The village of Qingshi did not fall in silence.
It fell in screams, smoke, and the thick stench of burning wood mixed with blood.
Lu Yan's band was not small. Thirty-four men and women — former mercenaries, deserters, smugglers. People used to crossing borders, selling what should not be sold, and vanishing before revenge could arrive.
They did not live only by raiding. They sold weapons, medicine, maps… and people, when the opportunity arose. Refugees, prisoners of war, orphaned children. The cultivation world was not kind, and they merely occupied a space that already existed.
Zhao Kui heard the crying while wiping blood from his blade.
A thin, broken sound, almost swallowed by the crackle of flames.
"Captain," he called to Lu Yan. "Someone's still alive."
Lu Yan was tall, broad-shouldered, his beard always half-grown. A scar ran from his eyebrow down to his cheek — a souvenir from his days guarding caravans. But his eyes were far too sharp for a simple bandit.
"Check it," he said. "Quickly."
Zhao Kui crossed the rubble, pushing aside fallen beams, until he reached a shattered courtyard. At its center lay a woman, dead, still clutching a bundle.
When he moved her aside, he saw the baby.
The child was not screaming, only weakly whimpering, dark eyes open far too wide for a newborn.
Zhao Kui felt something tighten in his chest, as if he had made a terrible mistake — not by finding the child, but by taking so long to reach him.
"Captain…" he called again, quieter this time.
Lu Yan approached, already ready to order him to leave the body. But when he saw the child, he stopped.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
"Take him," Lu Yan said at last. "Not here."
No one argued.
When the band left Qingshi, night had already fallen. They were heading north, along the old Salt Road, where merchants, minor sects, and traffickers crossed paths. That was where questions were few and silver was plentiful.
But the problem came before any sale: food.
The village had already been looted by others. Supplies were scarce.
Mei Lian, thin and sharp-eyed, broke apart a dry grain cake and mixed it with hot water for the baby.
"He won't last long on this," she said.
"Neither will we," Han Shun muttered.
Han Shun was broad-shouldered and thick-bellied, the kind of man who always looked like he had eaten more than his share. But that week, he was already noticeably thinner.
That night, Zhao Kui pushed half his ration toward the child.
"You'll weaken," Lu Yan warned.
"I've fought worse than hunger. He won't survive."
On the third day, Han Shun returned from the roadside with a strip of dried meat.
"Found it in a smaller village," he said, tossing it by the fire. "For the kid."
"And you?" Mei Lian asked.
"I can manage."
But he did not manage well. At night he shivered from hunger, and Zhao Kui noticed he was eating only enough to stay on his feet.
When they reached the White Road outpost, Lu Yan did what he always did: he looked for buyers.
Three appeared in two days.
A small sect, speaking of "raising a disciple from the cradle."
A merchant from the capital, talking about adoption.
And an intermediary from the Zhou Clan, offering far too much silver for a nameless infant.
Each offer was better than the last.
And yet, no sale was made.
"We're already losing money," Han Shun snapped. "Do it yourself, then."
Lu Yan was holding the child at that moment. The baby slept, face clean, too calm.
"I can't," he said, angry at himself.
"Then give him to me."
Han Shun reached out… and stopped halfway.
His expression hardened.
"Damn it…" he muttered. "It feels like I'm… betraying something."
"Since when do you care about that?" Mei Lian asked.
He had no answer.
That night, they changed their route.
Instead of heading toward the capital, they turned toward the Yunbei Mountains, where fewer sects patrolled and fewer eyes watched.
"Until he grows a bit," Lu Yan said. "Then we decide."
But no one spoke of selling him again.
Days passed, and sacrifice became routine.
Mei Lian tore her own blanket when fever struck. Zhao Kui sold the blade he had carried since the army to buy medicine. Han Shun, wounded in an ambush, refused treatment so the money could be spent on goat's milk.
Each choice was small.
Each choice cost something.
And still, none of them felt wrong.
At night, while the band stood watch, Lu Yan found himself looking at the sleeping child.
At some point, without knowing when, he had stopped thinking of him as cargo… and started thinking of him as someone who had to go far.
The thought did not arrive as a decision.
It was simply… there.
As if it had always been.
High above the clouds, in halls no mortal could ever see, an ancient seal trembled for the first time in centuries.
In the records of Heaven, a line of destiny — once vague and formless — began, slowly, to take shape.
No decree had been issued.
No immortal had interfered.
Yet human acts, repeated and persistent, were shaping something even Heaven had not yet commanded.
Not because the child willed it.
But because the world, little by little, was choosing for him.
And so, among bandits, dusty roads, and wars he could not understand, the path of a future emperor began to form.
A greatness no one had asked for.
But one many were already willing to build — with their own blood, if necessary.