The Vine Ceremony had ended, but its effects were only beginning to ripple through the poisonous waters of the Tang Clan. While the other children flaunted their vibrant vine sprouts, Tang Yun returned to his secluded courtyard, a place even the weeds hesitated to grow. His vine, a withered stalk with veins of deep green barely visible in the moonlight, looked like it would die with the next gust of wind.
But Tang Yun was not worried.
The Vine Year was a time of silent war twelve months during which each heir nurtured their vine with poison arts, qi, and blood. At the end, the vine would reveal their potential. Those whose vines withered would be deemed failures cut from inheritance, stripped of status, sometimes even... eliminated.
He had one year.
But Tang Yun had lived through bloodier calendars. This one would bloom with venom.
A Cunning Start
Tang Yun sat before his vine in meditation. Most children would try to pour qi directly into the seedling, feeding it with their own internal energy. But Tang Yun's qi was still meager Early Qi Awakening Realm, fragile and scarce.
Instead, he reached into a small lacquered box.
Inside were powdered remnants of dead petals Widow's Blanket, a minor poison herb with sleep-inducing qualities and parasitic roots. It was considered too weak for use in advanced poison arts, and most disciples ignored it. Tang Yun, however, fed it to the vine carefully diluted with herbal catalysts to awaken the vine's latent absorption.
The sprout trembled. A faint hiss emerged from its core.
He smiled.
"Let the others waste their energy feeding hungry ghosts," he muttered. "I'll raise a serpent that eats corpses."
Meanwhile, in the Main Courtyard
Tang Jinhai's vine sparkled crimson, drawing awe from passing elders and servants alike. Tang Feiyan's had formed the shape of a coiling orchid bud, deadly and beautiful. Tang Wuhen's was nowhere to be seen it had disappeared into the shadows behind his chambers, feeding on corpses of rats and birds.
They were powerful. Their talents undeniable.
And yet, each bore one weakness: they believed the competition was among each other.
None of them considered Tang Yun a variable.
Not yet.
First Movements
Three days after the Ceremony, Tang Yun visited the Poison Archives, a vast underground chamber containing thousands of scrolls and manuals most restricted to inner disciples.
He did not go through the front entrance.
Instead, he crawled through a broken ventilation shaft used by detox rats vermin bred to test poisons. Filthy, narrow, and riddled with residual venom mist, the path would have killed any normal twelve-year-old.
But Tang Yun had lived through worse. The mists made him cough blood, but also tempered his lungs.
Inside the Archives, he took only three things:
1. A degraded scroll on the old Tang Clan venom path: Rootbind Venom Qi, abandoned due to its slow cultivation.
2. A formula for a poison bait trap used to lure snake-type beasts.
3. A discarded fragment detailing a technique called Reverse Qi Absorption, where a cultivator could refine absorbed poisons into qi. Dangerous, potentially fatal but perfect for someone with little qi and great tolerance.
He left without a trace.
A Hidden Garden
Using old maps etched into his past life's memory, Tang Yun ventured outside the main compound one misty dawn to a ruined alchemy garden once used by his grandmother a minor elder from decades past, long forgotten.
The garden was wild now, overrun with creeping vines and faded markers. But among the detritus grew forgotten herbs: Ghostvine Root, Dustless Thorn, and Pale Nightshade.
Tang Yun knelt, brushing his fingers over their brittle stems.
"These will feed you well," he whispered to the vine seedling wrapped in silk near his chest.
There, among the ruins, he built a micro garden, one that obeyed no rules of the main clan. He used decayed bones and stagnant qi pools to build it, layer by layer just as he was rebuilding himself.
That night, Elder Tang Mo reviewed a scroll listing the movements of all twelve children.
When he came across Tang Yun's log, it read:
"Spent morning meditating. Afternoons in courtyard. No contact with others. Vine is withering."
He frowned.
"No child born from my niece should be so passive…"
Then he saw the corner of the scroll—a faint red fingerprint. A hidden message from his spy.
"Observed strange herbs near subject's residence. Vine not dead. Pulse irregular, yet… aggressive. Possible deviation path?"
Tang Mo tapped his finger against his lips.
"I thought you were a failing root. But maybe you're a weed that survives in poison."
The First Trial
The Vine Year was not without dangers.
On the seventh day, a notice was issued: all twelve heirs would compete in the Venom Bloom Trial, a gathering designed to test their vine's response to combat qi and real-world conditions.
It was a tradition. A bloodbath.
Disciples were allowed to sabotage others. Alliances, traps, even assassinations were unofficially sanctioned as long as they remained deniable.
Tang Yun received his notice folded in bone paper.
His time had come.
He looked at the small vine sprouting in his chamber, now grown half a finger tall. Its leaves were dull but its roots pulsed, feeding on minute traces of Widow's Blanket and refined corpse powder.
He smiled softly.
"Let the bloom begin."
[Tags]: Reincarnation, Martial Arts, Poison, Scheming Protagonist, Cultivation, Weak to Strong, Anti-Hero, Cold Protagonist, Clan Wars, Hidden Identity, Revenge