Feng Zhan drove his head deeper into the cold floorboards and groveled.
His forehead scraped raw, but he didn't dare stop. Groveling was the only thing he knew how to do anymore.
What else was there for someone like him?
He could not cultivate.
He could not fight.
He could not even provide for himself without scraps thrown his way by pitying servants. At seventeen, when other disciples had long since stepped into the path of martial ascension, Feng Zhan was weaker than a mortal farmer.
The sect physicians had declared him a hopeless case years ago.
"Your meridians are crippled," they told him. "You were born without the channels to harness qi. There is no cure."
And in the world of cultivation, weakness was death.
He remembered those words with a shudder. Every day since then had been a slow grind of humiliation: mocked by peers, dismissed by elders, scorned by the girl he once admired.
