There were two kinds of power in this world.
The first was loud—realms announced through heaven-shaking pressure, bloodlines revealed in blazing auras, authority enforced with visible terror.
The second was quiet, it began with timing.
Blackstone City's outer market thrummed with late-afternoon chaos. Vendors shouted prices over the clatter of carts, cultivators bartered low-grade spirit stones for herbs, and the smell of grilled meat mixed with cheap incense and sweat.
Lu Haotian moved through the crowd like water—plain robes, muted aura, eyes scanning without lingering. He had come to purchase more tempering herbs for himself , but fate had other plans. A commotion erupted near the edge of the herb stalls.
Five small figures were surrounded by a burly merchant and two hired guards.
The children—dirty, ragged, no older than nine—were on their knees, one clutching a single bruised apple.
The eldest boy, thin but wiry, had already shoved the younger ones behind him, arms spread wide despite the fresh bruise blooming across his cheek.
"You little rats think you can steal from me?" the merchant bellowed, raising a thick bamboo rod.
"I'll break your hands so you never touch what isn't yours again!"
The guards advanced, The youngest girl—barely eight—whimpered and tried to hide behind the eldest boy's legs.
The eldest didn't flinch, He bared his teeth like a cornered wolf pup, shielding the others with his body. Lu Haotian stopped, his soul perception brushed them gently—five bright, uncrushed souls, alert and fiercely protective of one another, not broken, not twisted, just… surviving.
He stepped forward, the merchant noticed him first.
"Who are you, boy? This doesn't concern—"
Lu Haotian raised a hand, calm.
"How much for the apple?" he asked evenly.
The merchant blinked, thrown off.
"Five copper coins. But they stole it. They need punishment—"
Lu Haotian reached into his sleeve and produced a small pouch.
He dropped ten copper coins into the merchant's hand—twice the price.
"Consider it paid," he said.
"And the bruises they already have… paid for as well."
The merchant stared at the coins, then at the masked youth whose aura felt ordinary but whose presence felt… wrong, like standing too close to still water that might suddenly swallow you. He grunted.
"Fine. Take the brats. But if I see them near my stall again—"
"They won't be," Lu Haotian said quietly.
The guards stepped back, the merchant pocketed the coins and waved them off, muttering. The five children stayed frozen.
The eldest boy—Chen Wei—still stood in front, arms out, eyes narrowed with suspicion, he didn't thank Lu Haotian, he didn't lower his guard.
"Who are you?" he demanded, voice rough from the blow to his cheek.
"What do you want?"
Lu Haotian looked at each of them—Chen Wei shielding the others, Lin Mei clutching the bruised apple like a treasure, the three younger ones peeking from behind with wide, wary eyes.
"I want nothing," he said simply.
"But you look hungry."
He reached into his pouch again and produced a small cloth bundle—five steamed buns, still warm from a nearby stall.
He placed it on the ground between them, no smile, no pity.
"Eat," he said.
Chen Wei stared at the buns, then back at the stranger. His fists clenched tighter.
"You think food buys us?" he spat.
"We're not your dogs."Lu Haotian met his gaze calmly. "I don't want dogs, I want people who can stand on their own."
He turned to leave, after three steps, he paused.Without looking back, he added:
"There's an abandoned courtyard on the eastern edge of the city. No one claims it.
It has a roof, It has walls, if you want shelter tonight… it's there." He walked away.
Behind him, Chen Wei remained rooted, arms still spread protectively, The younger ones looked at the buns, then at their eldest brother. Chen Wei's shoulders slowly lowered, He stared at the retreating back of the youth. Then he looked at the food, then at his siblings. Finally, he exhaled—a small, defeated sound.
He knelt and picked up the bundle, He broke the first bun and handed half to Lin Mei.
The others crowded close, they ate in silence, eyes darting toward the direction the stranger had gone, Chen Wei swallowed, he would not trust easily. But for tonight…But the courtyard…
That courtyard had been mentioned with a strange weight in the stranger's voice.
What Chen Wei didn't know—what no one knew—was that the courtyard was not just any abandoned place. It had belonged to Lu Haotian's mother.
Before she died on that meaningless mission with his father, she had quietly bought the small, crumbling yard with the last of her personal savings—money earned refining low-grade pills for outer disciples.
She never told the Lu Family elders.
It was her secret refuge, the one place she could breathe when the clan's indifference became too much. She had shown it to him once, when he was six—barely a month before the mission that took her life.
"This is ours," she had whispered, kneeling beside him in the overgrown yard.
"Not the clan's. Not anyone's. Just ours.
If the world ever turns too hard… come here.
Plant something,
Wait,
Things grow even in silence."
After her death, the clan never mentioned it.
They had no record.
She had paid in unmarked spirit stones, signed nothing with the family seal. It simply existed with the deed always with him.
When Lu Haotian first saw the five orphans in the market—Chen Wei shielding the others, refusing to lower his arms even after he paid for the apple—he had not chosen the courtyard by chance.
He had brought them to the one place in the world that still carried the echo of someone who had once shielded him. A place where things could grow—even in silence.
Somewhere in the crowd, Lu Haotian felt five small souls flicker with the first faint light of something new. Not loyalty—not yet, but possibility.
He smiled, small and unseen.
The seeds had been planted.
And somewhere in the crowd, Lu Haotian felt five small souls flicker with the first faint light of something new. Now they would grow—slowly, quietly, in silence.