The Zero Tier of Dai Long is a place where sunlight rarely dares to descend.
The cobblestone paths are slick with moisture, walls bloom with green moss, and from the rusted drainage cracks, thin streams trickle down, carrying a stench that clings to every breath.
No one lives here without knowing how to keep their head low… or how to pretend they see nothing.
Khanh had spent his entire childhood in this place. Orphaned before he could even recall the faces of his parents, he grew up with the wail of wind seeping through rusted tin roofs, and the creak of rickety bunk beds in the orphanage.
By the age of thirteen, he left school and went to the docks, earning his keep with the only things he had left — his shoulders and his back.
That afternoon, the man who hired him to haul cargo told him to deliver a few heavy sacks to a wooden house at the end of Alley Seventeen.
The wooden door groaned as it opened, revealing a thin, silver-haired man seated before the dim glow of an oil lamp. The weak yellow light traced every line of his aged face — ancient, but not entirely frail — and in his clouded eyes flickered the strange sensation of being pierced straight through flesh and into bone.
Resting one hand upon the table, the man tilted his head.
"Tell me… do you see a thread of mist, thin as silk, drifting about you?"
Khanh froze, frowning slightly.
"What? Probably just smoke. You've been inhaling too much of it."
The old man did not reply. His gaze only sharpened, tinged with a rare glimmer of curiosity.
Then he reached out, his skeletal hand pressing against Khánh's forehead.
Cold.
So cold it felt as though hundreds of needles were driven into his skull.
Visions flashed — darkness, a sea of blood, the howl of wind, and sounds from nowhere whispering into the marrow.
When the hand finally withdrew, Khánh saw the old man gasping for breath, beads of sweat sliding down his withered cheeks. His shoulders trembled, as though the simple touch had drained almost all his strength. His skin had turned pale, lips bloodless.
A pang of unease stirred in Khanh. He shot to his feet, retreating toward the door.
"I still have to work on the docks. You should rest."
But the man's voice followed, slow and deliberate.
"You… are of the Tran bloodline."
Khanh let out a dry, mocking laugh.
"You're mad. I grew up in an orphanage. No relatives, no clan, nothing."
The old man's eyes were deep, cold. Each word he spoke stripped away another layer of the armor in Khánh's mind.
"A room of rotting wood… a bunk bed ready to collapse… the rain pounding on tin each winter night.
The first time you were beaten was when you stood in front of a small boy in the orphanage yard.
At thirteen, the first cargo you howled at the docks — you slipped, struck your back against the wooden steps, and nearly blacked out."
Khanh's chest tightened. Fragments of memory he had long buried surged up, vivid enough that he could almost smell the damp rain on that day.
"… What do you want me to do?" His voice was hoarse.
The old man only smiled faintly.
Outside, the heavy mist of the Zero Tier crept through the cracks in the door, swallowing the sound of footsteps beyond — leaving only the rhythm of two breaths in the dim wooden room.