"Brother," Lin Feng said, bowing slightly while still holding the baby. "You came."
Lin Yang nodded, his face impassive. "I heard the cry. It resonated with the Qi of the island. A powerful birth."
He stepped closer, his gaze drifting over the baby for only a second before locking onto Yu Yue.
For a moment, time seemed to freeze.
Lin Yang's eyes narrowed imperceptibly. 'Strange...' he thought, his inner voice cold and calculating. 'A woman usually expends half her life essence during childbirth. Her cultivation should have regressed. Yet... Yu Yue's aura has doubled. No, tripled.'
He sensed the lingering traces of that violet energy in the room. It felt dangerous. Ancient. It felt... taboo.
'This woman...' Lin Yang thought, a shadow passing over his heart. 'I have always suspected her origins were not simple. Now I am certain. Hope this hopeless, love-struck brother of mine can keep her under control. If she becomes a threat to the Clan...'
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't have to.
Outwardly, Lin Yang smiled—a perfect, practiced smile. "Congratulations, Feng. And to you, Sister-in-law. The Clan needed this."
He looked back at the baby. "I have only Yan'er, a daughter. The Elders have been restless for a male heir in the main line. This boy... Lin Kai, is it? He carries the weight of our future now."
"I will train him well, Brother," Lin Feng said, puffing his chest out proudly, oblivious to the undercurrents of tension.
"I am sure you will," Lin Yang said softly. He glanced at Yu Yue one last time, a silent warning in his eyes, before turning and sweeping out of the room as quietly as he had entered.
Yu Yue watched his retreating back, her fingers tightening on the bedsheet. She had seen that look. She knew that the Patriarch—one of the strongest person in the continent—was watching her. She let out a sigh she had been holding, her heart heavy with a premonition she couldn't shake.
Soon after, the room was flooded with other Elders and Grand Elders, their congratulations loud and boisterous, drowning out the mother's quiet fear. They praised the boy's bone structure, his spirit root, and his auspicious birth time.
But amidst all the noise, the person most confused was the baby himself.
Lin Kai opened his eyes, his vision blurry and swimming with colors.
'What... what is happening?'
He tried to speak, to ask where he was, but all that came out was a gurgle. He felt small. Weak. Helpless. He tried to move his arms, but they were wrapped in tight silk.
'Why is everyone so big? Why is there a guy with a glowing green hand? And why...'
He squinted, his infant eyes struggling to focus on the ceiling. It wasn't drywall. It was jade, glowing with runes. And out the window... were those floating islands?
'I... I reincarnated?'
The realization hit him like a physical blow. The memories of his past life came rushing back, crashing into his infantile brain.
He remembered Earth. He remembered the smell of asphalt and rain.
He had been a nobody. Just a twenty-year-old college freshman at a local community college. He wasn't special. He wasn't a genius like his older brother, who had graduated from a top institute with honors and was working at a multinational tech firm.
Lin Kai—or whatever his name had been then—was just a guy who liked webnovels, video games, and sleeping in. He had lived his life in the shadow of his brother's success, feeling a constant, dull frustration. He wanted to be great, but he didn't know how. He was bored with the monotony of modern life.
Then came that day.
He was walking home, headphones on, kicking a pebble down the footpath. He remembered seeing the little girl. The red balloon drifting into the busy street. The truck turning the corner, its horn blaring too late.
He hadn't thought. He hadn't calculated. For the first time in his life, he just acted.
He remembered the shove. The impact. The sound of his own bones shattering.
The hospital ceiling was white. Sterile. He remembered his mother crying, his father holding her. And his big brother... the perfect brother... looking at him with devastation in his eyes.
'I died,' Lin Kai thought, a wave of grief washing over him. 'Mom... Dad... I hope you're okay. Bro, take care of them for me. Please.'
He felt a pang of regret. He hadn't accomplished anything. He hadn't traveled the world, hadn't fallen in love, hadn't made his parents proud—except, perhaps, in his final moment.
But as the grief faded, something else took its place.
Curiosity.
He looked at the man holding him—his new father. The man radiated power. He felt like a walking nuclear reactor. And the people around him... they were flying?
'This isn't Earth. Ancient robes. Glowing lights. Floating islands... Is this a cultivation world?'
Lin Kai's inner geek began to hyperventilate. He had read thousands of these stories! Reincarnation! Cultivation! Immortality!
He looked at his tiny hands. He was alive again. He had a second chance.
'No more mediocrity,' he vowed, his infant determination burning fierce. 'In my last life, I was a background character. I was the side-note in my brother's success story. But here... look at this place! My parents seem to be big shots. I have a noble lineage!'
He felt the warmth of the man holding him, the sheer protective power radiating from him.
'I will protect them,' Lin Kai thought. 'I couldn't stay with my parents on Earth, but I will make sure nothing touches this family. I will cultivate. I will become strong. I will see what lies at the peak of this world!'
He didn't know about the suspicious glance the Clan Leader had given his mother. He didn't know that in ten years, this entire celebration would turn into mockery.
For now, Lin Kai simply yawned, his tiny mouth opening wide as the exhaustion of birth caught up with him.
'Watch out, world,' he thought as his eyes drifted shut, lulled by the rhythm of his father's heartbeat. 'The main character has arrived.'