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📕 Karmic Ascension
Year One – Mortal Arc: The Life Before Rebirth
Chapter 1 – The Rain That Never Stopped
The rain had been falling for three days straight.
Gray skies hung low over Zhenhai City, a place where dreams were born and crushed in the same breath. Beneath a rusted tin roof on the outskirts of the city, a ten-year-old boy sat hunched over a flickering candle. His fingers, bruised and cold, turned the pages of a second-hand textbook with a reverence one might reserve for holy scripture.
His name was Lin Xian, and this world had never been kind to him.
His mother, Li Na, was a factory worker who disappeared three weeks ago after a police raid. His father, Lin Han, a gambling addict and small-time gangster, hadn't been seen in years. The only thing that kept Lin Xian from starving was a half-working rice cooker and occasional visits from Xu Rou, the girl next door, who smuggled leftover buns from her own family's cramped kitchen.
Outside, thunder cracked like a warning.
He flinched.
The door rattled. Someone was pounding on it. Three heavy knocks.
Debt collectors.
They always came when it rained.
Lin Xian crept to the door, silent as a cat, and peeked through the broken peephole. A shadowy figure in a black raincoat stood there, flanked by two more. He recognized them. Uncle Qian's men. His mother had borrowed money for hospital bills when he was five. The interest kept growing like a weed.
"Li Na! We know you're in there!" one of the men growled. "Your time's up."
He didn't respond. Didn't move. Even his breath was quiet. The candle flickered dangerously close to going out.
They left after a minute, their voices fading into the storm.
He let out a shaky breath and returned to the table. The book lay open on a chapter titled "Compound Interest and Its Exponential Nature."
He smiled bitterly. Interest. He understood that too well now.
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That night, as he stared out at the city through a cracked window, something inside him shifted. Not fear. Not anger.
Conviction.
> "One day," he whispered to the rain. "One day, they'll bow to me."
But the rain never stopped.
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