I opened my eyes and saw not darkness, not stone walls, not the wreckage under which I had spent thirty years.I saw a ceiling. Wooden, crudely hewn, painfully familiar.
My heart pounded dully in my chest, as if for the first time.The air was clean, the light soft, and the noise outside — children laughing, birds singing, morning voices — was all too… alive.I was not dead.
I had returned.
It took me a while to realize I was lying on an old, worn-out mattress.The room — poor, shabby. I knew this place.The quarters for junior disciples, bastards, and strays. My childhood.
I rose slowly and approached the bronze mirror hanging on the wall.A boy of about ten stared back at me, his features sharp, his eyes already heavy with weariness.A small, weak body.But inside... inside, I was the same. And even more.Thirty years of suffering, pain, learning, meditation, and contemplation had not disappeared.They had become me.
"Seventy years ago," I whispered inwardly.
I did not know why or how it happened.I had not called upon the heavens.I had not prayed to the gods.But perhaps the sky itself decided to grant me a second chance.Or rather, a chance to see — what could be changed, without destruction.
I dressed in a gray disciple's robe.It was slightly short and worn.Everything was just as it had been.Even the smell of the training hall, carried by the morning wind — warm, woody, mixed with the scent of sweat and oiled swords.
I stepped outside into the inner courtyard.Passed under the clay-tiled eaves, walked across the stone slabs where my steps echoed softly, as if I was treading not on stone, but on memory.Everything here was familiar.There, the tree whose shadow once sheltered me from beatings.There, the fountain where senior warriors tossed coins for luck.There, old Master Yun's workshop, where dulled blades were mended after battle.
Everything remained.And yet — everything was different.
Two students passed nearby.I recognized them — older by a year or two, they once beat me for refusing to submit.Now they spared only a bored glance before walking away.To them, I was no one. Then and now.Only now — I understood it fully.
I walked slowly onward.By the training hall, students were already gathering.Voices, shouts, laughter — all vibrant, young, just as I was now.And yet, I felt nothing.I no longer sought acceptance.I no longer craved respect.Those years trapped within stone had drained my ambitions dry.I was no longer a victim.I was a flame hidden beneath ash.
Still — seeing it all again... my heart clenched.I remembered how I once longed for my father to glance at me with approval,or for my older brothers to extend a hand.But they never did — and I had not understood then just how impossible it was.I was but a stain on their reputation.A concubine's son. A bastard. An accident. A burden.And still I served. Like a dog.
A fool.
But now — I was free.Even in a child's body.Because my mind was old, tempered, and no longer owned by those who once dictated my fate.
— "What're you staring at, bastard?" — came a voice from the training hall entrance.
I turned my gaze.One of the juniors — Yang Gi — stood there, sneering, flanked by two cronies.They were a year younger than me, yet already trying to seem older.Little copies of their fathers — polished, arrogant, smirking with petty malice.I said nothing and simply walked past.I was no longer who they wanted me to be.
The training began.Simple movements, basic stances, strikes.I performed them automatically, like breathing.Master To occasionally glanced at me but said nothing.He too had once deemed me talentless.Now — his opinion was meaningless.
I moved precisely, lightly, as if the wind itself passed through me, touching neither muscle nor bone.I felt my body respond — still weak, but young.Too frail yet to channel qi.But enough — to rebuild.
At the end of the session, I lingered a little longer, resting at the edge of the yard.Everyone had already dispersed.I was about to return to the dormitory when I heard a rustle.I turned — five of them.Yang Gi and his friends.They silently cornered me in a narrow alley between the storehouse and the fence.
— "Bastard..." — one of them sneered, — "Think you're better than us now?"
I stayed silent.
— "You were nothing even when you fell. Now... you think you'll be forgiven just because you're a junior son?"
— "Look at him, acting like he's above us all," another jeered.
Laughter.Hollow. Sharp as broken glass.
I looked at them. Slowly.And suddenly I understood — they were children. Truly.And I — was not.
"Fools. If only you knew who stands before you..."
But I remained silent.I was not here for revenge.I was not here to break others' lives, as mine had once been broken.
I simply closed my eyes.
And waited for what they would do next.