The clang of wooden fists echoed faintly in the cracked courtyard. Xu Minghe's arms trembled as he pushed through the fourth form of the Falling Crane Style, sweat streaking down his brow. His breaths came short and sharp. Each movement strained his chest—too sharp, too tight.
"Again," his father said from beneath the shadow of a scorched peach tree. The man's arms were folded, his gaze unreadable.
Minghe nodded, swallowing the iron taste in his throat. He pivoted, lowered into stance, and struck.
Crack.
His vision blurred.
Then black.
—
He awoke with someone pressing bitter herbs against his lips. Aunt Li's wrinkled face hovered above him, her expression etched with worry.
"You pushed too far again," she muttered, brushing his hair back. "Your heart won't let you become a martial artist, Minghe. Stop forcing it."
He didn't respond.
From the hallway, a younger cousin sneered, "Maybe the heavens just don't want a cripple holding a sword."
Minghe closed his eyes.
—
That night, the house was quiet. His father drank alone. His uncle was gone. The others avoided his eyes.
Minghe sat in front of his mother's door, fingers curled around a rusted key. The room hadn't been touched since her funeral three years ago. But tonight, something pulled at him—an ache deeper than his failing heart.
He entered.
Dust lay over everything like forgotten snow. Her mirror was cracked. Her brush sat where she had last placed it. And on her desk, a small leather-bound journal rested beneath a cracked jade hairpin.
He picked it up.
The handwriting was familiar. Gentle. Full of daily thoughts, scattered notes about recipes, stories from when he was small. He smiled faintly.
Then something slipped free—a folded paper hidden between the back pages.
"If you are reading this… then I have failed to guide you. Go to the last page. Wet it—lightly. You will see what I could never say aloud."
His heart skipped. This time not from illness, but something else. He ran to the basin, dampened the cloth, and gently dabbed the page.
Lines surfaced—ink that shimmered faintly.
"Beneath the floor, beneath the bed. Jade box. For your hands only."
Minghe pulled up the board. There, wrapped in silk, were two objects:
A silver ring, tarnished but humming faintly against his skin.
And a disc—cold, blood-red, covered in old formation lines, unlike anything he had seen. It pulsed when he touched it.
He staggered back. His chest clenched again. Pain shot through his ribs. But even as he coughed and spat blood into his palm, he stared at the disc.
It was waiting.
Something long buried had awakened.
And though he could barely stand, though death waited behind every heartbeat, Xu Minghe smiled.
"If I am cursed to