Rain fell in thin, slanting lines, turning the dirt road into a thick mass of black mud.
The village ahead lay half-swallowed by mist – rotting wooden houses crouched low against the mountain wind, their roofs sagging like tired backs. No spirit formations guarded the place. No banners. No ancestral statues radiated qi. It was the kind of settlement even mortal peasants forgot existed.
Tan Na Yu walked toward it unhurriedly.
Her steps were light, almost careless, yet neither the rain nor the mud ever truly touched her. Each droplet that strayed too close slid aside as if repelled by an invisible veil. To mortal eyes, she appeared no more than a woman traveling alone through bad weather – dangerously beautiful, yes, but still human.
Only Heaven knew how false that impression was.
She had lived seven hundred and eighty-nine years.
Once, long ago, she had counted time carefully. Birthdays. Cycles. Eras. Now she measured years by boredom.
Four centuries had passed since she last descended to a lower realm. The intrigues of Azure Heaven, the quiet wars between infinite Immortal factions, the endless negotiations hidden behind silk curtains and polished smiles – she had mastered them all too well. Power there moved slowly, like glacial ice grinding mountains into dust. Boring and tedious.
So she had left.
Not on orders. Not for duty. But because stillness, unchecked, rotted the Dao.
Her master's voice echoed faintly in memory, dry and amused:
"Comfort breeds mediocrity. Conflict sharpens fate. Dragons are not raised in warm ponds."
Tan Na Yu believed this as firmly now as she had when she was fourteen and standing before the gates of The Eternal Spring Court, trembling with excitement and terror.
She herself had not been bought.
She had been chosen.
Born to an affluent clan in a realm even lower than this one, she herself had never been a product of desperation.
Tan Na Yu had simply been born beneath a sky too small to hold her.
From the moment she first sensed qi, lightning had answered her like an obedient puppy. A Heaven-grade Lightning spiritual root, mutated from fire and metal, had marked her as someone who would never walk a narrow path. Her cultivation had not surged wildly, nor burned out in reckless brilliance. It had advanced at a terrifying pace, each breakthrough arriving naturally.
More dangerous still was what lay beneath that talent.
The elders of the Eternal Spring Court had not spoken its name aloud when they discovered it, but they all knew. The Drifting Peach Blossom Heart was not a constitution meant for open battlefields. It was subtler. Crueler. A body that bent desire, softened intent, and turned hostility into hesitation before a blade was ever drawn.
People found it difficult to hate her.
Even those who should.
Killing intent faltered in her presence, qi turning restless and disordered at the slightest emotional disturbance. A glance held a question unasked. A smile carried invitation or warning. In her hands, illusion and suggestion were not techniques but something completely natural, woven into her very being. By the time an enemy realized their thoughts were no longer entirely their own, their foundation was already shaking.
That was why her master had taken her in at fourteen.
That clan itself still existed. Because she allowed it to.
Through messengers and carefully measured gifts, she kept them prosperous but restrained, influential but not dominant. Had she wished for it, they could have conquered their entire world in a single generation. She never permitted it. Balance mattered. Too much peace and prosperity killed talent better than any enemy.
This village, however, was different.
Places like this were where fate slipped its leash.
Tan Na Yu slowed as she reached the outskirts. The rain thickened, drumming against rotted wood and clay walls. Inside the houses, dim lamps flickered. Children cried. Adults argued in low, exhausted voices. Hunger lingered in the air.
Her lips curved faintly.
She was looking for children.
Not any child – potential was a delicate thing. It hid beneath illness, beneath fear, beneath bodies that would never survive adulthood without intervention. In her long life, she had learned that Heaven's greatest jokes were often born starving.
Her appearance reflected none of this grim arithmetic.
Her countenance was like a frozen lotus blooming beneath moonlight – beautiful, pristine, and faintly dangerous. An oval face of flawless white jade, skin translucent enough to catch the glow of ambient qi, as if lit from within. Her golden phoenix eyes, slightly upturned, held a calm starlit depth that could unmake even an immortal's composure in a heartbeat. Her lips, stained naturally the shade of crushed cherries, rested in a knowing half-smile – one that suggested amusement rather than warmth.
Her figure was no scholar's frailty.
A willow-slim waist spoke of agility, but her curvaceous body carried a bone-melting allure that belonged only to the greatest of vixens. Every step flowed with effortless grace, like silk pulled through water. She seemed both near and distant, like a mountain peak veiled in mist.
She wore layered midnight-purple and silver silks, bound at the waist by a belt studded with spirit-stones that pulsed softly beneath the rain. A faint fragrance of cold jasmine and forbidden incense followed her, subtle enough to linger only a moment too long. Her light blond hair was pinned high with a single phoenix-tail hairpin, a few loose strands framing her face in deliberate imperfection.
Though she walked in a realm that could not sustain true immortals, Tan Na Yu stood at the third substage of the Immortal Threshold. Should she loosen her restraint for even a breath, this land would tear itself apart trying to accommodate her existence. Mountains would crack. Rivers would boil. The sky would scream.
She did not need to.
Tonight, she was here as a buyer.
The village elder came running through the rain, sandals slipping in the mud.
He was old, thin as a fence post, his hair plastered to his skull. When he reached Tan Na Yu, he nearly tripped over himself in his haste, bowing so deeply his forehead struck the ground.
"Fairy… Fairy Lady," he panted, voice trembling with both fear and desperate hope. "We–we heard. Word spread that a noble elder was coming. We… we have prepared the children."
Tan Na Yu did not stop walking.
They entered the village square.
Thirty-three children were lined beneath a sagging awning made of patched cloth and broken planks. Thin arms. Swollen bellies. Eyes too large for their faces. Some clutched at their mothers' hems; others stood quietly, already too accustomed to hunger to cry.
Tan Na Yu's gaze swept over them once.
She did not need to linger.
The signs were obvious.
The grain stores were empty. The men of fighting age were missing. The women's qi was uneven – fear residue, panic scars, the faint chaos left behind by violence. Soldiers had passed through recently. There would be more children soon. Too many.
Selling a few now was not cruelty.
She moved down the line, her fingers brushing foreheads, wrists, spines. Each touch was gentle.
One had a cracked root – barely capable of sensing qi.
Another had meridians twisted by malnutrition.
A third could, with decades of effort and careful supplementation, perhaps reach the lowest levels of cultivation.
She straightened.
"None of these," Tan Na Yu said calmly.
The village elder's shoulders sagged.
Before despair could fully bloom, rough laughter cut through the rain.
"Immortal Lady," a man called out.
Three figures stood apart from the others – ragged cloaks, scarred faces, the look of men who had learned to survive by taking rather than asking. Bandits, or something close enough that the distinction no longer mattered.
"We got one more," the tallest said. "Didn't bring 'im out earlier. Thought… well. Thought we'd see if you were worth the trouble."
Tan Na Yu turned.
What they carried did not belong here.
A baby, wrapped in rich, warm cloth – thick, finely woven, untouched by grime. The fabric shimmered faintly beneath the rain, repelling water with an effortless grace no mortal craftsmanship could achieve. At the child's chest hung a small golden pendant, softly radiant, qi flowing through it in gentle, protective currents.
Her eyes narrowed, just slightly.
Stolen – or found.
The men had tried to strip it. She could see that much. The cloth had resisted them. The pendant had refused to yield.
Mortals.
The baby was plump. Well-fed. Clean. His skin glowed with health utterly at odds with the village's misery. Wisps of silver hair framed his round face, and when he stirred, a pair of crimson eyes blinked open, unfocused but bright.
Tan Na Yu smiled.
"Tell me," she said lightly, "whose child is this?"
The bandit puffed out his chest. "Our boss's. Big man. Real big. Died fightin' a hundred demonic cultivators." He paused, glancing at the others. "Kid's name is… uh…"
Another pause.
"…Long Yang Xu."
Tan Na Yu raised a brow.
"The Rising Dragon of the Solar Dawn," he added hastily.
She laughed.
A clear, bell-like sound that startled the villagers into stillness.
Her gaze dropped to the pendant.
There, carved in elegant, ancient script, was a different name entirely.
Gou Shi Yun.
She laughed again – longer this time, amused beyond restraint.
"Poor things," she murmured. "You don't even know how to read."
The bandits exchanged uneasy glances.
She crouched and reached out, brushing her finger against the baby's cheek.
The world shifted.
Fire answered her touch. A Heaven-grade Fire spiritual root, pure and violent, coiled beneath fragile flesh. Beneath that, something older stirred.
A dragon.
A Primal Solar-Dragon Physique – dominant, imperial, scorching in its potential. A body meant to command, to burn, to rise without apology. The kind of constitution that could overturn sects, ignite wars, or reshape Heaven itself – if allowed to grow unchecked.
Tan Na Yu's breath caught.
Then she smiled. This child had immense talent comparable to hers, maybe even surpassing, especially in martial talent.
She straightened and looked at the bandits. "How much?"
The tallest man hesitated, then raised three fingers.
"Three silver taels."
Tan Na Yu reached into her spatial ring and placed three gold taels into his shaking hands.
The men froze.
Gold.
Real gold.
Before greed could curdle into stupidity, she turned to the village elder.
With a flick of her sleeve, the square filled with weight.
Crates appeared – meat, grain, fruits, vegetables, preserved delicacies, even wrapped pastries still warm with lingering spiritual heat. Three tons of food, stacked neatly despite the rain.
The villagers stared as if witnessing a miracle.
"This shall last you the winter," Tan Na Yu said.
The elder collapsed to his knees, sobbing.
She did not watch.
Cradling the baby against her chest, Tan Na Yu stepped back into the rain. The child's small hand curled instinctively around her finger, warmth seeping through silk and skin alike.
"Dog Shit Luck," she murmured fondly. "What a fitting name."
Lightning rippled faintly around her as she vanished from the village road, leaving behind full granaries, stunned bandits, and a destiny that would one day shake Heaven itself.