Chapter 1: The Bastard of Red Moon Brothel
The night wind howled like a starving wolf as it slipped through the cracks of Red Moon Brothel. On the outer edge of Crimson Lotus City, the brothel was a place of fading perfume, aged silk, and whispered secrets—where young nobles came to squander their wealth and courtesans buried their youth.
In a narrow servant's room tucked behind the wine storeroom, a boy knelt on the wooden floor, bleeding from the mouth. His back was red with whip marks, his robes in tatters. He looked up slowly, obsidian eyes like silent ink pools, showing no pain—only quiet hatred.
"Trash. Bastard. Filthy spawn of a whore."
The fat steward spat beside him and threw the broken broomstick at his face. "If not for Mistress Hong sheltering you, I'd have drowned you at birth. Hmph! Cleaning duty until dawn. Touch the wine again, and I'll gut you like a dog."
The door slammed shut.
Long Tian exhaled. Blood dripped from his lip to the floor.
"Again… the same dream," he murmured, staring at his trembling hands. In the dream, he stood atop the heavens, surrounded by women bathed in starlight. Their moans and voices whispered strange arts into his mind. One name always lingered at the end: Yin Devouring Heaven Sutra.
He thought it was madness.
Until the scroll appeared.
Hidden inside an old incense box, in the dusty room of Madam Yue—once the most revered courtesan of Red Moon. She had long since retired, blind and frail, yet her aura was different. Her voice trembled when she pressed the scroll into his hands.
> "Not all cultivation rises from mountains and palaces, child. Some climb from the dirtiest bedsheets… and burn the heavens for revenge."
The scroll was made of black silk. Unreadable at first. But as he bled from the whip, the blood soaked into the silk—and words began to appear.
---
Yin Devouring Heaven Sutra
> He who embraces Yin shall overturn Yang. Through pleasure, power. Through union, eternity. Heaven forbids it. That is why it must be done.
---
Long Tian's hands trembled as heat surged through his dantian. His spiritual root—long thought to be broken—began to stir.
"...It wasn't a dream."
He bit into his thumb and smeared more blood on the scroll. Lines of characters shimmered, wrapping around his wrist like living flame. A pulse of yin energy entered his meridians, cold and seductive, winding into his core.
Pain exploded in his body.
But behind the pain—ecstasy. Growth. Awakening.
---
By morning, he was no longer the same.
---
That day, a guest arrived at Red Moon Brothel: Lady Lin Yuechan, the widow of Crimson Lotus City's former governor. A beauty still in her prime, veiled and graceful, wrapped in silken robes that hinted at her legendary figure. Her arrival stirred whispers among even the most jaded patrons.
And fate—twisted and cruel—would bring her to the young servant's storeroom that very night.
But that… was the beginning of everything.
Long Tian's breath caught in his throat as the woman stepped fully into the storeroom. Every movement she made seemed deliberate—graceful, precise. As though the air itself bent to her presence.
Her eyes settled on him, still kneeling, bloody, and half-clothed.
"You're not a servant," she said softly.
"I am," he replied.
"You're holding a cultivation scroll. And bleeding from the mouth." Her voice didn't rise. It was neither pitying nor cruel. "That is not what a mere servant does."
She looked around the room—dust, empty bottles, broken shelves.
"This place reeks of rot," she murmured, half to herself. "And yet..."
She stepped forward.
Long Tian should have looked away. Should have bowed, groveled, begged. That's what the other servants would do. That's what the steward would demand. But he didn't. His black eyes met hers—calm, controlled, unflinching.
For the first time, Lady Lin seemed unsettled.
"Do you know who I am?" she asked.
"Lady Lin Yuechan," he said. "The widow of the former governor. Once called the Jewel of Crimson Lotus. Still untouched, though many have tried."
She raised a brow, and for a heartbeat, a flicker of something—amusement?—flashed in her eyes.
"You speak freely."
"No one listens to a bastard servant," he said simply. "So I learned to speak only the truth."
She looked at him for a long moment. "What is that scroll?"
Long Tian hesitated.
And then, slowly, he unwrapped it—revealing the ink-black silk, still glowing faintly. The air thickened. The room grew warmer. Lin Yuechan's eyes narrowed.
"…I've seen that aura before," she whispered.
Long Tian looked up, startled. "You know this art?"
"No," she said. "But I've felt it. Once. Long ago. In a place I was never meant to enter."
She stepped closer.
The scent of her filled the air—lotus, jasmine, and something deeper… yin energy, refined and controlled.
"You're injured," she said softly.
"I've bled before."
"And your cultivation?"
He hesitated. "Just awakened. The scroll… it reacted to my blood."
She reached forward—fingers pale and soft—and placed them gently on his chest.
Long Tian stiffened.
She closed her eyes, channeling her sense into him.
Moments passed.
Her brows creased.
"…Your meridians were broken. Fractured in childhood. No one should have been able to cultivate in this state."
"I couldn't. Until now."
Her eyes opened slowly. "Then it's true. The scroll healed you."
"It awakened something."
"No…" she whispered. "Not something. Everything."
---
For a long moment, silence reigned between them.
Then Lin Yuechan did something unexpected.
She sat down. Right beside him.
Her robe brushed against his skin. She did not flinch. Did not recoil from his bloodied state. In fact, her eyes held a strange clarity now—curiosity tinged with memory.
"When I was sixteen," she said, "I entered the Forbidden Library beneath the Lotus Pavilion. I was a noble girl, bored and clever. I wanted secrets. And I found one."
She stared into the scroll.
"A mural. Hidden behind a false wall. A man and woman… entwined in ways I didn't understand. Surrounded by light. Their bodies glowing, their auras mingling. Not just pleasure—it was cultivation."
She paused.
"But the mural was desecrated. Someone had slashed it, burned the runes around it. The elders sealed that floor the next day. Told me never to speak of it."
Long Tian leaned in, his voice low. "What do you think it was?"
"I didn't understand it then." She turned to him. "But now I see it clearly."
She reached out again—her fingertips brushing against his neck. His body shivered, not from fear, but from resonance. A pulse from the scroll moved through him and into her. Her pupils dilated.
"The scroll is calling to me," she said.
Long Tian's breath quickened. "You… have yin energy."
She looked him over, slowly. "You want to cultivate with me?"
"I don't want to," he said.
She blinked.
"I need to."
---
A tense silence stretched.
Lady Lin Yuechan slowly stood. Her eyes swept over him again, this time less as a noble viewing a servant, and more as… a woman studying a man.
"You know what dual cultivation is, don't you?" she asked.
"I've read enough."
"Then you know the risk. If your technique is flawed, you could cripple yourself. Or worse, me."
Long Tian's hand clenched.
"I can feel it. The scroll—it wants me to bond with someone. To open the path."
Lady Lin turned to the door. "You've awakened a forbidden path, boy. Cultivation through pleasure. Through intimacy. It will not be welcomed. Not by the sects, not by heaven."
"I don't need their welcome," he said.
She looked over her shoulder. Her expression unreadable. Then, quietly, she said:
> "Then prove it."
---
She loosened her outer robe.
Long Tian's breath stopped.
Her body was… immaculate. Time had not touched her. Her curves were generous yet firm, her skin smooth as jade. Her ample bosom rose and fell with calm breath, and her eyes never left his face—not even when the robe slid down her shoulders.
"You will not take me by lust," she said. "But if this technique truly opens your meridians… if your energy can enter mine… I will allow it."
Long Tian stood, slowly. His body still bruised, still aching—yet he felt a power stirring in his blood. The scroll pulsed in his hand like a second heart.
He stepped toward her.
As he touched her fingers, something exploded between them.
A surge of yin and yang. A rush of light and shadow. The scroll ignited in spiritual flame, wrapping around their bodies like a silk veil.
Lady Lin gasped—not from fear, but from the sudden rush of energy that flooded her meridians. Her qi, long stagnant, moved for the first time in years.
Long Tian felt his veins blaze with new life.
This was not just pleasure.
This was rebirth.
---
And in the shadows, unknown to both, a ripple of divine sense stirred in the heavens.
Somewhere far above, a slumbering eye opened.
And watched.