The darkness did not stay. It began to crack like a shell. A wave of heat washed over him, and the silence of the void was replaced by the chirping of birds and the faint smell of jasmine incense.
Huan jo opened his eyes. He wasn't looking at a gray sky or circling crows. He was looking at a painted ceiling of white silk and polished cedar.
(Where am I? This is not the trench. This is not the Desolate Kingdom. Whose memories are these?)
A flood of foreign images crashed into his mind. He saw a life of luxury and boredom. He saw himself sleeping through lessons and playing pranks on servants. The name attached to these memories was not his.
(Bai Chang. I am Bai Chang? The third child of the Bai Sect. My name is Huan jo. If I died I should be in hell for the things I have done. Why am I in a different body?)
He sat up. His limbs felt strange. They were too light. There were no scars on his knuckles. There was no dull ache in his ribs. He felt a phantom weight where his arms had been severed but when he looked down they were both there. They were soft and uncalloused.
(This boy is fifteen. He is a pest. He is lazy. He has never held a weapon for more than an hour. How can a soul that has eaten human meat live in a body that has only tasted honey?)
He also remembered his family. Two elder sisters. Bai Ling was twenty and the pride of the sect. Bai Meilin was sixteen and a cultivation genius. Bai Chang was the failure.
Huan jo stood up. His legs felt shaky. He walked toward a mirror in the corner of the room. He needed to see the face of the person he had become.
He was a youth with skin the color of pale jade. His hair was long and snow white as if the stress of the soul transition had bleached it from the roots. It fell over his shoulders in a messy cascade. His eyes were no longer the muddy brown of a scavenger. They were a piercing gold flecked with silver.
(I look like a doll. I look like the young masters I used to strip for boots. There is no iron in this face. Only peace.)
He reached out and touched the glass. The boy in the mirror was handsome. He had the high cheekbones of nobility and a slender frame that had never known a day of hunger. But behind those golden eyes there was a shadow. The shadow of a man who had led battalions through the mud.
(Peace. I asked for peace. But I am in a Sect. My father is a Sect Leader. This is a place of cultivation. This is the world that Commander came from.)
He looked at his soft hands and slowly curled them into fists.
(I wanted to rest. But if this world is anything like the one I left, they will try to take this peace from me. I have limbs again. I have a heart that beats without pain.)
He looked around the room for a weapon. He found nothing but a decorative fan and some silk robes.
(I need a stick. Any stick. If I am going to live this life I have to know if the distance is still mine.)
A loud knock sounded on the door. A female voice sharp and cold echoed through the wood.
"Bai Chang! Get out of bed you lazy brat! Father is waiting for the morning assembly and if you are late again, I will break your legs myself!"
(That must be Bai Meilin. Sixteen years old and already a tyrant.)
The door creaked open as Huan jo adjusted the unfamiliar silk. It felt too smooth against his skin, like a second layer of grease. He looked at the girl standing in the threshold. Bai Meilin had her arms crossed, her face tight with a familiar irritation.
(I never had a family. I am used to being alone. But if I want to keep this peace, I should act normally.)
Huan jo leaned back and placed his hands behind his head, mimicking the memories of the lazy boy he had replaced. He gave a small, bored yawn.
"I am coming," he said. His voice was higher than his old one, lacking the gravel of the trenches. "No need to yell."
Bai Meilin narrowed her eyes. She stepped into the room, her boots clicking on the polished floor.
"You are actually awake on the first call? Did you hit your head or did the sun rise from the west today?"
(She expects a fight. Or a whine. This boy usually complains about the stairs or the cold or the length of the prayers.)
Huan jo stood up. He did not move with his usual precision; he kept his shoulders loose and his steps heavy, like someone who had never had to worry about a tripwire or a silent blade.
"Maybe I just got tired of the bed," he muttered, walking past her toward the doorway.
He could feel her staring at his back. To her, he was just the same annoying brother. To him, she was a stranger in a house filled with things he didn't own.
(The Bai Sect. A mountain of resources. If I can blend in, I can eat and sleep without looking over my shoulder. No more human meat. No more mud.)
As they walked down the hallway, he saw weapons mounted on the walls. They were mostly swords with ornate guards and silk tassels. Purely decorative. Then, he saw it. At the end of the corridor, leaning against a pillar near the courtyard entrance, was a simple wooden staff used for cleaning or practice.
Huan jo's hand twitched.
(The easiest and the hardest. I need to see if my hands remember the weight.)
"What are you looking at?" Meilin asked, stopping beside him. "The assembly is that way, Chang. Don't tell me you forgot where the Great Hall is."
Huan jo didn't look at her. He kept his eyes on the wooden pole.
"Just thinking about the training," he said, his tone flat.
"You? Thinking about training?" She laughed, a short and sharp sound. "You haven't touched a weapon since the Spring Festival, and even then, you cried when you chipped a fingernail. Come on. Father is already annoyed."
They entered the Great Hall. It was massive, filled with rows of disciples in white and blue robes. At the front sat a man with a beard that reached his chest, radiating a pressure that made the air feel thick.
(This must be the father. Bai Jian. He has the same look as the Commander who killed me. He has the power to crush a man without touching him.)
Huan jo took his place at the front next to his eldest sister, Bai Ling. She didn't look at him, her eyes fixed forward in deep meditation.
(Silence and boredom. This is what I asked for. This is the peace of the living.)
But as the assembly began, a group of disciples in the back started whispering. Their eyes were on him, and they weren't hidden.