The night wind of the wilderness brushed past, carrying a sharp, cold mixture of bruised herbs and damp earth. Ye Qian walked toward his home, his pace steady and rhythmic. His body was a furnace of restrained power; the Stage Six Harmonized Breath Qi surged through his meridians like a deep, pulsing tide. Every breath he took was heavy and deliberate, synchronized with the rustle of the surrounding forest.
Despite his physical strength, an unsettling tension prickled at the back of his neck. It was a sense of foregone conclusions—a storm brewing far beyond the physical reaches of the wilderness.
Just as he neared the edge of the mountain path, the silence was shattered by a sharp, desperate cry. "Help! Someone help me! Stop!"
Ye Qian's brow furrowed. Without hesitation, he burst into a sprint, his silhouette a blur in the moonlight. He crashed through a thicket of thorns and skidded into a small clearing. There, he saw a woman in silk robes pinned against a gnarled oak tree, her face pale with terror. Standing over her was a man dressed in the opulent, arrogant finery of a noble house. Emblazoned on his chest was a golden crest—the mark of the Yun Clan.
The man was Yun Ye, the young master of the powerful Yun family.
Yun Ye's cultivation was technically higher than Ye Qian's on paper; he was a man built on expensive spirit pills and high-grade elixirs. However, his aura was bloated and unstable, like a balloon stretched too thin. He possessed the arrogance of a lion but the heart of a pampered house cat, especially when facing those he deemed beneath him.
"Let her go!" Ye Qian's voice boomed, vibrating with the authority of his Stage Six cultivation. He didn't draw his blade yet, but the rusted Tang blade at his hip rattled in its scabbard, responding to his killing intent.
Yun Ye turned, a sneer twisting his handsome features. "And who the hell are you? Some mountain beggar playing hero? Scram before I have your tongue cut out!"
Ye Qian didn't move. His eyes were like cold stars. "I won't say it again. Step away from her."
Yun Ye's face flushed with rage. He snapped his fingers at the three armored guards flanking him. "Kill him. Throw his body to the wolves."
The guards lunged. Their Qi flared—crude and aggressive. Ye Qian's right hand found the hilt of his blade. He didn't draw it fully; instead, he used the scabbard as a blunt instrument. He stepped into the first guard's reach, pivoting his hips with the precision of a master clockmaker.
Thud! The scabbard slammed into the guard's solar plexus, folding him in half. Before the man could even groan, Ye Qian spun, his left foot kicking off the ground. He caught the second guard's wrist, twisting it until the bone popped, and used the man's own momentum to hurl him into the third attacker.
The three guards lay groaning in the dirt within seconds. Ye Qian hadn't even broken his breathing rhythm.
Yun Ye's arrogance vanished, replaced by a panicked, ugly snarl. "Waste! All of you are useless!" He roared, channeling his pill-enhanced Qi into a glowing fist. He lunged at Ye Qian, his strike aimed at the head.
Ye Qian moved like a ghost. He lowered his center of gravity, the rusted Tang blade finally sliding out of its sheath with a crisp, metallic ring. He didn't meet the punch head-on; he tilted his blade, allowing the force of Yun Ye's fist to slide harmlessly off the steel.
"Is this the 'power' of the Yun Clan?" Ye Qian asked coldly.
He moved in. His blade was a flash of silver in the dark. He struck with the flat of the blade first, hitting Yun Ye's ribs, then pivoted for a clean, swift slash. The rusted edge bit into Yun Ye's thigh, drawing a spray of crimson.
"AGHHHH!" Yun Ye collapsed, clutching his leg as he rolled in the mud. His guards scrambled to pull their master away, their eyes wide with fear.
"This isn't over!" Yun Ye screamed, his voice cracking with pain and humiliation. "You've signed your death warrant! The Yun Clan will burn your house to the ground!"
The woman he had saved didn't stay to talk. She whispered a frantic "Thank you" before disappearing into the shadows of the woods, her silk robes fluttering like a moth's wings.
Ye Qian stood alone, the tip of his blade dripping with blood. He took a deep breath, feeling the flow of his Qi stabilize. He knew he had just kicked a hornet's nest, but his heart remained unshaken.
The backlash was swifter than he imagined.
By the next morning, Yun Ye had returned to his family and spun a tale of treachery and unprovoked assault. He claimed Ye Qian had not only attacked him but had insulted the entire Yun bloodline. The Yun Clan, powerful and vengeful, immediately sent an envoy to the Ye Clan, demanding Ye Qian's head.
The atmosphere in the Ye Clan's main hall was frozen. The Patriarch sat on his throne, his face a mask of iron-cold fury. For the Ye Clan, an illegitimate "trash" son injuring a legitimate heir of a rival house was more than a scandal—it was an excuse.
"Bring that brat to me!" the Patriarch roared.
When the guards dragged Ye Qian into the hall, he didn't kneel. He stood tall, his gaze meeting the Patriarch's.
"Ye Qian!" the Patriarch's voice shook the rafters. "You are a stain on this family! You have brought the wrath of the Yun Clan upon us. For the crime of wounding a noble scion and endangering our alliance, you are hereby disowned and sentenced to the Death Cells!"
The elders nodded in silent agreement. There was no justice here. There was only politics. They were trading Ye Qian's life to appease the Yun Clan. They saw him as a tool to be discarded, a sacrifice to maintain their comfortable status quo.
Ye Qian looked at the faces of his "kin." He saw no mercy, only calculation. He saw the betrayal in their eyes—a clan that would rather kill its own talented son than stand up to an outsider.
"I see," Ye Qian said, his voice quiet but carrying to every corner of the hall. "Then the Ye Clan and I are finished."
That night, before the guards could move him to the cells, Ye Qian enacted his plan. He had spent years being ignored; he knew every secret passage and every loose stone in the estate. He returned to his shack, grabbed his rusted Tang blade, a small bag of medicinal powder, and his mother's old hairpiece.
He didn't look back as he slipped over the outer wall and vanished into the pitch-black wilderness.
The cold air of the mountain forest hit his face, and for the first time in sixteen years, he felt he could truly breathe. The pressure of the Ye Clan and the threat of the Yun Clan were still there, but they were no longer chains. They were targets.
"I will not be a pawn. I will not be a sacrifice," Ye Qian whispered to the moon.
He began to run. He moved deeper into the dangerous, uncharted parts of the back mountain—the places where even the clan's elders feared to go. In the darkness, the rusted Tang blade at his side seemed to hum with a newfound, dark energy.
He was no longer a disciple of the Ye Clan. He was a rogue, a wanderer, and a predator. The world had tried to crush him, but it had only succeeded in forging a blade that would eventually come back to haunt them all.
The era of the outcast had ended. The era of the Vengeful Shadow had begun.