Yue Xichen’s voice was calm as he wove his tale.
In the eyes of others, he might seem a lucky man. Out of countless cultivators, only he became a leader of the cultivation world. Yet the truth was that Yue Xichen was born during a time of war and chaos. When he was five years old, his parents abandoned him simply because they could no longer afford to feed him.
Though he was young, he had begun to understand the world. He knew his parents didn’t want him because he was a burden.
Back then, Yue Xichen was solitary and helpless, wandering barefoot through streets littered with corpses. He starved for many days until he was on the verge of death. Finally, as if heaven refused to let him perish, a kind man picked him up and took him home.
Yue Xichen couldn’t remember exactly how he was rescued; he had been too hungry. He was so famished his vision blurred, his strength failed, and even breathing became difficult. That agonizing sensation remained fresh in his memory to this day.
He only knew that when he woke up, he was lying in a thatched hut. Though simple, it was a place that could shield him from the wind and rain, with a bed and a quilt. At first, he thought he was dreaming, or perhaps he was already dead and this was the afterlife, a wish granted by the King of Hell.
Later, as his stomach growled, he realized he wasn’t dead; someone had saved him.
The man who saved him was a young man named Li Yin. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but he looked kind and loved to smile. From the first moment Yue Xichen saw him, he knew the man was good. Even his own parents didn’t want him, yet this stranger was willing to take him in.
Li Yin told him he was a deserter from the army and came from a poor family. He didn’t have the money to marry, and when he saw Yue Xichen, he felt pity. He wanted a child, so he decided to adopt him. At the time, Yue Xichen didn’t think much of it; in an era of war, survival was a blessing. He called Li Yin his foster father, and they relied on each other.
After the war ended, they settled in a small village. The new government gave them land, and they worked from sunrise to sunset, toiling in the fields. Though life was hard, they were no longer hungry. For those first few years, life was peaceful.
As Yue Xichen grew older and more sensible, he longed to read and write. But their family was poor, and he didn’t want to burden Li Yin, so he would often just stare blankly at other children going to the private school. Li Yin soon noticed his wish and bought him brushes, ink, paper, and inkstones. Yue Xichen was moved to tears, and Li Yin comforted him.
But gradually, Yue Xichen realized the characters Li Yin taught him to write were strange, different from what the teachers at the school taught. Each time, Li Yin made him write the characters on long, yellowed strips of paper. On that paper, they looked less like words and more like drawings.
Li Yin taught him many, and the thatched hut was soon covered with these yellow papers.
That year, Yue Xichen was nine.
On a night of raging thunder and rain, Yue Xichen had just finished cooking and was waiting for Li Yin to return. Unlike usual, Li Yin returned very late. Yue Xichen grew tired and fell asleep curled up at the table. A sudden clap of thunder woke him, and he opened his eyes to see Li Yin standing there.
At that moment, the room suddenly glowed with a red light—a light as red as the blood seen everywhere during the war. It was so bright Yue Xichen couldn’t open his eyes.
“A-Yue…”
Suddenly, he heard Li Yin’s voice. When he forced his eyes open against the red light, Li Yin had already pinned him to the floor with a thud.
Yue Xichen’s eyes widened in confusion as he looked at Li Yin sitting on top of him. He didn’t understand what his foster father was doing. Outside, lightning illuminated Li Yin’s face. For the first time, that face looked strange and terrifying.
Yue Xichen was afraid; it was an instinctive dread. He looked away, only to see the yellow papers covering the room glowing with a scarlet light. An ominous aura swirled around him, and he broke out in goosebumps. He didn’t understand why the characters he had written now seemed like living things—not only glowing but appearing sinister and distorted.
“A-Yue, I’ve raised you for so many years. Finally… the spiritual energy in your body has become dense…” Li Yin leaned down over him and took a deep breath. “How sweet… this energy… is truly too sweet!”
“F-foster father…” Yue Xichen’s voice trembled.
“Don’t be afraid… I’m just using you as a furnace vessel. If you’re obedient, I won’t hurt you.”
Before Yue Xichen could understand what a “furnace vessel” was, Li Yin suddenly ripped his clothes open with a sharp tear. In that instant, Yue Xichen instinctively realized what was happening.
“No! No!” He struggled desperately, but he was only a nine-year-old child. Even with profound spiritual energy in his body, he didn’t know how to use that power.
Li Yin was like a beast long locked in a cage and starving. He tore at Yue Xichen’s clothes, eager to use him as a vessel to gain power through violation.
“You brat, truly choosing the hard way over the easy one! I’ve raised you for all these years, it’s time you repaid me!” Li Yin snarled, revealing his hideous true face.
He used demonic arts through the talismans covering the room. The red light from the talismans pierced Yue Xichen’s hands and feet, nailing him firmly to the floor.
“No…” Yue Xichen shook violently, sobbing. Blood flowed from his pierced hands and feet, staining the ground. “Please… no… don’t do this to me…”
But no matter how he pleaded, Li Yin had no intention of stopping.
“Though you’re a boy, you are beautiful… A-Yue, even as my furnace vessel, as long as you’re obedient, I will still feed you and raise you…”
Yue Xichen could no longer hear what he was saying. The booming thunder drowned out the voice, but the lightning made Li Yin’s vile, evil face even clearer. The thatched hut swayed in the wind and rain as if it might collapse at any moment.
The rain fell through the night, and it didn’t stop even by noon the next day.