Lin Wei knew he was fucked the moment Elder Yun called his name.
"Lin Wei, step forward."
The training ground went quiet, two hundred outer sect disciples turned to stare and Lin Wei felt every single pair of eyes like needles in his back.
And of course, he was the last one.
The Annual Meditation Trial happened every year and every year Lin Wei failed it. This was year four, at this point failing was practically a tradition.
He stood from his spot at the back of the crowd and walked forward. His sect robes—faded blue, patchy at the elbows, hung loose on his frame, he'd lost weight this year, stress did that.
The whispers started immediately.
"That's Trash Wei."
"His dad was executed, right? For lust Qi or something?"
"He's gonna fail again. Bet you five spirit stones."
"Only five? I'll bet ten he doesn't even make it thirty seconds."
Lin Wei kept his face blank and his eyes forward, reacting only made it worse, he'd learned that the hard way.
The trial circle was carved into the ground at the center of the training field—a simple formation that measured Qi circulation. Sit inside, meditate, circulate your Qi properly and the formation glowed blue. Easy. Every outer disciple could do it.
Well, except Lin Wei.
He stepped into the circle and sat leg crossed, the ground was warm from the morning sun. Around him, the other disciples had formed a loose crowd, some looked bored, some looked amused, a few looked almost sympathetic but sympathy didn't help him pass.
Elder Yun stood on a raised platform, arms crossed. He was old, stern and deeply uninterested in Lin Wei's excuses.
"Begin when ready."
Lin Wei closed his eyes and took a breath.
He could do this, he'd practiced every night for the past month, he'd sat in his shack and practiced the circulation pattern until his head hurt. He knew the steps, he knew the breathing, he knew exactly what to do.
His meridians just didn't cooperate.
He reached inward, searching for his Qi core. There—a weak flicker, like a candle in a storm, most disciples had cores that burned bright and steady. His didn't.
Carefully, he tried to guide the Qi through his meridians, the energy moved but it felt wrong like trying to pour water through a cracked cup. His meridians were damaged—had been for years, and no amount of practice fixed that.
The Qi slugged forward. Slow and painful.
Sweat dripped from Lin Wei's forehead.
Come on, just circulate, just once. Prove you're not completely useless.
The Qi hit a blockage in his chest meridian and was stuck.
Lin Wei tightened his teeth and pushed harder. The energy resisted.
He pushed again and that's when everything went wrong.
The blockage gave way all at once, not smoothly but like a dam bursting. Qi flooded through his meridians in a chaotic rush, completely out of control, Lin Wei's eyes snapped open as pain shot through his chest.
No... Not now. Not again—
His body convulsed.
The Qi backlash hit like a hammer, energy erupted outward in violent wave and the formation circle beneath him flared red. Failure, the color every disciple dreaded.
But it didn't stop there.
The Qi discharge was so strong, so uncontrolled that it didn't just fail, it exploded. Lin Wei felt his robes heat up, the fabric smoking as raw energy poured out of him in waves he couldn't stop.
A seam split down his back with an audible rip sound.
Fuck...
Another burst, his sleeve tore.
Oh no no no...
The front of his robe gave way.
And then Lin Wei was on his hands and knees, gasping for air with his robes in tatters and his chest half exposed to two hundred disciples.
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
For one beautiful, terrible moment, Lin Wei thought maybe it was over. Maybe they'd just let him leave quietly and he could go die of shame in private.
Then someone laughed.
"Holy shit, he blew up his clothes!"
The laughter spread like wildfire. Disciples howled. People were doubling over, even some of the older students on the platform were grinning.
"Trash Wei can't even meditate without stripping!"
"Is that his technique? The Exhibitionist's Path?"
"Someone get him a dancer's outfit, he's clearly in the wrong sect!"
Lin Wei's face burned, he tried to stand, tried to cover himself but his legs wouldn't work. The Qi backlash had drained him completely, he was stuck there half naked, shaking, with two hundred plus people laughing at him.
"Pathetic."
The voice cut through the noise like a blade.
Lin Wei looked up.
Huo Liang stood at the edge of the platform, arms crossed, looking down at him with disgust. He was everything Lin Wei wasn't—tall, handsome, talented, Twenty years old and already at Foundation Establishment. The golden boy of the outer sect, destined for greatness.
And he "hated" Lin Wei.
"Four years," Huo Liang said, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Four years of wasting the sect's resources, your father was a pervert who corrupted his alchemy with lust Qi, and now look at you. Can't even circulate basic energy without exploding out of your pants."
More laughter.
"Maybe that's the family technique!" someone shouted. "Seduce your enemies by flashing them!""Maybe that's the family technique!" someone shouted. "Seduce your enemies by flashing them!"
"The Lin family's secret art—public indecency!""The Lin family's secret art—public indecency!"
Lin Wei's hands curled into fists, his vision blurred, he wanted to say something. Wanted to scream that his father wasn't a pervert, wasn't a criminal, was just trying to help people who couldn't cultivate normally
But his throat was too tight.
He couldn't get the words out.
Elder Yun finally raised a hand, and the laughter died down.
"Lin Wei." His voice was cold. "This is your fourth consecutive failure. By sect law, you are hereby placed on probation. You have one month to demonstrate measurable improvement or you will be demoted to servant class."
One month.
Lin Wei's stomach dropped.
One month to fix meridians that had been broken for six years.
Impossible.
"Dismissed," Elder Yun said.
The crowd began to disperse, still chuckling, already moving on to the next bit of gossip.
Lin Wei stayed where he was, kneeling in the circle, too exhausted and humiliated to move.
Someone draped a robe over his shoulders. He looked up and saw Instructor Feng—a chill woman in her thirties, ice Qi master, known for her rigid professionalism. She didn't smile, didn't offer comfort, Just looked at him with something that might have been pity.
"Medical hall," she said curtly. "Get your meridians examined."
Then she walked away.
And Lin Wei was alone again.
Slowly, painfully, he forced himself to stand. His legs shook, his chest ached, his pride was somewhere in the dirt, grounded into dust by two hundred pairs of feet.
He pulled the borrowed robe tight around himself and walked.
One step, then another.
Off the training grounds, through the outer sect pathways. Past the laughters and the whispers and the disciples who stepped aside like failure might be contagious.
He didn't go to the medical hall.
He went straight to his shack...