Time, as it turned out, was the one thing even a reincarnator couldn't cheat.
One year.
Twelve excruciatingly long months had passed since Lin Kai had opened his eyes in the Crimson Cloud Pavilion. In his previous life, reading webnovels, the protagonists usually skipped this part. They would be born, instantly bond with a spirit beast, or perhaps meditate in the womb to reach the Foundation Establishment realm before their umbilical cord was even cut.
Lin Kai? He pooped. He ate. He slept. And then he pooped again.
'This is a scam,' Lin Kai thought bitterly, staring up at the intricate jade carvings of the ceiling for the thousandth time. 'Where is my system? Where is my innate supreme strength? I tried to do a sit-up yesterday and ended up rolling over like a stranded turtle.'
He was currently lying on a mat woven from Spirit-Grass, which was supposedly excellent for nourishing the bones of infants. To him, it just felt scratchy.
He kicked his chubby legs in the air, testing his muscles. 'Weak. Pathetic. I thought being born in a high-cultivation world meant babies came out bench-pressing boulders. But no, biology is still biology. My neck muscles are barely strong enough to hold up my head.'
The frustration was real. He had an adult mind, filled with the complex memories of a college student, trapped in a body that had zero coordination. He wanted to run, to explore this floating island, to find the library and start learning about this world. Instead, his biggest daily achievement was successfully burping without throwing up milk on his mother's silk robes.
"Kai'er is full of energy today," a soft voice drifted from the side.
Lin Kai stopped his angry leg-kicking and turned his head. His mother, Yu Yue, was sitting by the window, embroidering a piece of cloth with threads that shimmered like starlight. Even after a year, her beauty still stunned him. She didn't look like a mother; she looked like a fallen immortal.
But Lin Kai noticed things. His adult mind picked up on details a normal baby would miss.
He noticed how she rarely left the Crimson Cloud Pavilion. He noticed how she would sometimes stare out the window at the distant floating islands with a gaze that was ancient and incredibly sad. And he noticed the tension—the invisible wire pulled taut whenever guests arrived.
Knock. Knock.
Speaking of guests.
"Madam," the voice of Elder Feng Xiu came from the door. "The Young Miss Yan'er has arrived for her playdate."
Yu Yue's hand paused mid-stitch. Her shoulders stiffened imperceptibly, a reaction so slight that only someone watching her as closely as Lin Kai would notice.
"Let them in," she said, her voice smooth and welcoming, masking whatever she truly felt.
The heavy wooden doors creaked open. First came a nanny, a woman dressed in the stiff, formal gray robes of the Main House. Her face was severe, her eyes scanning the room like a hawk looking for prey before settling on Yu Yue. She bowed, but it was mechanical, lacking the warmth Feng Xiu showed.
And in her arms was a toddler.
Lin Yan'er.
She was perhaps two years old, a year older than Lin Kai. She was undeniably cute, like a porcelain doll brought to life. She wore a dress of pale pink spirit-silk, and her hair was tied up in two small buns held by pearl pins. Her eyes were big, round, and innocent, sparkling with a curiosity that hadn't yet been crushed by the weight of clan politics.
"Kai-Kai!" the little girl squealed, wriggling down from the nanny's arms.
She toddled over to the mat, holding a wooden cart carved from scented sandalwood.
Lin Kai sighed internally. 'Here we go again. The daily humiliation.'
"Gaa," Lin Kai replied, which was his best attempt at saying, 'Hello, little girl.'
Yan'er flopped down next to him, shoving the wooden cart into his face. "Vroom!" she mimicked sound effects, pushing the cart over Lin Kai's stomach.
Lin Kai accepted his fate and batted at the cart with his chubby hand, playing along. 'She is cute, I'll give her that. It's hard to believe this innocent blob is going to break my heart of twenty-one years.'
But while the children played, the room's atmosphere was freezing.
Yu Yue had set aside her embroidery. She watched Yan'er with a complex expression—a mixture of affection for the child and wariness of her bloodline. After all, this was the daughter of Lin Yang, the Clan Leader who had looked at her with such suspicion on the day of Kai's birth.
"The Young Miss is growing fast," Yu Yue said politely to the nanny.
"Indeed," the nanny replied, her voice clipped. "The Clan Leader has already begun bathing her in medicinal baths. Her meridians are responding well. She is a true genius of the Main Line."
The words were a subtle jab. A reminder of status. Main Line vs. Branch Line.
Lin Kai, who was currently chewing on the wheel of the wooden cart, paused. 'Medicinal baths at two years old? Is that guy crazy? That's child abuse! Or... creates a super-soldier. Damn, I need to step up my game.'
He looked at Feng Xiu, the old healer. The old man was standing in the corner, his hands tucked into his sleeves, but his posture was coiled, ready to move in an instant. It was a level of vigilance one would expect in a war zone, not a nursery.
'Why are they so scared?' Lin Kai wondered. 'Is it just political infighting? Or is there something about me... or Mom... that they are terrified will be discovered?'
The playdate lasted an hour. When the nanny finally scooped Yan'er up to leave, the little girl waved enthusiastically. "Bye-bye Kai-Kai!"
As the door clicked shut, the tension in the room snapped like a cut rubber band. Yu Yue let out a long breath, her shoulders sagging. She walked over to the mat and picked Lin Kai up, burying her face in his neck. She smelled of lavender and something metallic, like ozone.
"Grow strong, my little dragon," she whispered, her voice fierce. "You must grow strong quickly."
Lin Kai took those words to heart.
The humiliation of being immobile had to end. He was a reincarnator! He had pride!
For the next few weeks, he treated his crib like a gymnasium. When no one was looking, he practiced pushing himself up. He focused on his core muscles. He tried to sense the Qi in the air to reinforce his wobbly legs.
And finally, a month later, the breakthrough happened.
It was a sunny afternoon. Yu Yue was reading a scroll nearby. Lin Kai gripped the edge of a low tea table. His chubby legs trembled. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
'Steady... steady... engage the glutes... focus!'
With a grunt of exertion that sounded more like a constipated squeak, Lin Kai pulled himself up. He locked his knees. He let go of the table.
One step.
Two steps.
He wobbled dangerously, his center of gravity shifting like a drunkard, but he didn't fall. He took a third step, right towards his mother.
Yu Yue looked up, and the scroll fell from her hands.
"Kai'er?"
"Ba!" Lin Kai announced triumphantly, throwing his hands up. 'I did it! I'm walking! Next stop, flight!'
Yu Yue rushed over, scooping him up and spinning him around, her laughter ringing like wind chimes. It was a moment of pure, unadulterated joy, free from the shadows of the clan. "You're walking! Feng Xiu! Look! He's walking!"
The old healer hurried in, a rare grin splitting his wrinkled face. "A sturdy foundation, Madam! He has excellent balance."
To celebrate this monumental achievement (and to satisfy Lin Kai's desperate boredom), Yu Yue decided to take him on a tour.
Carrying him in a sling across her chest, she stepped out of the Crimson Cloud Pavilion and into the wider world of the Lin Clan.
If Lin Kai had been impressed by the view from the window, the reality blew his mind.
The Lin Clan wasn't just a house; it was a city. A city built on clouds.
They walked along bridges made of white marble that arched over endless drops of blue sky. Below them, massive cranes with wingspans of twenty feet glided on the thermals. Far in the distance, he saw waterfalls pouring from one floating island to another, the water turning into mist before it hit the void below.
"That is the Martial Hall," Yu Yue said, pointing to a massive, pagoda-style structure where booming sounds echoed. "That is where the disciples train. And over there, the Alchemy Peak."
As they walked, they passed servants, guards, and junior disciples.
What Lin Kai saw fascinated him.
Whenever they saw Yu Yue, they didn't just bow. They froze. They moved out of the way with a haste that bordered on panic. They lowered their heads so low their noses touched their knees.
"Greetings, Third Madam!"
"Respects to the Crimson Fairy!"
'Crimson Fairy?' Lin Kai noted the nickname. 'They respect her, yes. But they also fear her. Look at that guard's hand—it's shaking.'
He looked up at his mother's face. She walked with her head high, her expression cold and regal, completely different from the warm woman who sang him lullabies. She was a queen walking among commoners.
'Who exactly were you, Mom, before you married Dad?' Lin Kai wondered. 'You aren't just a trophy wife. You have an aura that scares people with higher cultivation bases than you.'
The tour ended as the sun began to set, painting the clouds in hues of purple and gold. They returned to their pavilion, the lights of the clan flickering on like stars.
That night, as Yu Yue tucked him into his crib, Lin Kai realized something.
"Where is Dad?"
Lin Feng hadn't been home in days. In fact, Lin Kai had only seen his father a handful of times in the last year. He was always rushing in, smelling of blood and herbs, checking on them for a few minutes, and then rushing out again.
"Storytime," Yu Yue whispered, interrupting his thoughts. She stroked his forehead, her finger tracing the red strips in his black hair.
"Long ago," she began, her voice taking on a hypnotic rhythm, "before the continents were split, the world was ruled by the sun and the moon. The sun was proud and burned bright, but the moon... the moon held the secrets of the void."
Lin Kai listened intently. He knew these weren't just fairytales. In a world like this, legends were history.
"The sun banished the moon because he feared her cold beauty," Yu Yue murmured, her eyes distant. "But the moon never truly left. She just waits. Waiting for the stars to align."
She kissed his forehead. "Sleep now, my little star."
As the room went dark, Lin Kai lay awake, listening to the rhythmic breathing of his mother in the next bed.
He thought about the massive Martial Hall he had seen. He thought about the fear in the servants' eyes. He thought about his absent father, who was likely out there fighting for position in the brutal hierarchy of the clan.
He clenched his tiny, chubby fist.
'I have to wait,' he told himself. 'I have to endure this infancy. I have to endure the diapers and the wooden toys.'
He closed his eyes, visualizing the day he would stand on top of those floating islands, not as a baby carried in a sling, but as a cultivator who could shatter the sky.
'Just you wait. I'll fly. I'll punch mountains. And I'll figure out why everyone is so scared of my mother.'
With a determined sigh, the one-year-old future Sovereign rolled over and drifted into sleep, dreaming of conquering the heavens.