Chapter 2: The Price of a Full Belly
Home was a generous word for the half-collapsed root cellar on the extreme edge of Blackwood Village. The original owners had abandoned it years ago when the roof caved in, leaving a jagged hole that let in the rain and the snow.
Wei Yan had spent the better part of a year patching that hole with woven pine branches, mud, and stolen thatch. It wasn't warm, but it broke the wind, and more importantly, it was entirely beneath the notice of the village bullies.
He slipped through the narrow gap he used as a door, immediately plunging into the damp darkness. He didn't light a fire right away. Smoke was a beacon. Instead, he waited until the dead of night, using a handful of dry tinder and striking his flint carefully to create a tiny, smokeless blaze at the back of the cellar.
He roasted the hare's organs on a sharpened twig. He ate the heart first, savoring the iron-rich taste, chewing slowly to trick his stomach into feeling full. He ate the liver next, then gnawed on the meager meat clinging to the front ribs, cracking the tiny bones to suck out the marrow. Nothing was wasted.
When the fire died down to embers, he buried them in the dirt to preserve the heat. He curled into a tight ball on his bed of dried leaves, pulling his ragged tunic tightly around his shoulders.
He didn't dream. Dreaming was a waste of energy.
The next morning, Wei Yan was awakened not by the sun, but by a sound he had never heard before. It was a deep, resonant thrumming that seemed to vibrate right through the frozen earth and into his bones. It was followed by the frantic, chaotic ringing of the iron bell in the village square—the bell only used for bandit raids or tax collectors.
Wei Yan's eyes snapped open. He grabbed his flint knife and crept up the dirt ramp, peering through a crack in the cellar's thatch roof.
The village was in an uproar. People were abandoning their chores, dropping their tools, and sprinting toward the square. Wei Yan didn't run. He calculated. Bandits would be screaming and burning. Tax collectors would bring horses, not that strange thrumming sound. Whatever it is, everyone is distracted.
It was the perfect time to steal a loaf of bread from the baker's empty stall.
He slipped out of the cellar, sticking to the shadows behind the dilapidated hovels. As he neared the square, he finally saw the source of the noise, and for a fraction of a second, his calculated composure slipped.
Hovering ten feet above the muddy center of Blackwood Village was a wooden ship. It had no sails, no oars, and it wasn't in the water. It simply floated, humming with a terrifying, invisible power.
Standing on the deck were three figures. They wore pristine robes of pale blue and white, colors so clean they looked alien against the grime of the village. Their hair was immaculate, their skin unblemished by sun or frost. To the villagers, who were already falling to their knees in the mud, these people were gods.
Immortals. Cultivators from the Azure Cloud Sect.
Wei Yan crouched behind a stack of firewood, utterly unimpressed by the floating ship. His eyes, sharp and predatory, tracked over the cultivators, analyzing them. Their clothes are too fine. They don't have calluses on their hands from farming. They look soft. But the Village Elder is groveling so hard his forehead is bleeding. That means they hold power. Absolute power.
The lead cultivator, a young man with an arrogant sneer, stepped to the edge of the ship. He didn't even look at the villagers; he looked through them.
"The Azure Cloud Sect is opening its outer gates," the young man's voice echoed, unnaturally loud, ringing in Wei Yan's ears. "We seek those under the age of sixteen with spiritual roots. Step forward. If you possess talent, you will ascend the heavens."
The villagers shoved their children forward, desperate and pleading. Wei Yan scoffed silently. Ascend the heavens? What good is the sky when you're starving on the ground? He began to back away, his mind returning to the unguarded bakery.
"Even those with poor roots," the cultivator continued, sounding immensely bored, "may be selected as Outer Court servants. The work is grueling. But the sect provides shelter, clothing, and three guaranteed meals of spirit-rice a day."
Wei Yan froze. His foot, mid-step toward the bakery, slowly lowered back to the dirt.
Three guaranteed meals a day. He stared at the pristine robes of the cultivators. He didn't see immortality. He didn't see flying swords or the power to split mountains. He saw a roof that didn't leak. He saw a fire that he didn't have to hide. He saw a life where he didn't have to calculate the cost of a broken rib against a stolen hare.
Wei Yan slipped his flint knife back into his belt. He stepped out from behind the firewood and joined the edge of the crowd, his dark eyes locked onto the Azure Cloud cultivators with a terrifying, absolute resolve.
He didn't care about their heavens. But he was going to take their food, and heaven help anyone who stood in his way.
The hook is set! Now we need to get him through the brutal recruitment test