The Jin Clan estate nestled deep within the forgotten folds of Yu Province, where mountains slouched instead of rising and rivers trickled more than they flowed. It was a patch of quiet obscurity—where ambition went to rot and honor wore a cracked mask. The estate itself, once a proud homestead, had aged poorly: stone pathways overgrown with moss, gates hanging on rusted hinges, and training fields left untrodden for seasons.
To most in the empire, this clan was a footnote. But to Jin Wu-ren, this was the starting point of his second life. A pitiful stage, yes—but every emperor begins somewhere.
He lay swaddled in coarse linens, cradled in his mother's arms as she made her way through the clan's central pavilion. The hall wasn't grand—it barely held the thirty or so elders and key figures who gathered for seasonal matters. Bamboo screens rattled with wind, and the rafters groaned like the bones of an old man. Lamps flickered in their sconces, casting gold and gray patterns across the weary floor.
Mu Qinglan moved with the grace of someone trying not to be noticed. Her robes were neat but unadorned, her eyes downcast as she presented her herb-picking reports to the elders.
Jin Wu-ren, held close to her chest, scanned the room with half-lidded eyes, pretending infantile confusion. But his mind was sharp—alert to every whisper, every glance, every shift of spiritual pressure.
Then came the voice he'd anticipated.
"Oh dear, Qinglan," said Lady Jin Rou, her tone sweetened with cruelty. "Still no pills to contribute? Even basic vitality draughts would help the stores, don't you think?"
The jab struck harder than it seemed. Mu Qinglan's mouth tightened.
Jin Rou continued, brushing a speck of dust from her sleeve as if dismissing dirt and person alike. "When I joined the clan, I had already refined three pills before my wedding day. And my Jin Shuo—oh, he showed signs of awakening his meridians by his third winter."
Laughter followed. Polite. Poisoned.
Jin Wu-ren felt a familiar heat rise in his gut—not qi, but anger. Controlled. Calculated. Lady Jin Rou's son was trash, and she, worse—an opportunist with no cultivation worth noting, living off her husband's waning prestige. But here, among sheep, even a barking dog seemed like a wolf.
As fate—or fortune—would have it, Elder Jin Rou had just placed a small, embroidered pouch on the low table at the front of the gathering. A gift, meant for the clan head. Spiritual threads pulsed faintly from the seams. Likely a weak charm or stored herb packet.
Jin Wu-ren shifted in his mother's arms. His small body cooed and gurgled, but behind those sounds was intent. He inhaled deeply through his nose, and as he exhaled, pushed a minute thread of qi from his damaged soul core. The thread flickered across the room, almost imperceptible, resonating with the pouch's threads.
A pop. A sizzle.
Then, with an anticlimactic poof, the pouch split open, sending a small cloud of yellow powder into the elder's lap.
"By the heavens—!" the man leapt up, brushing furiously at his robe.
The dust clung, staining fabric and dignity alike.
A ripple of chuckles passed through the hall.
Lady Jin Rou's eyes bulged. "That… that shouldn't have—"
"Defective seal, maybe," someone offered helpfully.
Mu Qinglan blinked, surprised, then looked down at her son. He gurgled again, smiling with perfect baby-tooth innocence.
She smiled too. The first genuine smile he'd seen from her in weeks.
Jin Wu-ren basked in that small moment—not out of pride, but confirmation. Even a broken cultivator could start a fire, if he knew where to breathe.
In the shadows of the hall, two other eyes noted the exchange. Granny Mei's stare sharpened, unreadable and cold. And Jin Hai, the quiet uncle, frowned thoughtfully.
The next morning arrived with the screeching of crows and the thump of wooden sandals over stone. Jin Wu-ren was nestled in the corner of the small herb-drying shed behind his family's cottage. While Mu Qinglan thought he slept soundly in his bundle, Jin Wu-ren sat in a half-lotus position, posture imperfect only because his body was still so laughably soft. But within, his will was unyielding.
His body drew in spiritual energy—threadlike, slow, but steady.
"Even this spoiled air..." he murmured inside his mind, "…is sweeter than a god's lie."
The qi here was pitiful—diluted, sluggish, and riddled with mortal impurities. It swam like algae in murky water, unlike the pure rivers of energy that had flowed atop the Cloud Jade Peaks where he once cultivated. But it responded to him nonetheless.
He didn't just absorb qi—he coaxed it. Lured it with resonance.
That resonance came from a fragment of a long-lost technique: Crimson Void Sutra: Root Phase. One of seven stages he had pieced together in his third life, after ripping it from the soul-sealed tomb of the Scarlet Sect.
He remembered the battle clearly.
Fifty against one.
He had stood barefoot in the Ashen Blight Valley, skin torn, eyes bloodshot, facing down the Red Lotus Scions who had slain entire sects in pursuit of dominance. They thought he was just another stubborn rogue. Until he broke their formation by detonating his own heart meridian in a decoy technique, killing three elders before he reforged his core with forbidden fire.
It was from one of their fallen scrolls—charred and fractured—that he had recovered the Root Phase technique. Designed not for power, but for perfect adaptation. It taught one how to drink even from poisoned wells, how to bloom even in shadow.
Now, in the straw-scented silence of the shed, he invoked it with halting breathwork.
His qi spiraled through his tiny meridians—sluggish, sometimes stalling, but it moved. He pressed his will into every inch of the flow.
Push.
Pull.
Pulse.
Each cycle brought a faint shimmer to his skin.
Each inhale grew warmer.
But secrecy was paramount. His mother checked on him thrice a day. His father once in the evenings. Jin Wu-ren timed his sessions precisely, halting whenever their footsteps neared.
He mimicked sleep. He feigned hunger. He cried when needed.
The irony wasn't lost on him: once, the world trembled at his roar. Now, a wail served better.
But the strategy worked. No one suspected the infant Jin Wu-ren was cultivating. Granny Mei, sharp as she was, had sensed a fluctuation once. But he'd buried it behind a facade of a child's hiccup and a conveniently timed diaper explosion.
Still, it wouldn't be long before someone caught on. And that meant it was time to do more than just survive.
He needed to send a message.
A small one.
A flicker. A reminder to this world: the Immortal Emperor still lived.
And he had begun to grow again.