The stairs had long since crumbled.
Moss had claimed the stone. Ivy hung like tired elders from the gate's broken frame. The mountain wind howled through the shattered tiles of the sect's main hall, whistling like ghosts remembering a time when the Broken Heaven Sect was more than just a punchline in outer disciple dorms.
Ye Zhen squatted at the bottom of the ancient steps, bamboo broom in one hand, half a meat bun in the other. His robes were two sizes too big, held together with copper pins and creative folding. A white bandage wrapped lazily around his left arm not for injury, just to look cool.
"Sweeping these steps is pointless," he muttered, flicking a pebble off the path with his broom. "Heaven's already given up on us. Why shouldn't we?"
From the main hall above, a gravelly voice bellowed:
"Lazy brat! You sweep like a crippled chicken drunk on vinegar!"
Ye Zhen didn't even turn. He took another bite of his cold bun.
"If a crippled chicken can still fly, doesn't that make it stronger than the eagle?"
There was silence.
Then
BOOM.
A figure crashed through the roof of the main hall, trailing smoke, ash, and three flaming brooms.
Master Cang Wuyou, Sect Head of the Broken Heaven Sect, drifted down from the rafters like a cloud soaked in wine and bad temper. His beard was long, his eyes bloodshot, and his expression that of a man who once slapped immortals but now couldn't find his wine gourd.
"Ye Zhen. Come. Palm practice."
"But I just woke up!"
"Good! You'll be unconscious again soon!"
What followed wasn't training. It was torture disguised as tradition.
Palm strikes that shattered boulders. Spear drills in the rain. Saber forms on the edge of cliffs.
By midday, Ye Zhen lay face-down in the dirt, coughing out dust.
"I don't even have a cultivation root yet," he groaned. "I'm just a mortal!"
Master Cang sipped from a cracked gourd.
"Good. Roots spoil talent. But bones? Bones make monsters."
Ye Zhen wanted to argue.
But when his master tossed a saber into the ground next to his head with a thunk, he chose to shut up.
That evening, bruised and coated in mud, Ye Zhen stood before the old gates of the Broken Heaven Sect. A scroll was tucked into his robe, a transfer token to Cloudveil Sword Sect, issued by Master Cang.
"Why send me there?" he asked.
Master Cang didn't answer. He only patted Ye Zhen's shoulder.
"Go polish their swords, mop their floors. If you live long enough to slap one of them, I'll know you're learning."
Ye Zhen grinned, teeth bloody.
"You sure you'll miss me?"
"Not if you die in the first week."
Then, without another word, the crippled sect disciple with no cultivation and a lame palm strike began his journey down the mountain.
He didn't know that by the time he returned...
Heaven would remember his name.