Night settled softly over Blackstone City.
The abandoned courtyard on the eastern edge lay hidden behind sagging walls and creeping vines. Moonlight filtered through broken roof tiles, illuminating cracked stone slabs and a dry, abandoned well. It looked forgotten, unclaimed.
Yet to Chen Wei, it felt… safe. The five children stood just inside the gate, tense, unsure. The buns were long finished, warmth replaced by uncertainty. Lin Mei hugged her knees while the younger ones clustered close, eyes darting to every shadow.
Chen Wei was the first to break the silence.
"You said this place was empty," he called out.
"It is," came a calm reply from within the courtyard. Lu Haotian stepped out from the shadows, hands clasped behind his back. The faint moonlight revealed his plain robes and unreadable expression. His aura remained muted, ordinary—yet the space itself seemed to quiet around him.
"No traps.
No owners.
No one will drive you out."
Chen Wei stiffened. "How do you know?"
Lu Haotian met his gaze evenly.
"Because I say so."
There was no arrogance in the words. No pressure. Just certainty.
The younger children instinctively stepped back, but Chen Wei held his ground.
"You paid for the apple.
You gave us food.
Now you give us shelter," he said slowly.
"People don't do things for free."
Lu Haotian nodded once. "Correct."
"So what do you want?" Chen Wei demanded. "Our lives?"
"If I wanted your lives," Lu Haotian replied calmly, "you wouldn't be standing."
Silence followed.
Lu Haotian walked past him, kneeling near the dry well and brushing aside debris, like someone returning to a forgotten home.
"I want people who remember kindness," he said.
"And who return it when they are strong."
Chen Wei's fists trembled.
"You think we'll become strong?" he scoffed bitterly.
"Look at us. No clan. No backing. Barely spirit roots."
Lu Haotian stood and faced him.
"Strength is not granted by clans," he said.
"It is seized by those who endure."
The words struck deeper than any blow.
"…What should we call you?" Chen Wei asked after a long pause.
Lu Haotian hesitated, names carried weight.
Too much attention.
"Young Master," he said at last.
"For now."
Chen Wei's breath caught.
Slowly, he bent one knee—not submission, not defiance.
"Young Master." The others followed, clumsy but sincere.
Lu Haotian accepted it without response.
"Rest tonight," he said.
"Tomorrow, we clean, then we begin."
Later, after the younger children fell asleep wrapped in old blankets Lu Haotian had quietly prepared, Chen Wei remained seated near the courtyard wall.
"You don't sleep," Lu Haotian observed.
"I can't afford to," Chen Wei replied. "Not anymore."
Lu Haotian waited.
"My father was named Chen Rong," Chen Wei said quietly.
"He ran the Verdant Path Trading Company."
Lu Haotian's gaze sharpened almost imperceptibly.
"Herbs. Spirit materials. Caravan trade," Chen Wei continued.
"We paid protection fees. Never crossed boundaries."
His voice wavered.
"Then the Tie Lin Sect demanded exclusive control over our routes.
My father refused."
The night seemed to tighten.
"They slaughtered everyone," Chen Wei whispered.
"Guards. Refiners. Porters. Even the scribes.
They said we insulted the dignity of cultivators."
His hands bled where his nails cut into his palms.
"I hid in a sealed cargo wagon.
These four…" He gestured to the sleeping children.
"They are the sons and daughters of my father's staff. I dragged them out while the warehouses burned."
Lu Haotian listened in silence.
"Tie Lin Sect reported it as a bandit raid," Chen Wei said bitterly.
"No kingdom investigated, no sect interfered."
He finally looked up.
"Young Master," he said, voice hoarse,
"If you ever command me to kill…
I will not hesitate." please can you take revenge for us.
Lu Haotian studied him carefully.
"Good," he said.
"But not yet."
Chen Wei blinked. "Not yet?"
"Revenge without strength is suicide," Lu Haotian replied.
"I don't waste useful people."
Chen Wei bowed deeply, forehead touching the stone.
"Then sharpen me."
Lu Haotian turned toward the broken courtyard, cracked stones, lifeless soil.
"It will take time," he said.
"It will hurt.
Some of you will regret surviving."
Chen Wei answered without hesitation.
"We already died once," he said.
"That day."
A faint, unseen smile curved Lu Haotian's lips .
"Then you will grow quickly," he said.
"Those with nothing left are hardest to break." Above them, clouds swallowed the moon.
In a forgotten courtyard, five orphans slept under a roof for the first time in months.
And beside them stood a Young Master whose name Heaven would never record—
quietly laying the first stone of a force that would one day erase entire clans.
Not loudly.
Not openly.
But inevitably.