Dust.
That was the first thing to slip into Mo Tianyin's awareness every morning. The dust of Lower Yulong City, heavy with the stench of sweat, rot, and inevitable fate. He hadn't opened his eyes yet, but the scent of despair was enough. The air of the lower caste – tainted blood inhaled by those born condemned.
He opened his eyes. The cracked ceiling of the shack, where thin strands of sunlight filtered through like pitiful mercy. He didn't need mercy. He turned his head on the rough mat. On the rickety table beside him sat a small, chipped mirror. He picked it up.
The watermark.
It was the first thing his eyes landed on in the reflection, and as always, it stirred something fossilized deep inside him. A faint blue mark, the size of a copper coin, stamped on the left side of his forehead, like the branding of livestock. Its shape was a complex arrowhead flower – the symbol of "Tainted Blood." A mark of shame that screamed to the world: this being is incomplete, impure, a servant by birth. It stood out clearly on his pale skin, a daily reminder that no matter how sharp his mind or strong his will, in the eyes of the system, he was nothing more than a number in the slave registry.
"Mercy is a dream the weak invented..." he whispered, voice devoid of tone, his cold gray eyes staring into his reflection. "...and I wake up every day to reality."
Reality was a nightmare arranged with clinical precision. The "Blood Purity System" – a sacred hierarchy in the Jianlong Empire, dividing people from birth into unbreakable castes. At the top: the "Purebloods," nobles of ancient lineages whose Heavenly Qi flowed uncontaminated, capable of reaching immortality and absolute power. In the middle: the "Mixed Bloods," the merchants, guards, and craftsmen who served the nobles and aspired to imitate them. And at the bottom, sprawling like a swamp: the "Tainted Blood." The filth. The slaves. Not even considered fully human. Their blood was corrupt, their energy flawed, their fate etched onto their foreheads with an indelible mark.
Mo Tianyin rose in one fluid motion, like a predator preparing to hunt. His thin body, hidden under tattered coarse clothes, didn't look strong. But a keen eye would notice the hardness in his muscles, the deadly grace in his movements. His true power lay in his mind – a brain like a complex machine, analyzing every detail, calculating every possibility, anticipating betrayal before the lips could speak it. In a world ruled by blood, he found his weapon in relentless cold logic.
He stepped out of his crumbling hut into the alleyways of the lower city. A familiar scene of rotting misery: huts stacked like graves, children with protruding bones begging with filthy faces, men and women bearing the tainted blood mark on their foreheads, their eyes hollow like the walking dead, carrying burdens heavier than their bent backs. The air was thick with the shouting of vendors, barking of stray dogs, and the crack of a whip lashing a man who had worked too slowly.
Mo Tianyin walked calmly, avoiding stagnant puddles, his eyes scanning the scene without pause. He was always watching. The movements of the neighborhood guards – Mixed Bloods in cheap armor, swaggering around, ready to use their clubs on any Tainted who dared look at them. The exhausted faces, searching for any seed of rebellion that could be exploited, or betrayal that could be bought. Even a fight between two dogs over a bone, he analyzed like a strategist reading a battlefield.
"Look at him! The tainted prince goes for a stroll!"
A mocking voice, laced with cruel laughter. Three young men of Mixed Blood, their clothes less tattered than those of the slum's residents, blocked his path. Their leader, a plump youth with a pimpled face, stepped forward, eyes scanning Mo Tianyin with disdain.
"Heard you think you're smart, filth." He spat near Mo Tianyin's feet. "Slaves don't think. They obey. That's nature."
Mo Tianyin didn't smile. Didn't snarl. Didn't even raise his eyes. He just stopped. His gray eyes met the youth's. A cold, deep stare – like looking at an insect pinned to a board.
"Nature..." he repeated the word quietly, as if tasting it. "Such an interesting thing. Used to justify cruelty, to break wills, to maintain a corrupt system." He paused, then added, voice low but slicing through the alley like a blade: "But even nature… can be bent."
The plump youth didn't expect such a calm response. Anger spread on his face. "You speak like you're better than us, scum?!" He reached out to push Mo Tianyin.
The hand never touched him.
With a motion too swift to see clearly, Mo Tianyin tilted slightly. The youth's hand swiped empty air. In the same moment, Tianyin's foot slid subtly, and his hand brushed lightly – very lightly – behind the youth's knee. A touch as soft as a feather.
The youth suddenly cried out – not in pain, but confusion. His right knee buckled beneath him and he nearly collapsed, stunned. He looked around in anger and confusion, but Mo Tianyin had already taken two steps forward, walking away smoothly as if nothing had happened. The touch wasn't magic. It was precise knowledge of human weak points and flawless timing.
"Leave him, Xing! He's cursed!" one of his companions whispered, shaken by the eerie coldness in Mo Tianyin's eyes. "He brings bad luck."
The two dragged Xing, still stumbling, away, throwing back glances of hatred and fear. Mo Tianyin didn't look back. He kept walking. That encounter wasn't worth a flicker of emotion. Just another trivial obstacle on a far longer path.
Today, that path led him to the "Slave Market." Not to buy or sell, but to observe. To learn. The market was the beating heart of injustice. Wooden cages stacked with people. Men, women, children. All bearing the faint blue mark. Their eyes filled with terror or dead acceptance. On an opulent platform grotesquely out of place, a fat slave trader of Mixed Blood, dressed in fine silk, shouted descriptions of his "goods."
"Look! Fresh stock from the north! Excellent miners! Tough as stone, cheap as dirt!" He whipped a cage, making the children inside flinch.
On the other side, a group of young nobles of Pure Blood, dressed in gleaming silk robes, wandered between the cages like visitors in a strange zoo. Their laughter was loud, careless. One, a handsome youth with sharp features and a golden flower mark on his forehead – the highest Pure Blood symbol – pointed lazily at a thin girl in a cage.
"That one. Her eyes are soft. She'll make a nice doll for my room."
The fat trader handed silver coins to an attendant and ordered the cage opened. The trembling girl was dragged out, screaming, but her voice was lost in the market's roar. The noble youth laughed, gripping her chin between two fingers as he inspected her like merchandise. "Yes, she'll do after some feeding."
Mo Tianyin watched from the shadow of a stone pillar. No anger on his face. No disgust. Just cold analysis. He saw the fear in the slaves' eyes, the greed in the traders', and the murderous indifference in the nobles'. A complete system. A structure of injustice built on the myth of "purity." Every brick tainted, from top to bottom.
"It must burn…" he whispered within, the image forming in his mind. Not just the nobles. The entire system. Its ideology, economy, mechanisms of control – everything. "No child will be born a slave again. Not one."
On his way back, he passed a narrow alley. Near a heap of trash, a small boy, no older than five, the Tainted mark clear on his tiny forehead, trembled, clutching his empty belly. A dry cough shook his fragile body. His large, sickened eyes briefly met Mo Tianyin's. A silent plea for something… anything. A loaf of bread. A word of comfort. A human look.
Mo Tianyin stopped. He looked at the child. Saw death approaching him. Saw the misery awaiting every bearer of the mark. He saw… weakness. Weakness that had no place in the world he intended to build. A world of strength and cold logic, where mercy only prolonged suffering.
"Mercy… is a dream." He repeated his morning words, his voice metallic in the alley's silence.
Then he walked on. Didn't look back. Didn't slow his step. Left the child trembling on the cold stones. His death would be swift. Perhaps that was the greatest "mercy" Mo Tianyin could offer in this world: an end to suffering. But deep down, it wasn't about mercy. It was about principle. The weak are not saved. Their pain is not prolonged. Only the strong deserve to remain — and to change the world.
He reached his shack as darkness fell. The lower city drowned in a blackness deeper than night itself, pierced only by faint lights and wandering guard fires. Above, in the upper quarters of the Pure and Mixed Bloods, lights glittered like a separate galaxy — artificial stars in a world far removed from his.
He stood for a moment outside his hut, looking up. At the true stars piercing the dark sky, distant, cold, uncaring. Like his own eyes.
"You will burn too, in the end." he said to the lights above, his voice soft as wind in the night. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But my day will come."
He entered the hut. Did not light a lamp. Darkness was his closest companion. He sat on his mat, back straight, eyes open in the void. In his mind, gears began to turn. Plans spun like spider threads, stretching from the alleys of the lower city to the noble palaces above. Every movement he had witnessed today, every word, every look, became data feeding his grand equation. The equation of system collapse.
He raised his hand slowly and touched the faint blue mark on his forehead. The touch wasn't gentle. It was affirmation. Reminder. Promise.
"The rebellion of tainted blood… begins here," he whispered into the darkness. "And you… you won't see it coming until the flames devour you."
Outside, the howl of a stray dog echoed. A short yelp, then silence. Life, or death, in Lower Yulong. Mo Tianyin didn't lift his head. He was too busy. Calculating. Planning. Waiting.
Morning would come. And so would the dust.
But something… had begun.