About ten days later, Lin Fang finally stirred and opened his eyes. Almost immediately, violent coughing wracked his body.
"Young Master Fang…"
A gentle hand rested on his shoulder. As his blurry vision slowly cleared, he saw a kind-faced middle-aged man kneeling beside him.
Lin Fang pushed himself up and looked around. He was lying on soft grass beside a flowing river. A simple tent stood nearby, and the sky had already deepened to evening hues.
"Young Master Lin Fang, are you alright?" the man asked again, concern etched in his voice.
Lin Fang focused on him and frowned. "Who are you?"
The man offered a warm, slightly sad smile. "You wouldn't know me by face, but once you helped my son become a guard in the Lin Clan." He took a deep breath. "My name is Li Zhengzhong. I'm one of the carriage drivers for your clan."
Lin Fang nodded slowly as recognition flickered. He glanced down at his abdomen—new robes covered him, and he felt no trace of the wound.
"They gave you a marrow-sealing pill," Li Zhengzhong explained quietly. "It healed your injury… but your Dantian remains shattered."
The memories flooded back: his father's cold judgment, the sword piercing his stomach, the exile to the Black Garden. Lin Fang scanned the surroundings and spotted the prison carriage not far away. Seven prisoners sat inside—five men and two women.
He understood at once.
"Why am I outside the carriage?" he asked.
Li Zhengzhong smiled again, softer this time. "Young Master, you've done many kindnesses within the Lin Clan. A great number of people feel gratitude toward you. I'm one of them… and Guard Captain Han Hu is another."
He paused.
"Captain Han Hu asked me to keep you safe and healthy and to drop you at the safest place I could find on the edge of the Black Garden."
Lin Fang fell silent. After a long moment, he bowed slightly. "Thank you for your mercy."
Li Zhengzhong hurriedly helped him to his feet. "Please, Young Master, don't. I'm merely a humble servant. You helped my son tremendously—this is nothing in comparison."
Lin Fang managed a faint smile, but tears welled in his eyes. He drew several deep breaths to steady himself.
Then his thoughts turned to his sister. 'I have to save Lijuan!'
She had been confined to the Stone Palace simply for trying to defend their mother's honor—for trying to kill Ye Daiyu.
'But my cultivation is gone…'
Rage flickered in his eyes. 'How can I possibly help her now?'
As despair clawed at him, Li Zhengzhong spoke again, pulling him from his thoughts.
"Young Master, Captain Han Hu asked me to give you these."
He held out a familiar sheathed sword and a small leather pouch.
Lin Fang's breath caught. He recognized the sword instantly—his own. He took it with trembling hands, fingers tracing the worn leather grip. A rush of familiarity washed over him… followed by bitter emptiness.
'Without cultivation, what use is a sword?'
He glanced at the pouch. "What's inside?"
"I don't know the full contents," Li Zhengzhong replied. "Captain Han Hu said it contains his family heirloom and some pills. He didn't let me open it. He only asked that you stay alive… so the two of you might meet again someday."
Lin Fang took the pouch, memories of Han Hu surfacing. The guard captain had once been falsely accused of theft by Ye Daiyu in an attempt to replace him with her own brother. It was Lin Fang who had uncovered the truth and cleared Han Hu's name.
A warm, pained smile touched his lips. Tears brimmed again—this time he couldn't hold them back. They rolled silently down his cheeks.
"You are a kind soul, Young Master," Li Zhengzhong said gently. "Though you face hardship now, the heavens are not blind. They will help you rise again."
"What heavens?" Lin Fang choked out. "Without my Dantian…" His voice broke into sobs.
From inside the prison carriage, the five men watched and smirked.
"Look, the young master finally woke up," one said. He was burly, his face scarred—Fang Guiren.
A thinner man beside him sneered. "Crying like a little girl. Pathetic."
The others laughed cruelly.
The two women in the corner remained silent, though their eyes flickered toward the scene. For the past ten days, they had endured the men's leering gazes—but Li Zhengzhong's presence had kept anything worse from happening.
After a while, Lin Fang steadied his breathing.
"Thank you, Uncle Zhengzhong," he said quietly. "And please… tell Captain Han Hu I'm deeply grateful. If he can do one more favor—please ask him to watch over my sister."
Li Zhengzhong nodded solemnly. "I will carry your words to him."
"Rest now, Young Master," he added. "It will take another twenty days to reach the edge of the Black Garden." He gestured toward one of the two tents.
Soon Lin Fang sat alone inside the dim tent, hundreds of thoughts swirling in his mind.
'I'm so useless. I couldn't even protect my sister.'
He stared at the sword lying before him. After a long silence, he drew it. The blade gleamed coldly in the low light.
His hands shook. Tears streamed freely.
"I'm finished. Doomed to die anyway."
He pressed the tip against his throat and closed his eyes.
His arm trembled violently. Sweat beaded across his skin. Memories of his life flashed before him—childhood, his mother's gentle smile, Lijuan's laughter.
Yet even after long minutes, he couldn't do it.
With a broken cry, he hurled the sword aside and collapsed forward, forehead pressed to the ground as sobs tore from his chest.
Then his gaze caught something—a faint green glow inside the half-open pouch.
He reached in with trembling fingers and pulled out a small jade sword, no longer than three inches. It pulsed with soft emerald light.
Frowning, Lin Fang lifted it closer.
The instant his skin touched the jade, his entire body convulsed as though struck by lightning. The small sword slipped from his grasp and floated before him.
"Wha—"
Before he could finish, the jade sword flashed forward and pierced straight through his heart.
"Agh—!"
Blood erupted from his mouth. His vision blurred.
"Is this… how I die…?"
More blood poured out. Darkness swallowed him, and he crumpled to the ground.
…
In the depths of his consciousness, Lin Fang opened his eyes again. He stood in an endless void—nothing but black stretching in every direction.
The small green sword hovered silently before him.
"Do you want power?"
A deep, resonant voice echoed through the emptiness, seeming to originate from the sword itself.
Lin Fang stared at it. "What are you?"
"Do you want power?" the voice repeated, ignoring his question.
Silence stretched. After a moment, Lin Fang nodded slowly.
"Yes."
"Are you prepared to sacrifice for the power I bestow upon you?"
"What sacrifice?" Lin Fang swallowed hard. The words felt ominous.
"Are you prepared to sacrifice for the power I bestow upon you?"
Lin Fang clenched his jaw. Memories of humiliation, of his sister being dragged away in chains, surged through him.
"If you can help me save my sister," he said fiercely, "I will sacrifice anything."
The jade sword hummed—a low, approving vibration.
The endless black around him began to fill with vivid green light.
"I accept your sacrifice," the voice declared. "From this moment forward, you will not speak without me. You will not see without me. You will not even hear without me."
The green light intensified until it consumed everything.
…
In the real world, inside the tent, Lin Fang's unconscious body jerked violently. Blood suddenly burst from his eyes, ears, and mouth.
Green rays flared around him for a brief instant before vanishing completely.
…
Some time later, a hand shook his shoulder.
Lin Fang's eyes snapped open—but he saw nothing but darkness.
He tried to speak. No sound came.
'I can't… hear anything either.'
Li Zhengzhong stared in horror at the young man's ruined face. Dried blood crusted around his eyes, ears, and lips.
"Young Master… your eyes… they're gone."
He looked frantically around the tent. "Was there an assassination attempt? There are no signs of struggle…"
He hurried outside and glanced toward the prison carriage. The prisoners were still there, unchanged.
"What happened to him so suddenly?" Li Zhengzhong muttered, frowning deeply. He returned to the tent.
Lin Fang had sat up. His eyes were closed now, expression eerily calm and neutral.
"Young Master…" Li Zhengzhong called.
No response.
He crouched beside him. "Young Master, please say something. How can I face Captain Han Hu if—"
But Lin Fang remained still, as though he could neither hear nor see the world anymore.
As panic surged through Lin Fang, a three-dimensional space suddenly unfolded within his mind's eye.
He could no longer see anything in the conventional sense—his eyes remained blind—but a strange new awareness flooded his consciousness.
It was unlike sight, hearing, touch, smell, or taste. This was deeper, more primal, as though something ancient within him had awakened.
The world remained pitch black, yet now everything was traced in faint, hazy white outlines. Not limited to a narrow field of vision, this sense extended outward in a perfect sphere—every detail within roughly two meters around him rendered with startling clarity.
He could perceive Li Zhengzhong crouched anxiously beside him, the older man's face contorted in worry and confusion. He could sense the rapid rise and fall of Li Zhengzhong's chest, the faint tremor in his hands, even the subtle warmth radiating from his body.
Most strangely of all, he could feel the movement of Li Zhengzhong's lips forming words—and somehow, without sound reaching his ears, their meaning flowed directly into his mind.
"Young Master… please, say something…"
'What is this?'
A strange flicker pulsed in Lin Fang's heart.