Thunder did not begin in the sky.
It began in the bones.
In the dream, Shen An stood barefoot upon a sea of shattered jade. Each fragment reflected a different heaven. Each heaven held a different lightning.
The air was gold.
Not sunlight-gold.
Not fire-gold.
But the heavy, oppressive gold of something ancient watching.
Above him, the firmament cracked.
A voice like distant bells murmured across the sky.
"Golden Daluo Immortal… step forward."
Shen An did not move.
He knew, instinctively, this was not his body.
He lowered his gaze and saw robes of flowing starlight draped over his shoulders. They shimmered with constellations that did not belong to this world. His hands were steady—older, stronger.
He turned.
Before him stood a man.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Hair black as ink, bound by a simple golden clasp.
His eyes carried galaxies within them.
Power radiated from him—not violently, but infinitely. As though he was not emitting strength but simply existing as its source.
Shen An's breath caught.
He knew this man.
Even before the dream shaped memory into certainty.
Father.
The sky trembled again.
Nine golden thrones formed in the heavens, each occupied by indistinct silhouettes—beings whose presence bent the horizon around them.
An immortal tribulation.
The final step.
The ascension toward Golden Daluo Immortality.
The man—his father—lifted his head calmly.
"So it begins."
Lightning split the sky.
But it was not white.
It was molten gold.
The first bolt descended not as a strike, but as a judgment.
It tore through heaven and struck his father's chest.
The ground beneath shattered.
The sea of jade fragments disintegrated into dust.
Yet his father did not kneel.
Golden flames erupted around him, not to shield—but to refine.
Each lightning strike burned away attachment.
Burned away mortal cause and effect.
Burned away karma.
Shen An felt the pain as if it were his own.
Each bolt struck again and again.
Nine times.
Eighteen.
Thirty-six.
The sky darkened.
The golden thrones pulsed brighter.
The final bolt descended like a pillar connecting heaven and void.
When it struck—
Time fractured.
His father staggered.
For the first time, the galaxies in his eyes dimmed.
A crack formed in the golden aura around him.
Just a hairline fracture.
But in tribulation, perfection is demanded.
The sky roared.
The thrones pulsed with cold indifference.
Failure.
Shen An tried to move.
Tried to shout.
But he was not the one standing in the storm.
He was only a witness.
Then—
A hand touched his father's shoulder.
Soft.
Warm.
A woman stepped forward through the collapsing space.
Her robes were white, but not pure white.
They shimmered with faint threads of crimson and silver, like woven destiny.
Her eyes were gentle.
But resolute.
Mother.
"You cannot endure another," she said softly.
His father turned, anger and refusal flashing across his face.
"I will."
"You will not."
Lightning gathered once more above.
This one darker.
Not golden.
Black-gold.
The lightning of annihilation.
If it fell—
There would be no reincarnation.
No remnant soul.
Only dispersal into nothingness.
His mother stepped in front of him.
Her hand pressed against his father's chest.
Her other hand reached upward.
"Exchange."
The word did not echo.
It rewrote.
The heavens paused.
The golden thrones flickered.
The lightning hesitated mid-descent.
A law older than ascension stirred.
Sacrifice.
Equal exchange.
Her cultivation ignited.
But it was not golden.
It was something softer.
A luminous white that carried warmth instead of dominance.
She smiled faintly.
"For once," she whispered, "let me protect you."
The black-gold lightning descended.
It struck her.
There was no explosion.
No scream.
Only light.
And then—
Silence.
When vision returned, heaven was empty.
The thrones gone.
The sky pale.
The tribulation had ended.
But not in victory.
Not in annihilation.
In transference.
Shen An saw his father kneeling on broken sky, cradling fading light in his arms.
Her body was dissolving into motes of reincarnation essence.
"You fool…" he whispered hoarsely.
Her smile did not fade.
"If you survive, you will try again."
"And you?"
"I will follow."
Her form dispersed fully.
Only a thread of red-silver light remained.
It wrapped around his father's wrist like a promise.
Then the world collapsed.
Shen An fell through darkness.
Not falling physically.
Falling through memory.
Through layers of existence.
Through worlds.
He glimpsed fragments—
A war between sects in a different realm.
A child crying beneath an unfamiliar sky.
A mortal village not unlike the one he had passed.
Then—
He saw a couple.
Simple clothing.
Different faces.
But the same eyes.
His father and mother.
Reborn.
In this world.
Stripped of power.
Stripped of memory.
Living quietly.
Until death took them early.
Too early.
Then—
He saw himself.
A soul drifting between worlds.
Not native.
Carrying weight from elsewhere.
Drawn by an invisible thread toward that red-silver light.
Toward them.
Toward rebirth.
The vision shifted again.
He saw a small house.
A six-year-old boy kneeling before two graves.
Rain falling heavily.
The boy's hands were clenched tight.
His shoulders shaking.
He knew that boy.
He was that boy.
The memory blurred.
Years collapsed.
Training.
Hardship.
Exile.
Cold nights.
The cracked bowl.
Blood falling.
Warmth awakening.
Then—
He stood once more in the golden sky.
But now his parents stood before him clearly.
No longer fading.
No longer distant.
His mother stepped forward.
Her hand reached toward his face.
Her touch was warm.
Real.
"My son," she said softly.
Her voice carried both worlds within it.
"We know."
He could not speak.
His throat tightened.
"We know how hard it has been," she continued, her eyes shimmering with restrained sorrow. "For a six-year-old boy to bear loss. To endure exile. To hide pain inside silence."
Her hand rested over his chest.
"Believe us. We are trying harder than you know to return to you."
Behind her, his father stood tall once more.
Not as a mortal.
Not yet as a Golden Daluo Immortal.
But as something between.
Incomplete.
"I failed my tribulation," his father said, his voice steady but carrying regret. "The path toward the Supreme Golden Daluo Sovereign was not yet mine."
The title resonated through heaven.
Supreme Golden Daluo Sovereign.
It felt vast.
Unreachable.
Yet familiar.
"I was arrogant," his father continued. "I believed power alone would carry me across the final step."
His gaze softened as it fell upon Shen An.
"You have already surpassed me in one thing."
Shen An's voice finally emerged.
"What?"
His father's lips curved faintly.
"You endured loss without hatred."
Silence trembled between them.
His mother stepped closer again.
"And we know," she whispered gently, "that your soul did not originate in this world."
Shen An's breath halted.
"We will not resent you," she continued. "You were born from my womb. You are my son."
Her hand pressed against his cheek.
Warm.
Certain.
"No matter where your soul traveled before. No matter what memories you hide inside."
His father placed a firm hand on Shen An's shoulder.
"You are always my son."
His presence deepened.
"The son of the one who once stood before the Heavenly Thrones as a candidate for Supreme Golden Daluo Sovereign."
The air pulsed faintly at the title.
Pride.
Not arrogance.
Legacy.
"But titles do not define blood," his father added quietly.
His mother leaned closer.
"Do not bear your burden alone, Shen An."
Her voice trembled slightly now.
"The world is not only suffering. It is not only exile and loss."
She smiled gently.
"The world is good."
"Talk more."
"See more."
"Listen more."
"Do not close yourself because you think strength means silence."
Her forehead touched his.
"For now, we walk separate roads. But we are not gone."
The golden sky began to thin.
Its edges dissolving into dawn.
His father's grip tightened slightly.
"When the cracked vessel awakens fully," he said quietly, "you will understand."
Shen An's eyes widened.
The bowl.
But the dream was fading.
His mother's voice echoed one last time.
"My son…"
Light overtook everything.
He woke.
Cold air touched his face.
Dawn.
Birds calling faintly from distant trees.
The ridge beneath him solid.
Real.
His breath came sharply.
His heart pounded.
He sat upright immediately.
His hands trembled.
He looked down at himself.
Older.
Broader shoulders.
Calloused hands.
He touched his face.
No longer the face of a six-year-old child kneeling in the rain.
He was fifteen.
Memory crashed into him.
The sect.
Exile.
Hunger.
The deer.
The village.
The bandits.
The cracked bowl resting beside him.
He turned slowly.
It lay exactly where he had left it.
Fractures faintly catching the morning light.
His breathing slowed.
The dream.
No.
Not just a dream.
Memory.
Revelation.
He pressed his palm over his chest.
There was no explosive power.
No sudden surge of qi.
But something inside felt aligned.
Grounded.
His parents.
From another world.
His soul.
From another world.
The cracked bowl.
Awakening.
He lifted it carefully.
Examined the fractures again.
When his blood had touched it—
Something subtle had begun.
He had not noticed then.
But now—
He felt it.
Not power.
Recognition.
The bowl was not broken.
It was incomplete.
Like him.
He exhaled slowly.
The forest around him seemed quieter than usual.
As though listening.
His mother's words echoed faintly.
Talk more.
See more.
Listen more.
He rose to his feet.
Fifteen years old.
Not six.
The child had ended long ago.
The dream had only shown him what had always been true.
He was not abandoned.
He was not rootless.
He carried legacy.
Not of sect.
Not of titles.
But of choice.
His father had pursued ascension.
His mother had chosen sacrifice.
Both had chosen love.
The cracked bowl felt warm in his hands.
Not from fire.
Not from blood.
From connection.
Shen An looked west.
Toward uncertainty.
Toward danger.
Toward villages and bandits and unknown paths.
For the first time since his exile—
He smiled faintly.
Not because hardship was gone.
But because the burden no longer felt solitary.
He secured the bowl inside his bundle carefully.
Adjusted the strap over his shoulder.
And stepped forward.
Not as a discarded disciple.
Not as a rootless orphan.
But as Shen An—
Son of one who once challenged the Heavenly Thrones.
And of one who rewrote tribulation with sacrifice.
The forest accepted his footsteps.
And somewhere deep within the cracks of an unassuming bowl,
A golden thread stirred quietly.
Morning settled gently over the forest.
Shen An sat at the mouth of his cave, watching mist rise from the trees like breath from a sleeping beast. The dream of golden tribulation had faded with the night, but its echo remained lodged somewhere deep inside his ribs.
He was fifteen.
Not six.
Not kneeling in the rain.
Not calling for parents who would not answer.
Nine years had passed in this forest.
Nine years of hunger, cold, and silent discipline.
He flexed his fingers slowly. Scar over scar. Callus over callus. Every mark earned without witness.
The dream had felt real.
Too real.
He lowered his gaze to the cracked bowl resting beside him.
Just clay.
Just fractures.
Just the only thing he carried when he left the village.
He picked it up and studied the lines again.
There was no golden seam now.
No suspended water.
No warmth.
He frowned slightly.
Then his thoughts sharpened.
"My blood touched it," he murmured quietly.
He remembered the first time.
He had been injured.
Blood dripping from his hand.
It had fallen into the bowl.
He had later filled it with water.
He drank from it.
And that night—
The dream.
Golden heaven.
Tribulation.
His parents.
He leaned back against the stone wall.
"Did I enter some kind of dream realm?" he muttered. "Because my blood touched the bowl… and I drank from it?"
The idea did not feel absurd.
He had lived long enough to know the world hid stranger truths.
He turned the bowl over slowly.
"What if it requires blood to activate?" he continued, his voice low and thoughtful. "What if it needs my blood to fully awaken?"
He fell silent.
Wind moved softly through the trees outside.
He did not act impulsively.
He had learned that lesson long ago.
But he also knew—
Opportunities rarely announced themselves twice.
If the bowl was ordinary, nothing would happen.
If it was not—
Then the path before him would change.
He reached for his knife.
The blade was simple.
Steel worn from years of sharpening.
Reliable.
He studied his left palm.
Old scars crossed it already.
One more would not matter.
Without hesitation, he drew the blade lightly across his skin.
Blood welled up instantly.
Dark red against pale skin.
He held his hand over the bowl.
Drops fell.
One.
Two.
Three.
The sound was soft.
Almost delicate.
He did not stop.
He pressed the cut slightly to deepen the flow.
Blood streamed steadily into the cracked vessel.
The smell of iron filled the cave.
The bowl slowly darkened as it filled.
He watched carefully.
Waiting.
Nothing.
He narrowed his eyes.
Perhaps it required more.
He pressed harder.
Blood flowed faster.
The bowl rose from red streaks to a shallow pool.
Still nothing.
His breathing remained steady, though his heart had begun to beat harder.
When the bowl was half full—
The air changed.
He felt it before he saw it.
The temperature shifted.
Not warmer.
Not colder.
But heavier.
The surface of the blood trembled slightly.
Then—
A faint glow flickered within.
Golden.
Very faint.
Shen An's grip tightened.
The glow strengthened.
The blood began to swirl on its own.
Not stirred by wind.
Not touched by his hand.
It rotated slowly, like a miniature whirlpool.
The cracks along the bowl's surface began to shine.
Thin lines of golden light traced each fracture.
Shen An stepped back instinctively.
The cave walls reflected flickering radiance.
The glow intensified.
Brighter.
Brighter.
The blood did not spill.
It did not overflow.
Instead, it seemed to be absorbed into the cracks themselves.
The golden lines thickened.
The fractures sealed from within.
A humming sound filled the air.
Low.
Resonant.
As if ancient strings were being plucked beneath the earth.
The light expanded suddenly, forcing Shen An to shield his eyes.
Wind burst outward from the bowl.
Dust scattered.
Loose pebbles rolled across the stone floor.
The golden radiance enveloped the entire vessel.
For a moment—
The cracked clay bowl was no longer visible.
Only light.
Pure, condensed, luminous gold.
Shen An's heart pounded.
His mind did not panic.
It observed.
Analyzed.
Endured.
Then—
The light contracted.
Slowly.
Gradually.
Like a tide withdrawing.
The humming faded.
The wind stilled.
Silence returned.
Shen An lowered his arm cautiously.
The bowl sat in the same place.
But it was no longer cracked clay.
It was jade.
Flawless.
Translucent.
Soft green light shimmered within its surface.
Its curves elegant.
Its texture smooth as still water.
No fracture.
No imperfection.
It radiated quiet dignity.
He stared at it for several breaths.
"So," he said softly, "it truly was not ordinary."
As he stepped forward—
A voice spoke.
"Hmmmm…"
It was light.
High.
Almost childish.
"Where… am I?"
Shen An froze.
His eyes snapped toward the bowl.
The voice came again.
"How long did I sleep?"
The sound was unmistakable.
It came from the jade bowl.
Shen An's brain processed the absurdity for half a heartbeat—
Then his body reacted before thought.
He kicked the bowl away instinctively.
It flew across the cave and struck the stone wall with a sharp clink before rolling to a stop.
Silence.
Then—
"Owwww!"
The same childish female voice cried out indignantly.
"Why would you throw me like that?! That hurts!"
Shen An stared at it.
Long.
Unblinking.
His expression flattened.
He rubbed his forehead once.
"Nowadays," he said slowly, his voice dry as winter bark, "even bowls can talk and feel pain?"
He looked up briefly as if questioning the sky.
"Are you joking with me?"
The jade bowl trembled slightly.
"Of course I can feel pain!" the childish voice snapped. "You're the one who sliced yourself open and filled me with blood! That's much more disturbing!"
Shen An's eyelid twitched faintly.
He crouched but did not approach too closely.
"You are a bowl," he said calmly.
"No!" the voice protested. "I am not 'a bowl'! That is only my vessel!"
"Ah," Shen An replied without emotion. "So you admit you are inside the bowl."
There was a brief pause.
"…That is not the point."
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I must still be dreaming."
"You are not dreaming!"
Silence again.
Shen An studied the jade surface carefully.
It was undeniably different.
Alive, almost.
"State your identity," he said flatly.
The voice huffed.
"So rude. You wake someone up after… after…" She paused as if counting. "…after thousands of years, and this is how you speak?"
"Thousands?"
"Yes!"
He sighed.
"Fine. Let me rephrase. Who are you?"
A brief silence followed, then a slightly softer tone.
"I… am the spirit of this vessel."
"Spirit."
"Yes."
"And you were asleep."
"Obviously."
"For thousands of years."
"…Yes."
Shen An leaned back slightly.
His gaze sharpened.
"If you were asleep," he asked evenly, "why did my blood wake you?"
The bowl glowed faintly in response.
"Because," she said slowly, "this vessel was sealed by bloodline recognition."
He stilled.
"Bloodline?"
"Yes. It required the blood of its rightful inheritor to restore its form."
He stared at it for a long moment.
"Inheritor."
She spoke again, quieter this time.
"You are very thin for an inheritor."
His brow twitched.
"Thank you."
"And why did you throw me?" she demanded again indignantly. "I had just awakened! You nearly chipped me!"
"You claimed to feel pain."
"I do!"
"Then you are fragile."
"I am not fragile!"
He rolled his eyes.
"An object that fears impact is fragile."
The jade bowl glowed brighter in irritation.
"I am a high-grade spiritual artifact!"
"Mm."
"Do not 'mm' me!"
Shen An stood slowly and walked toward it.
This time, he picked it up carefully.
It was lighter than before.
Warmer.
The jade surface felt smooth, almost like skin.
"High-grade," he repeated calmly. "Then demonstrate."
The bowl was silent for several breaths.
"…Demonstrate what?"
"Usefulness."
The cave became very quiet.
Then the childish voice muttered under her breath,
"You are not very friendly for someone who just awakened a sleeping ancient spirit."
Shen An's expression did not change.
"I lived alone in this forest from age six to fifteen," he replied evenly. "Friendliness was not required."
Silence.
For the first time, the voice did not respond immediately.
When she spoke again, her tone was slightly different.
Less indignant.
More observant.
"…Six?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
"Yes."
Another pause.
"Oh."
He did not elaborate.
He simply held the jade bowl in his hands.
The forest outside remained unaware that something impossible had just occurred within a stone cave.
Shen An inhaled slowly.
Blood still trickled faintly from his palm.
The bowl shimmered softly.
The childish voice spoke again.
"So… you are the one who woke me."
"Yes."
"…And you are my master now."
He blinked once.
Then exhaled slowly.
"Of course," he murmured dryly. "Now even bowls assign me responsibility."
The jade vessel glowed faintly in protest.
"I did not choose this either!"
Shen An stared at it.
Then, unexpectedly—
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Very faint.
Very brief.
But real.
"Well then," he said quietly, his eyes steady, "since neither of us chose this… let us see what use we can make of it."
Outside, the wind shifted.
Inside the cave, jade light reflected off stone.
And for the first time in nine years—
Shen An was no longer alone in the forest.