Darkness.
Not the gentle dark that precedes sleep, nor the comforting hush of dreams. This was deeper. Endless. A crushing, absolute void that swallowed all sensation. All sound. All self.
He had died. That much was certain.
The rain. The sharp bite of betrayal. The cold kiss of steel sliding between his ribs. The gritty pavement beneath his cheek. Then—stillness. A slow drift into not-being.
But something remained.
No breath. No body. No voice. Only awareness—thin and flickering, like the last ember in a forgotten brazier. A stray consciousness adrift in a sea of silence.
Then, it came.
Not a figure. Not a voice. A presence—vast, ancient, unmoving. Its existence pressed against the void like the weight of a collapsed star. Watching. Waiting.
His soul trembled.
It wasn't fear. Not quite. It was the unbearable, humbling certainty of insignificance. A grain of dust beneath an eternal sky.
And yet... it lingered.
Then—warmth.
A flicker, distant. Gentle. Like a star being born in the vast cold. It pulsed. Called. Pulled.
He followed.
The void cracked. The presence faded, receding like a tide drawn back into infinity. And then—
Pain.
---
A scream, raw and primal, tore through him. Not from memory. From now.
Cold air slammed into fragile lungs. His skin prickled as if a thousand needles danced across it. A crushing pressure squeezed his chest, forcing a cry from his newborn throat.
His first breath in a world that wasn't his own.
Mine?
Shapes blurred. Light and shadow danced wildly. The scent of blood, herbs, and damp stone—so sharp it carved into his brain. Words floated above him—foreign, and yet, through some strange echo in his soul, understood.
"It's a boy! The firstborn, Patriarch!"
A woman's voice—sharp, reverent. Then a man's voice followed, low and commanding.
Flames flickered on stone walls, casting looming shadows across a high, vaulted chamber. This was no hospital. No city. No place he knew.
He was not in his world anymore.
But there—beside him. Another presence. Gentle. Warm. Beating in harmony with his own. Not in thought, but in something deeper. A shared tether. A mirrored rhythm.
Another heartbeat.
A cry. Lighter. Brighter. Not his.
They were separated.
Movement. Cold cloth against his skin. Arms—firm, impersonal—lifted him.
Light grew stronger. Voices quieted.
> "Bring them."
A man's voice. Firm. Measured. But cold—colder than the stone floor.
He was carried into a hall of silence.
A ring of robed figures stood around a polished pedestal in the center. Atop it sat a mirror—no, not a mirror. A void carved into stone. Its surface was obsidian-dark, devouring even torchlight. Cold. Unwelcoming.
And waiting.
They placed the girl, before it first—the one born with him.
The mirror reacted instantly.
A golden flare burst outward, flooding the room in warm radiance. It pulsed like the heartbeat of the world itself. Elders gasped. Eyes gleamed.
"Dao-touched."
my "Heaven-favored." "She will walk the Path."
He didn't know the words, but the weight behind them pressed against his newborn skin like thunder.
Then—his turn.
He was lifted.
Placed before the same obsidian mirror.
The air chilled.
His small chest rose and fell in sharp, panicked motions. There was no understanding, only instinct. Dread. The flicker of a soul stripped bare.
The mirror rippled once.
And then… nothing.
No light. No warmth. No sound.
Only his reflection in black glass. Alone. Dull. Voiceless.
A silence heavier than death settled over the chamber.
Even as an infant, he felt it. The shift. The retreat. The disappointment.
The elder woman—his mother, though he would not know her warmth—glanced at him only once.
Then turned away.
Not in anger.
But in complete indifference.
His father said nothing. He stared at the unresponsive mirror with clenched fists, his jaw tight enough to crack bone.
Finally, his voice broke the silence. Cold. Measured. Dangerous.
"Listen well. From this day forward, one child was born. The—she is our future. The boy… never existed. Speak otherwise, and you defy the Clan's will."
No one challenged him.
The robed figures bowed, backs straight and eyes down.
In that instant, his fate was sealed.
He had been weighed—and found wanting.
The mirror, the symbol of spiritual roots and divine fate, had spoken.
He was nothing.
And so, into shadows he was carried. Unnamed. Unclaimed. Unwanted.
---
**Five Years Later.**
Time passed. Seasons shifted, though he did not know their names. He grew—not strong, not cherished, but simply… larger.
He was not taught. Not guided. No elders spoke his name, because none had ever given him one. So, in the quiet solitude of his mind, he chose one for himself. He called himself **Kai**. It was a name that felt like a whisper of strength, a solitary beacon in his forgotten existence.
Kai existed on the edge of the Arden Clan's estate—an afterthought in stone corridors, a shadow passing between footsteps.
**Lian**—his twin—shone like a sunrise. Draped in silk. Guided by sages. Her steps echoed through the halls like music. They called her gifted. A Heaven's Vein Physique. A child destined to reach realms of cultivation few dared dream of.
And him?
He watched from the corners. The cracks. The silence.
Fed when remembered. Beaten when mistaken for a servant. Spoken to only when orders were barked.
Kai learned the rules—not through lessons, but through the weight of silence. The sharpness of eyes turned away.
But he remembered.
He remembered every voice that never called his name. Every glance that slid past as if he were air. Every smile that turned cold when aimed in his direction.
Only two souls acknowledged him.
Aunt Mei, the old maid with brittle joints and a voice that hummed lullabies from a forgotten age. She touched his forehead when he was fevered and muttered, "Poor child. Poor little shadow."
And Lina, the quiet, younger maid who once left a warm bun beside him in the dark. She never said much, but she sat sometimes. And in the stillness, read to him from crumbling scrolls with ink-stained fingers.
They didn't offer him names or answers.
But they gave him what no one else did—presence.
Still, Kai never asked. Never cried. His silence was not surrender—it was a container. Deep. Patient. Unyielding.
At times, Kai stared through the slats of the wooden windows and saw Lian sparring, her blade trailing golden light. Elders clapped. Spirits stirred. He watched, a small, stolen flask of cool sweet fruit nectar
clutched in his hand, its chill a fleeting comfort. He took a slow sip, the creamy liquid a smooth, defiant sustenance for his empty belly.
And behind him, a cracked mirror—one someone had discarded—reflected a dark-skinned, barefooted boy with eyes that burned like coals in the dark...
This world has forgotten me, he thought once, watching her figure disappear over the hill, the milk's cool sustenance spreading through him.
Good.
Let them.
Because I will remember everything.
And when the day comes…
They will remember me, too...
---