After his mother's gentle words of comfort, Wei Chen lay back against his pillows, watching the moonlight shift across his chamber walls. Madam Liu Mei had departed with promises of a proper birthday celebration, leaving him alone with Liu Qin, who quietly tidied the medicine bowls and prepared his evening preparations.
"Young Master, you should rest," Liu Qin said softly, adjusting the silk covers around his thin frame. "Tomorrow will be... challenging."
Wei Chen nodded, though sleep felt impossible with the weight of tomorrow's inevitable failure pressing upon his mind. As Liu Qin extinguished the oil lamps and withdrew to her small adjacent chamber, he closed his eyes and tried to quiet the constant ache in his meridians.
The hours passed slowly as Wei Chen drifted between wakefulness and troubled dreams. His sleep was plagued by visions of ancient powers and forgotten bloodlines—images that felt more like memories than mere dreams. Strange faces appeared in the darkness of his mind, beings of incredible power whose very presence seemed to shake the foundations of reality.
As midnight approached, marking the true beginning of his eighteenth birthday, an unusual stillness settled over the Wei Clan compound. Even the night-blooming spirit flowers in the courtyard gardens seemed to hold their breath, their typical fragrance muted in the stagnant air. The familiar sounds of night insects fell silent, as if the world itself was waiting for something momentous to occur.
Wei Chen tossed restlessly upon his bed, unconsciously aware of the change in atmosphere even through his fitful sleep. The constant pain in his meridians, which had been his unwelcome companion for so many years, began to pulse with a different rhythm—not the chaotic discord he knew so well, but something that almost resembled harmony.
The first sign of true change came as a subtle distortion in the air above his bed. Reality itself seemed to ripple like water disturbed by a stone cast from impossible heights. The disturbance grew stronger, accompanied by a low humming that seemed to resonate not from any physical source, but from within the very fabric of space itself.
Ancient energies, dormant for countless millennia, began to stir in response to some cosmic alignment that mortal understanding could barely comprehend. Cracks appeared in the air—not wounds in the physical world, but tears in the boundary between dimensions. Through these rifts, Wei Chen caught glimpses of vast emptiness filled with swirling energies that predated creation itself.
From within the largest spatial crack, something began to emerge. First came darkness so absolute it seemed to devour light itself, a void that hurt to perceive even through closed eyelids. Following this consuming blackness came the outline of an ancient ring, descending slowly through the dimensional tear as if carried by invisible hands.
The artifact was unlike anything Wei Chen had ever seen, even in the most ancient texts of his clan's library. Crafted from what appeared to be crystallized void, its surface absorbed rather than reflected the moonlight streaming through his windows. The ring seemed to exist in opposition to the natural world—where everything else cast shadows, it created pools of deeper darkness.
Intricate inscriptions covered every inch of the ring's surface, written in languages that predated human civilization. The symbols seemed to shift and writhe when observed directly, their meaning just beyond the edge of comprehension. Some characters resembled ancient demon script, while others bore similarity to the celestial writing found in the most sacred cultivation manuals.
The ring settled gently onto Wei Chen's right hand, sliding onto his finger as if it had been crafted specifically for him. The moment the artifact touched his skin, Wei Chen's world exploded into agony and revelation.
Ancient memories that were not his own flooded his consciousness like a dam bursting after ten thousand years. He saw the rise and fall of civilizations that existed before recorded history, witnessed battles between beings of such power they could reshape continents with a thought. Dragons the size of mountain ranges battled phoenix whose wings could eclipse the sun, while cultivators who had transcended mortality itself clashed in duels that tore holes in reality.
"Finally," a voice whispered in his mind, ancient beyond measure and carrying the weight of eons. "A worthy inheritor has been found."
The voice belonged to the Desire Emperor, though Wei Chen somehow understood this entity no longer possessed physical form. Instead, it existed as a remnant consciousness bound within the ring, waiting through countless ages for someone with the proper bloodline to claim its legacy.
"And I," came another voice, warm and protective like sunlight after a long winter, "was known as the Heavenly Diviner, peak existence among those who dealt with faith and destiny. I was friend to the Desire Emperor, and before his passing, I added my own protections to this ring."
Wei Chen felt changes beginning within his body as both presences spoke, their ancient wisdom flooding through him. The constant war between his incubus heritage and his Celestial Nine Yang Body—the source of his lifelong agony—began to shift dramatically. The ring's power acted as a mediator between the two opposing forces, like a skilled diplomat negotiating peace between warring nations.
For the first time in his eighteen years of life, the chaotic energies within his meridians began to stabilize. The pain that had been his constant companion started to recede, replaced by a warm sensation spreading through his entire body.
"The ring serves as both seal and key," the Desire Emperor continued, his mental voice growing stronger as the connection solidified. "It will suppress your incubus bloodline until you are strong enough to control it fully, while simultaneously allowing your Nine Yang physique to manifest without interference. No longer will you be torn between two incompatible natures."
The transformation that followed was unlike anything the cultivation world had seen in millennia. Yang energy, pure and overwhelming, erupted from Wei Chen's dantian like a solar flare contained within mortal flesh. The power was so intense it should have alerted every cultivator within a hundred miles, announcing the birth of a divine-grade physique to the world.
However, the ring's innate suppression abilities combined with the Wei Clan's ancestral formations created an unexpected shield around the compound. The massive spiritual fluctuations that should have shaken the very foundations of Crimson Jade City were contained and muffled, appearing as nothing more than a minor disturbance to external observers.
Within the cocoon of golden light that surrounded his bed, Wei Chen's body underwent complete reconstruction. His previously blocked meridians straightened and widened into channels capable of containing vast amounts of spiritual energy. His frail frame filled with lean muscle, his pale complexion gained healthy color, and his cultivation base rocketed through the Qi Gathering stages with explosive speed before settling firmly in the Foundation Establishment realm.
The Celestial Nine Yang Body had finally awakened in its full divine glory, unimpeded for the first time since his birth. Years of accumulated yang energy, trapped within his body by the conflicting bloodlines, now flowed freely through his meridians like rivers breaking free from winter ice.
The few clan sentries patrolling the compound detected some spiritual fluctuations, but the ring's concealment effects made them appear routine—perhaps an elder conducting late-night cultivation practice. None suspected that the clan's "crippled" heir was undergoing a transformation that would reshape his destiny.
Word would eventually spread quietly through certain information networks that the Wei Clan's eldest son had finally managed a breakthrough, but the reports would describe it as a late-bloomer achieving basic Qi Gathering after years of failure—not the emergence of a divine-grade physique that could shake the foundations of the cultivation world.
As dawn broke over Crimson Jade City, painting the sky in shades of crimson and gold that matched the city's famous walls, Wei Chen stood transformed. The weak, bedridden youth was gone, replaced by someone whose mere presence seemed to command attention. His dark eyes held depths and awareness that had not been there before, while his previously frail frame radiated health and vitality.
When Liu Qin entered his chamber to help him prepare for the day—and the dreaded birthday ritual—she stopped dead in the doorway, her amber eyes widening in shock.
"Young Master?" she whispered, hardly daring to believe what she was seeing.
Wei Chen turned toward her, a gentle smile playing at his lips. The mysterious black ring now permanently fused to his finger caught the morning light, seeming to absorb it into its crystalline depths.
"Good morning, Qin'er," he said, his voice stronger and more confident than she had ever heard it.
The sound of approaching footsteps echoed through the corridor—his parents, no doubt coming to check on him before the ceremony. When Madam Liu Mei and Clan Head Wei Jian entered the chamber, they found their son standing calmly beside his bed, no longer the fragile youth who had struggled to sit upright just hours before.
"Chen'er?" Madam Liu Mei whispered, her hand flying to her mouth as tears gathered in her eyes.
"Mother, Father," he said, bowing respectfully with fluid grace that would have been impossible for his previous frail form.