensure their comfort and demonstrate our… lack of worldly want."
He let his eyes sweep over the envious faces. "The gift is one hundred taels of pure silver."
A gasp ripped through the square, followed by a torrent of whispers.
"One hundred taels?!"
"By the heavens!Is he truly that rich?"
"That white boy…his luck has turned the heavens themselves!"
"His family will never want for anything again!"
Han Li's parents stared, uncomprehending. One hundred taels was a number from stories. It was lifetimes of labor.
Xiao Yao smiled, a slight, pleased curve of his lips. He raised a hand for silence. "But!" The square hushed instantly. "Today, I am pleased beyond measure. The heavens have granted me a disciple of… unique quality. Therefore, I double the gift." He let the words hang, crisp and weighty in the air. "Two hundred taels."
Silence. Absolute, deafening silence.
Then, chaos.
"TWO HUNDRED?!"
"It cannot be!"
"Master…Master Physician," Han Li stammered, his own composure broken. "Are you speaking the truth?"
"A cultivator does not lie about such things, child," Xiao Yao said, his tone leaving no room for doubt. He glanced to the side of the square where Old Zhang stood, his own jaw nearly on the ground. "Elder Zhang. The boxes, if you please."
Snapping to action, Old Zhang barked orders at two sturdy servants, who took off at a run toward the village's lone inn where the cultivator had lodged. The wait felt eternal, the entire village holding its breath. In less than five minutes, the servants returned, their faces strained with effort, carrying two heavy, iron-bound wooden chests.
They set them before Xiao Yao with a heavy thud that echoed in the dirt. At his nod, they flipped the latches and raised the lids.
The afternoon sun struck the contents and exploded into a thousand dazzling stars.
Piles of silver ingots, each stamped with an official seal, gleamed with a cool, moon-like radiance. The crowd surged forward, eyes wide with avarice and disbelief. "It's true! By all the gods, it's really true!"
Han Li's mother brought a trembling hand to her mouth. His father stood rigid, as if facing a dangerous beast instead of fortune. Han Li stared at the stacked wealth. Two hundred taels. He couldn't fully grasp it. His father's monthly wage as a laborer was a fraction of a single tale. One tale bought flour, salt, medicine for months. This… this was a mountain. This was security for a decade, perhaps more. This was his parents' future, bought with the strange, void-black light in a crystal.
"My good disciple, come here," Xiao Yao called. Han Li stepped closer. The cultivator placed a hand on his shoulder again, the gesture possessive and final. "You have tonight. One night to say your farewells. Tomorrow at dawn, I will return. Be ready, dressed simply for travel. The path you now walk is the path of cultivation. Learning the art of medicine from me will be but a single branch on the great tree you must climb. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Master. I understand," Han Li replied, his voice thick with emotion.
"Good. I take my leave." Xiao Yao nodded to Old Zhang. "Elder, see the silver safely to their home." With a final, inscrutable look at Han Li, the cultivator in white turned and walked away. His departure was not dramatic; he simply seemed to fade into the bustling aftermath, his form soon lost in the excited throng.
Han Li bowed to his retreating back, then was immediately swallowed by the crowd. Well-wishers, gawkers, and the bitterly jealous pressed in. Li Mei fought her way to the front, her earlier resignation replaced by bright, genuine excitement. She punched his arm lightly—a fighter's congratulations. "I knew you were different, Little Li! Or… should I call you 'Young Master' now?" Her smile took the sting from the tease.
The journey home was a surreal procession. Old Zhang's four strongest servants carried the two chests, their muscles bulging, drawing every eye in the village. Han Li walked beside his silent parents, the weight of the silver behind them feeling heavier than the chests themselves.
They reached their humble clearing. The servants deposited the chests just inside the door with respectful nods, then left. The family stood in their main room, the iron-bound boxes looking like artifacts from another world that had crash-landed into their poverty.
They ate their evening meal in a daze. The usual flatbread and stew tasted different. It tasted like an ending.
As dusk settled, Han Li's mother moved quietly, shutting the wooden shutters, sealing out the night and the watching world. The room was lit only by a single oil lamp, its flame painting dancing shadows on the walls. She came and sat close to Han Li on the sleeping pallet, his father settling heavily on a stool opposite them, his face grave.
"Li'er," his mother began, her voice barely a whisper, threaded with a pain Han Li had never heard before. "We have carried a secret about your life for fourteen years. We thought we would take it to our graves. But today… today changes everything. The time has come."
His father nodded, a slow, solemn motion. "It is truth time, son."
Han Li's heart, still reeling from the day's extremes, clenched with a new, cold dread. "A secret? What are you saying? Why do you look so… afraid?"
"It is a serious thing, Li'er," his mother said, reaching out to take his hands in hers. They were ice-cold. "It was the winter you came to us. Your father and I were gathering frost-wood in the deep forest, desperate for fuel."
She closed her eyes, the memory vivid. "A man and a woman came running. They were… not of this world. Beautiful like jade carvings, even in their terror. They wore robes of mist and moonlight, but they were torn and stained with dark, wet patches. The woman was grievously hurt. The man… he carried a bundle. A child."
Han Li's breath hitched.
"They stumbled to us," his father took over, his voice a low rumble. "The man thrust the child—you—into your mother's arms. His eyes were wild, but his words were clear. 'Please. Take him. Keep him safe. We are hunted.' We were too shocked to speak. He said, 'Do not let him join any immortal sect. Do not let him near the cultivation world. His life depends on it.' Then the woman, with her last strength, she pulled this from her robes."
His mother released his hand and stood. She moved to the hidden space behind a loose hearthstone, a place Han Li never knew existed. She returned, cradling a small object in her palm.
It was a circular piece of jade, no larger than a coin, but infinitely more complex. It was a deep, verdant green, shot through with filaments of silver that seemed to swim beneath the surface like captive lightning. It hummed with a faint, almost imperceptible energy.
She placed it in Han Li's hand. It was warm.
"She said, 'If the day comes that he defies our wish… if he steps onto the cultivator's path… give this to him. Let him open it with his blood, and his blood alone. It is not a legacy of power. It contains our last words. Our warning.' Then they looked at you, Li'er… a look of such sorrow it haunts me still. The man said, 'Leaving him here may be the only way we can ascend to the spirit world and escape.' Then they vanished back into the forest shadows. We heard distant sounds like thunder… and then nothing."
Tears traced clean paths through the dust on his mother's cheeks. "We took you, wrapped you in our cloaks, and ran. We loved you from that instant. You are our son. But today… you were selected. You stepped onto the path. So tonight, we give you the last message of your true parents."
Han Li stared at the jade disc, its weight immense in his palm. The world tilted. The wooden walls of his home, the chests of silver, the love of the two people before him—all of it suddenly seemed like a fragile stage set. Beneath it was a deeper, darker truth: a past of blood, flight, and a warning etched in jade.
He said nothing. He simply hugged them, the people who had been his world, feeling the silent sobs shake his mother's frame, the firm, desperate strength in his father's embrace. Then, wordlessly, they retreated to their small room, leaving him alone with the disc and the whispering night.
The hours bled away. The house was silent, save for the distant cry of a night bird. Han Li sat on his pallet, the jade cool against his skin. My parents. A message. I am not their own child. The thoughts swirled, a tempest in the quiet. The cultivator's awe, the spirit wolf's intelligence, the dying white-haired youth, the black-robed pursuers—all the strange threads of the last days began to knot together, anchored by this green stone.
Resolve hardened in his gut, cold and sharp. He reached for his small belt knife. Without hesitation, he drew the tip across the pad of his thumb. A bead of crimson welled up, dark in the lamplight.
He held his thumb over the jade disc.
He let a single, perfect drop of his blood fall onto the center of the green stone.
For a heartbeat, nothing.
Then, the silver filaments within the jade ignited.
The light that burst forth was not the cosmic silver of the testing crystal, nor the soft blue of a common spirit root. It was a deep, emerald green, the color of the deepest forest at midnight, veined with threads of gold. It didn't illuminate the room; it consumed it, painting everything in a surreal, aquatic glow. A low, melodic hum filled the air, and from the heart of the light, a voice began to form—not in his ears, but directly in his mind. A woman's voice, ethereal, beautiful, and etched with eternal grief.
"My son…" the voice whispered into the heart of his soul.
The message, sealed in blood and time, had begun.