In the Central Spiritual Domain, the bluestone square of the Lin family's ancestral residence was sweltering with summer heat. Lin Yi, who was sixteen years old, knelt on the scalding stone slabs, and his back was burning hot under the midday sun. Staring at his own shadow on the ground, he heard the sound of his second uncle, Lin Zhentian's, boot heels crushing gravel approaching from afar. The wind stirred by his robe hem was mixed with the unique sandalwood scent of high-grade spiritual artifacts."Lin Yi, you are already sixteen years old, yet you haven't even stepped into the third level of the Spiritual Meridians Realm," Lin Zhentian's voice was like a blade quenched in ice, particularly harsh in the silent square. "From today onwards, your status as a direct descendant of the Lin family will be revoked, and you will be demoted to the Servant Hall."
There were gasps of shock from around. Lin Yi's fingers hanging over his knees curled into his palms, and his fingernails dug into the lines of his palms. Three days ago, he had overheard the elders' discussion. They said that on the battlefield where his father had fallen back then, someone had seen the Lin family's divine artifact, the "Nine Heavens Ring," appear in the enemy's formation. At this moment, a bitter taste welled up in his throat. Suddenly, he raised his head and looked towards the statue of their ancestor in the center of the square. "Second uncle, please give me three more months."
"Three months?" Lin Zhentian sneered, and a spiritual light emanated from the jade plaque at his waist. "Your mother begged me before she died to keep you in the clan. I have tolerated you for sixteen years. From today onwards, if you dare to set foot in the Martial Practice Ground even half a step—" He traced his finger through the air, and a blood-colored rune was branded between Lin Yi's eyebrows. "This 'Defective Meridians Seal' will make it feel like being cut by a knife every time you circulate your spiritual power."
The moment the intense pain struck, Lin Yi bit his tongue. Watching his second uncle turn and leave with a flick of his sleeve, he remembered the half-piece of jade slip that had emerged from under the stone slabs when he was mopping the floor in the ancestral hall last night. The moment his fingertips touched it, four ancient characters, "Mysterious Spiritual True Scripture," had appeared in his mind, along with a majestic voice: "My Lin family's first-generation ancestor left this scripture in the ruins, waiting for the awakening of the descendants' bloodline."
When the twilight soaked into the ancestral hall, Lin Yi's hand holding the broom suddenly stopped. The incense burner that had been knocked over during the day had rolled beside the base of the statue, revealing a half-piece of blue brick engraved with star patterns. He squatted down and dug his fingernails into the crack of the brick. Amidst the damp, musty smell, a sandalwood box wrapped in cobwebs rolled out. When the "Mysterious" character on the box lid lit up, the silver bracelet left by his mother on his wrist suddenly became hot and resonated with the box.
"Is this... the 'Mysterious Spiritual True Scripture'?" Lin Yi held his breath and opened the yellowed pages of the scripture. The incomplete characters automatically rearranged on his retinas, and those obscure sentences suddenly became as clear as the things right in front of him. When he circulated his spiritual consciousness according to the "Spiritual Summoning Technique" in the scripture, there was a soft "pop" sound from the qi sea in his dantian that had been silent for sixteen years. The spiritual qi from the outside world flowed in like a stream into a dry riverbed.
"It's so warm..." Lin Yi closed his eyes and felt the spiritual qi flowing along the eight extraordinary meridians. The meridians that had been burned by the "Defective Meridians Seal" were actually slowly healing. I don't know how long it had passed, but there were faint footsteps outside the ancestral hall. He hurriedly stuffed the wooden box into his clothes and looked up to see the hem of a pale moon-white skirt sweeping across the threshold. It was Su Yao, the recognized genius girl in the clan. She was two years younger than him but had already stepped into the fourth level of the Spirit Disciple Realm.
"Does a servant deserve to stay in the ancestral hall?" Su Yao pinched a handkerchief to cover her nose and her gaze fell on the silver bracelet on Lin Yi's chest. "Isn't this the keepsake left by Aunt Lin? If your mother knew that you are a good-for-nothing who can't even open his spiritual meridians, she would probably die with regret."
Lin Yi's hand hanging by his side suddenly clenched tightly. The warmth of the silver bracelet when his mother had stuffed it into his hand before she died now overlapped with the wooden box in his arms. When he raised his head, Su Yao was staring at the center of his eyebrows, where the blood-colored mark had somehow faded by a third.
"You... the mark between your eyebrows!" Su Yao suddenly reached out her hand, and a water arrow condensed at her fingertips shot straight towards his face. "Did you secretly learn a forbidden technique?"
Lin Yi instinctively leaned backward, and the wooden box slipped out of his clothes. He hurriedly reached out to pick it up, but Su Yao stepped on it with her toe a step ahead. The moment the girl bent down, he saw the Lin family's emblem engraved on her earring, which was exactly the same as the mark of the first-generation ancestor he had seen on the jade slip.
"Give it back to me!" Lin Yi pounced forward. The moment his fingertips touched Su Yao's wrist, two streams of spiritual qi suddenly resonated. Su Yao let out a cry of surprise, and the water arrow went out of control and shot towards the roof. Amidst the sound of broken tiles, the incomplete pages of the "Mysterious Spiritual True Scripture" flew out of the wooden box and hovered between the two of them. The golden characters flowed like a galaxy.
"This is... the aura of the ancestor?" Su Yao's voice trembled. She had read the records in the clan's annals. Only the direct bloodline of the Lin family could activate the true scripture to reveal its form. At this moment, looking at the light of the scripture reflected in Lin Yi's eyes, this good-for-nothing whom she had scoffed at on weekdays made her think of the legendary vision of "being infused with spiritual qi."
Lin Yi took the opportunity to snatch back the wooden box and stroked the gap on the incomplete page with his fingertips. "My mother said that the silver bracelet can protect me." He raised his head and looked at Su Yao's shocked face, suddenly showing a relieved smile. "It turns out that the real protection is to let me find this path that should have belonged to me."
The sound of the night watchman's gong came from outside the ancestral hall. Su Yao watched as Lin Yi carefully hid the wooden box close to his body. The moonlight leaked through the broken roof, illuminating his thin but straight back. This young man who hadn't even been worthy of her glance in the past was now surrounded by tiny spiritual light spots, like a young sapling surrounded by stars.
"If you dare to reveal the matter of the true scripture—" Su Yao suddenly turned around, and the tip of her hair brushed against Lin Yi's face. "Tomorrow at the hour of Mao (5 - 7 a.m.), at the Martial Practice Ground." She paused, and her voice was so soft that it seemed afraid of being heard by the wind. "I want to see if a good-for-nothing can really turn into a phoenix."
The night wind swept the broken tiles across the ground. Lin Yi touched the warm wooden box on his chest and remembered the opening sentence of the scripture, "Heaven and Earth are Mysterious and Spiritual, only by breaking can one be reborn." He looked towards the night sky outside the ancestral hall, and the twinkling stars were like his excited heartbeat at this moment. The sixteen years of humiliation would eventually turn into the kindling for his nirvana in the light of this incomplete scripture.
What he didn't know was that when Su Yao returned to her boudoir and looked at her reddish ear tips in the mirror, she suddenly found that there was a piece of golden scale armor in her sleeve. It was exactly the one that had fallen from Lin Yi when the true scripture had revealed its form just now. The scale armor unfurled in the moonlight and actually matched the pattern of the heart-protecting jade pendant she had been wearing since she was a child.