Long Wei loosened his grip, the violet distortion around his knuckles snapping back into his skin like a rubber band. The hunger was still there, a cold pit in his stomach that made the opulent room feel like a cage.
He moved toward the door, snagging a heavy black outer robe from a nearby rack to cover the disaster that was his current outfit. He stepped into the hallway just as voices drifted up from the courtyard below.
"And his progress?" a deep, resonant voice asked.
(That's the Old Man. Long Chen. My father.)
"None, Great Elder," a second voice replied, sounding weary. "He hasn't attended a single lecture this week. The servants say he spends his days sleeping or... well, you know his reputation."
A heavy, exhausted sigh followed. Long Wei looked over the stone railing and saw his father, a tall man with streaks of silver in his hair and an aura of sharp, pressurized Spirit Qi. He was talking to the sect's Head Instructor.
"Sigh. This damn kid," Long Chen muttered, rubbing his temples. "I've given him the best pills, the best manuals, and the clearest jade. Sixteen years, and he's still a hollow vessel. My other sons are the pride of the Azure Sect, and he is... he is a stain on the lineage."
Long Wei watched them from the shadows of the upper balcony. In his past life, being called a "stain" would have sent him into a spiral of self-pity. Now, listening to his father talk about him like he was a broken tool, he felt a strange, detached amusement.
(A hollow vessel, huh? If you only knew what I just poured into it.)
The Head Instructor bowed. "Perhaps it is time to send him to the outer estates. Let him manage the grain stores. At least there, he cannot embarrass the Long family during the upcoming Disciple Examination."
Long Chen didn't answer immediately. He looked toward Long Wei's room, his eyes hard and full of a disappointment that had turned into indifference years ago. "We will decide after the feast tonight. If he can't even circulate a basic breath by then, he's gone."
They walked away, their footsteps echoing on the gravel.
(The outer estates? Sounds like a one-way ticket to being a nobody again. I didn't die and get a bigger sword just to go count bags of rice.)
He turned to head back into his room to finish dressing, but a shadow blocked his path. Standing at the end of the hall was a young man wearing the high-collared white robes of a Core Disciple. He was leaner than Long Wei, but his eyes were sharp, glowing with the faint blue light of perfected Spirit Qi.
This was Long Feng. His second brother. The "Genius" of the family.
"I heard the crash, little brother," Long Feng said, his voice dripping with a fake, sugary concern. "Did you finally trip over your own feet, or were you just throwing another tantrum because the Qi won't listen to you?"
Long Wei felt the Spirit Qi pressing down on his shoulders like a heavy blanket. Usually, the old Long Wei would have buckled instantly, his knees hitting the floor before he could even think. But the Monster Qi inside him didn't like being pressed. It snarled, a cold, jagged energy rising up from his gut to meet the pressure.
(Sigh... this is so boring. It's exactly like the protagonists in every webtoon I've ever read. There's always a bully brother, the MC gets beat up, swears revenge, and then trains in a cave for ten years. It's a total cliché.)
He looked at Long Feng's arrogant, glowing face and felt a wave of genuine exhaustion.
(I'm not doing this. I've got better things to do than play out some 'Face Slapping' sub-plot right now.)
Instead of straining against the weight or shouting a defiant comeback, Long Wei just yawned. He casually raised his arms and locked his fingers behind his head, leaning back against the corridor wall as if the crushing pressure was nothing more than a light breeze. He didn't even look at his brother.
(If I just ignore him, maybe he'll go away and find a real protagonist to bother.)
Long Feng's eyes widened, his blue aura flickering in confusion. He stepped closer, increasing the output of his Spirit Qi until the floorboards beneath Long Wei's feet began to groan.
"Are you deaf, you waste? I told you to get on your knees!"
Long Wei didn't move. He just stared at a random spiderweb on the ceiling, whistling a faint, tuneless melody he remembered from Earth. The Monster Qi in his marrow absorbed the Spirit Qi pressure like a sponge, turning the "attack" into a dull, tingling sensation that actually felt kind of good.
(Man, his Qi is like a free back massage. I wonder what's for dinner at this feast tonight. Hope it's better than the cup noodles I died over.)
"I'm talking to you!" Long Feng roared, his face turning a mottled red. He raised a hand, his palm glowing with a concentrated sphere of Azure Qi.
Long Wei finally shifted his gaze, looking at his brother with an expression of pure, unadulterated boredom.
"You done?" Long Wei asked, his voice flat. "Because you're blocking the light, and I've got things to do. Go find a rock to break or something."
He pushed off the wall and started walking straight toward Long Feng, not slowing down for a second.