The hovel, which had felt like a sanctuary just a night ago, was now a cage of a different sort. The stench of mildew and rat droppings was a constant, cloying assault, a physical reminder of his new station in the world. Yang Kai sat on the filthy floor, having cleared a small circle of the worst grime with a piece of sackcloth. The flickering light of a single, sputtering tallow candle—his only luxury—cast long, dancing shadows on the damp-streaked walls.
Before him, laid open on the sackcloth, was the small, leather-bound manual. The Silent Coil Scripture.
It was a pathetic treasure. A mortal martial art in a world of demigods. It was a wooden sword in an age of Star-Forged steel. And yet, as he ran a finger over the simple, elegant diagrams, a cold, analytical part of his mind—the part that still remembered a world of physics and logic—recognized its worth. It was a science of weakness, a philosophy of turning a stronger opponent's momentum against them. It was a system. And systems could be mastered.
He rose, his movements careful in the cramped space. He tried to mimic the first stance shown in the diagrams, the Coiled Serpent. His legs, weak and untempered after years of disuse, immediately began to tremble with the strain. His back, used to the soft mattress of his coma, screamed in protest. He ignored it. He thought of the look on his cousin's face in the library, the casual, absolute contempt. He thought of his mother's cold, appraising eyes, a gaze that measured his worth like a butcher eyeing livestock. He thought of his Third Aunt, a goddess of ice who had gutted him with a whisper.
A hot, bitter frustration burned in his gut. He pushed the feeling into his legs, into his stance, holding it until his muscles burned with a clean, honest pain that was a welcome relief from the agony of his own powerlessness. This was his. This pain was his own.
He moved to the next form, a simple wrist-lock technique. He followed the diagram, twisting his own arm in a way that felt unnatural, his left hand applying pressure to a specific point on his right wrist as the book instructed. A sharp, electric pain shot up his arm, so intense it made him gasp and release the hold.
It worked.
A fierce, desperate grin split his face. This was real. This was power he could hold in his own two hands, a knowledge that didn't rely on a bloodline he couldn't ignite or a Sea of Consciousness he couldn't enter. He was a man with nothing. But a man with nothing, who knew how to break another man's wrist, was slightly better than a man with nothing at all. He practiced for hours, lost in the intricate, brutal dance of the scripture, a single, flickering candle, his only sun in the dark, stinking hell of his new beginning.
Xiong strode through the mud-slicked alleys of the Dregs, the two thugs, Li and Gao, trailing silently in his wake. The air was thick with the familiar smell of cheap wine, stale sweat, and despair. He clutched the bundle of ancient scrolls, their weight a solid, satisfying presence under his arm. The clan pup had been a surprise. A strange, interesting, and potentially very profitable surprise.
He had expected a simple thief, a frightened boy to be shaken down for a few coppers. Instead, he had found a desperate scholar with a king's secret.
The Governor is digging for something near the Old Pits. That single piece of information, if sold to the right ears—the Feng Clan, the Tie Clan, perhaps even a rival magistrate—was worth a thousand times the pathetic bounty One-Eyed Crow had placed on the boy's head.
But to sell the information was a short-sighted move. Crow was a useful, if unsubtle, partner. Antagonizing him over a small matter was poor business. And the boy… the boy was a new kind of asset. A source. An informant with access to a world Xiong could never enter. A clan pup who stole his own family's secrets was a rare and valuable tool. He had to be cultivated.
He entered the Silent Pavilion, the tavern's noise and smoke washing over him like a warm, dirty wave. He found a dark corner table and slammed the scrolls down, the sound of a dull thud that drew no attention. Li and Gao sat, their eyes alight with a simple, brutish greed.
"What's in them, boss?" Li asked, his hand reaching for one of the journals.
Xiong's massive hand shot out and clamped down on Li's wrist, his grip like iron. "Not ours," he rumbled, his voice low and dangerous. "Not yet." He released him, leaving red marks on Li's skin. "The pup is a new piece on the board. A weak piece, but one that is inside the other castles. He is more valuable to us alive and indebted than he is as a corpse with empty pockets."
He pushed one of the journals across the table. "I want copies. Perfect copies. Take this to the Scribe's Nook. Tell old man Mo it's a personal favor for me. He owes me. I want it done by tomorrow night."
Li nodded, chastened, taking the journal respectfully.
Xiong then pulled a small, worn pouch from his belt and counted out ten milky, opaque stones onto the table. Ten Low-Grade Star-Jades. The bounty.
"And take this," he said, pushing the jades towards Gao. "This is the pup's payment for services rendered. Proof of my goodwill."
Gao stared at the jades. "You're paying him? After he trespassed on our turf?"
Xiong leaned back, a slow, cunning smile spreading across his face. He enjoyed these moments, teaching his dull-witted dogs how to think. "Think of it as an investment, Gao. A small price to pay to ensure our new little spy doesn't starve to death before he can bring us another golden egg." He took a long drink of ale. The boy was scared, desperate, and now, he was on Xiong's leash. It was a good start to a very profitable partnership.
He spent the next day in a haze of pain and practice. His body was a symphony of new, screaming aches. He drilled the stances of the Silent Coil Scripture until his legs would no longer hold him. He practiced the joint-locks until his own arms were bruised. He was a man possessed, his small, filthy hovel a brutal, personal forge.
That evening, as the last of Lumina's light faded from the sky, there was a soft scratching at his door. He froze, his heart seizing. He opened it to find one of Xiong's men, the one called Li. The thug wordlessly handed him a heavy, oilskin-wrapped package and a small, clinking pouch before melting back into the shadows.
Yang Kai barred the door, his hands trembling. He unwrapped the package. Inside were the copies of his stolen research. The Scribe's Nook had done a masterful job. The maps were perfectly replicated, the journals transcribed in a neat, clear hand. All the knowledge was still his.
He then opened the small pouch. Inside were ten milky, opaque stones, each the size of his thumb. Low-Grade Star-Jades. He poured them into his palm. They were cool to the touch and felt strangely heavy, dense with a faint, contained energy. This was it. The currency of cultivators. The price of his life.
He thought of the fee Xiong had quoted for safe passage into the mountains. Twenty Mid-Grade Star-Jades. A Mid-Grade jade was worth a hundred Low-Grade ones. Two thousand Low-Grade Star-Jades. He looked at the ten pathetic stones in his hand. The chasm between his current state and his goal was an ocean.
He knew then, with a certainty that was a cold stone in his gut, that he could not stay here. The Dregs were not a sanctuary. They were a mire that would suck him down. He had to return to the clan. It was a cage, yes. But it was a cage with a library. A cage with resources. A cage where he could observe his enemies up close.
He carefully wrapped the copied scrolls and the Silent Coil Scripture, hiding them deep within his robes. He clutched the small pouch of jades, his first piece of real capital in this new, terrifying world. He had a path now. A dangerous, uncertain path, but a path nonetheless. He would return to the house of the sleeping dragons, no longer just a ghost, but a spider, armed with a thread of mortal skill and a web of forbidden knowledge.
The return to the clan compound was a jarring transition. The air was cleaner, the paths were neater, but the silence was more oppressive than the noise of the Dregs. Here, the threats were not simple thugs in an alley, but the cold eyes and quiet whispers of his own family. He made it back to his room without incident. It was just as he had left it: cold, empty, and silent. He lifted a loose floorboard beneath his bed—a flaw he had noticed on his first day—and hid his new treasures. The scrolls, the manual, and the ten jades. They were his secret, his only real possessions in this world.
His life fell into a strict, self-imposed routine. The next few days bled into one another. His days were for his body. He would find a secluded, forgotten corner of the estate—an abandoned woodshed, a crumbling section of the outer wall—and he would practice the Silent Coil Scripture. He drilled the stances, the footwork, the grappling techniques, his movements slowly losing their clumsiness, gaining a wiry, economical grace. His body, cleansed by his aunt's bath, responded surprisingly well, growing stronger, more flexible.
His nights were for his mind. He would retreat to his room and study the copied journals, his focus absolute. He cross-referenced the surveyor's journal with the annotated maps left by Madam Xue's brother. He began to piece together a more complete picture of the Titan's Tooth range and its secrets. He learned that the Forgotten Road was not just a road, but likely the entrance to a massive, subterranean structure from the Ancient Era. He found notes speculating that the Fallen Star's impact had not destroyed this structure, but had merely buried it.
He also found what he was looking for: a journal entry from Madam Xue's brother detailing his own desperate search for a catalyst.
'…the ancient texts speak of a theoretical cure for a tyrannical bloodline. A treasure that does not just ignite, but anchors. It must be something of immense stability and purity, a conceptual opposite to the blood's chaotic fire. The legends of the Starfall Cults mention a flower, the Void Orchid, that thrives in the absence of Star Essence, near a great source of nullifying power on the Silent Peak. And there is another legend, a local one, of a treasure that grows only in the domain of the Ancient Drake Tyrant, a place called the Weeping Spires. A Dragon's Tear Lotus, they call it. Said to be able to temper and stabilize any foundation… '
The Void Orchid. The Dragon's Tear Lotus.
They were names. They were targets. They were impossibly far-off, fantastical goals, guarded by monsters and hidden in forbidden lands. But they were real. The path existed.
His quiet routine was shattered one evening by an unexpected summons. A servant appeared at his door, her face pale.
"Second Young Master," she whispered. "The Third Mistress… she requests your presence."
[Cycle of the Azure Emperor, Year 3473, 5th Moon, 24th Day]