The sky was a deep shade of grey, with dark clouds gathering on the horizon, threatening to unleash a torrential downpour. The air was heavy with the scent of ozone, and the wind carried a faint coolness—a quiet herald of summer's approach.
Kaito stood by the window, gazing out at the shifting clouds. His thoughts spiraled through layers of strategy and calculation, his mind racing with plans to avert the tragedies he knew were coming. A month had passed since he had saved Mei, and the aftermath had been a blur of attention, questions, and whispers. Now, he was calculating timelines, anticipating reactions, and preparing countermeasures.
Then a sudden memory surfaced—his upcoming birthday, and the sibling he might soon have. If his calculations were correct, Luo Wei was three months pregnant. That meant a sister would be born five months before he turned ten. The realization tightened something in his chest.
In his previous life, his family had suffered a cruel fate—his parents and sister consumed by the backlash of his overflowing karma. Their deaths had been the price of his arrogance, the consequence of his failure to control the storm within him.
This time, it would be different. He viewed the unborn child as another variable to manage, another factor in the grand equation of his survival.
"Hm. A little sister, huh?" Kaito thought, expression unchanging. "Another pawn to be used... or sacrificed, if necessary."
He weighed the idea with cold precision. "Without the blood tie of fate," he mused inwardly, "she's merely an existence—something that can be let go if it ensures my safety."
His thoughts coiled and shifted, schemes forming and dissolving as he refined his future path. So lost was he in his inner world that he barely noticed the passage of time.
A soft knock interrupted his thoughts.
"Kaito, dinner's ready," came Luo Wei's gentle voice from the other side of the door.
He didn't respond. Luo Wei waited for a heartbeat, then sighed and went back downstairs—already used to her son's silence.
Kaito finally stirred, his stomach grumbling in protest. He descended the wooden steps, expression flat, eyes distant.
In the dining room, Luo Wei and Feng Huang sat waiting. They both looked up when he entered, their eyes filled with concern and unspoken questions.
"Hey, Kaito," Luo Wei began softly. "Have you been feeling okay lately?"
Kaito gave a short grunt in reply and began to eat in silence. Luo Wei's lips tightened, but she tried to smile.
"Kaito, eat more, okay? You haven't been eating much these days."
He nodded mechanically, continuing to eat without emotion. The only sound that filled the room was the quiet clinking of utensils—a fragile rhythm in an atmosphere thick with worry.
When the meal ended, Kaito rose from his seat and returned to his room. His parents watched him go, concern deepening in their eyes. They thought they understood—that Kaito's silence came from anxiety over his adoption into the Fei Clan and the upcoming life at Min Academy.
They believed it was simply too much for a young boy to process.
But they were wrong.
Their son was not a boy burdened by change.
He was a man who had lived 7,777 years, reborn and bound by karma—a being who had already seen empires rise and fall, and who now watched the world from behind the eyes of a child.