Darkness.
Pain.
A crushing weight pressed on him as if the world itself had decided to squeeze the life out of him.
Then… air. A sharp intake tore through his lungs.
A cry, high-pitched and weak, escaped his tiny mouth.
He froze. The sound echoed in the small, dim room.
Why… am I here?
His vision was blurry. Shadows flickered across walls he didn't recognize. Voices floated above him.
"Congratulations! It's a boy!"
"Healthy and strong," another voice added.
Warm hands lifted him. He felt the world sway beneath him.
His body was small. Fragile. Wrong.
This… isn't mine.
Fragments of memory flashed through his mind.
A battlefield. Bodies falling. His own leg crushing an enemy. Blue-white light erupting from his aura.
An island drenched in blood. His own death. Silence.
I… died.
The thought was heavy, almost too heavy for a newborn body to carry. He closed his eyes, exhausted, sinking into a restless sleep.
Several days later.
The boy opened his eyes again.
The room was wooden and plain. Paper doors let sunlight in. Strange decorations he had never seen before surrounded him.
Soft footsteps approached. The door slid open.
A man appeared first—tall, calm, with the weight of authority in his presence.
Behind him, a young boy of about five years old stood silently. Their eyes met, and the older boy froze. Shock. Fear. Something else the newborn couldn't understand.
The older boy looked away quickly, pretending nothing had happened.
The infant only stared back. Somehow,
he felt… noticed.
Why is he looking at me like that?
This was the zhenwu Clan, a middle-class Murim clan—not the strongest in the lands, but respectable. Their banners weren't famous, their influence limited, and their elders often struggled to balance ambition with survival.
The newborn's arrival caused a subtle stir: the clan leader's son eyed him curiously, sensing something unusual about this child. Something the clan could not yet understand.
I've done this before… I've lived before…
For now, he was just Liánxi Zhenwu, fragile, helpless.
Unaware that the boy who had frozen at the sight of him would one day become his brother.
Unaware that his life in this middle-class clan would test his patience, skill, and soul.
Unaware that the first steps of his second life were just the beginning of a journey that would shake Murim to its core.