The Zero Tier of Dai Long was a place where sunlight rarely dared to descend. The cobblestone paths were slick with moisture, walls bloomed with green moss, and from the rusted drainage cracks, thin streams trickled down, carrying a stench that clung to every breath. No one lived here without knowing how to keep their head low… or how to pretend they saw nothing.
Khanh had spent his entire childhood in this place. Orphaned before he could even recall the faces of his parents, he grew up with the wail of wind seeping through rusted tin roofs and the creak of rickety bunk beds in the orphanage. By the age of thirteen, he was no longer cared for by the orphanage; from then on, he earned his keep with the only things he had left—his shoulders and his back.
That afternoon, the man who hired him to haul cargo told him to deliver a few heavy sacks to a wooden house at the end of Alley Seventeen. The path he took reeked of foul odors; his feet trod upon brick and stone, some spots overgrown with moss and dust. Some places were slimy, like dried blood stuck to the ground. He arrived at the delivery point, and before him stood a dilapidated house that looked as though it could collapse at any moment. The wooden door groaned as it opened, revealing a thin, silver-haired man seated before the dim glow of an oil lamp. The weak yellow light traced every line of his aged face—ancient, yet not entirely frail—and in his clouded eyes flickered the strange sensation of being pierced straight through flesh and into bone.
Resting one hand upon the table, the man tilted his head and spoke as if he saw something intriguing. Before him stood Khanh, a scrawny child with pallid skin, but when the boy lifted the cargo, the old man saw streams of yellowish-brown energy swirling around him. "Tell me… do you see a thread of mist, thin as silk, drifting about you?" the old man said.
Khanh froze, frowning slightly. "What? Probably just smoke. You've been inhaling too much of it."
The old man did not reply. His gaze only sharpened, tinged with a rare glimmer of curiosity.
Then he reached out, his skeletal hand pressing against Khanh's forehead.
Cold.
So cold it felt as though hundreds of needles were driven into his skull.
Visions flashed—darkness, a sea of blood, the howl of wind, and sounds from nowhere whispering into the marrow.
When the hand finally withdrew, Khanh saw the old man gasping for breath, beads of sweat sliding down his withered cheeks. His shoulders trembled, as though the simple touch had drained almost all his strength. His skin had turned pale, lips bloodless.
A pang of unease stirred in Khanh. He shot to his feet, retreating toward the door.
"I still have to work on the docks. You should rest."
But the man's voice followed, slow and deliberate.
"You… are of the Tran bloodline."
Khanh let out a dry, mocking laugh.
"You're mad. I grew up in an orphanage; how can you jest that I'm from the annihilated Tran Clan?" he said with a scornful tone.
The old man's eyes were deep, cold. Each word he spoke stripped away another layer of the armor in Khanh's mind.
"A room of rotting wood… a bunk bed ready to collapse… the rain pounding on tin each rainy night.
The first time you were beaten was when you stood in front of a small boy in the orphanage yard.
At thirteen, the first cargo you howled to lift at the market—you slipped, struck your back against the wooden steps, and nearly blacked out."
Khanh's chest tightened. Fragments of memory he had long buried surged up, vivid enough that he could almost smell the damp rain on that day. The days when he shared with friends what he saw, only to be met with scorn and mockery. His friends regarded him as a madman.
"… What do you want me to do?" His voice was hoarse.
The old man only smiled faintly.
Outside, the heavy mist of the Zero Tier crept through the cracks in the door, swallowing the sound of footsteps beyond—leaving only the rhythm of two breaths in the dim wooden room.