Pain tore through Li Yan’s chest like a jagged blade driven straight into his heart.
The sensation of his own blood soaking into cold dirt felt far too vivid to dismiss.
He remembered the heavy clubs slamming against his ribs until the bone cracked. He remembered the metallic taste of blood flooding his mouth. He remembered the exact sound of his adopted brother Li Wei’s laughter while strangers kicked him until his vision went black.
Darkness had swallowed him completely as his heart stuttered and stopped.
Li Yan gasped. Air rushed into his lungs with violent force.
He bolted upright and scrambled backward until his shoulders struck a solid wall. His hands flew to his chest, expecting shattered ribs and warm blood.
Instead, his fingers met only thin, clean fabric and smooth, unbroken skin.
No wounds. No bruises. No pain beyond the lingering ghost of memory.
He blinked hard. The dim interior of a familiar room slowly solidified around him.
Cracked wooden beams stretched overhead. Moth-eaten curtains hung beside a narrow window.
The faint scent of old sandalwood incense and damp earth filled his nose. This was his old room in the rear courtyard of the Li Residence.
He had not seen these walls since the day he died.
Li Yan crawled to the low table and gripped the edge of the copper washbasin. He stared into the still water. The reflection that looked back belonged to a fifteen-year-old youth. His cheeks still held a trace of youthful softness. His skin was clear of the ugly bruises that had covered him in his final hours. The thin childhood scar above his left eyebrow remained, yet every mark from the beating had vanished.
He turned toward the calendar plaque hanging beside the door. The date written in black ink matched the morning of the day he had been sold.
Outside, a servant’s voice called the "Chen" hour.
In his previous life, the sale contract had been forced on him before noon, and he had died before nightfall.
This was no dream. The cold floorboards beneath his bare feet felt real. The weight of the basin under his hands felt real.
The morning light spilling through the lattice was too sharp and steady for any nightmare.
He had died in the dirt like a discarded animal, and somehow he had returned to the morning before everything ended.
A strange, rhythmic humming suddenly vibrated behind his eyes.
The sound started low, as distant temple bells struck underwater, then grew stronger until it pressed against the inside of his skull. Li Yan clutched his temples and gritted his teeth.
A voice bloomed inside his mind. It was calm, ancient, and layered with an authority that made his spirit tremble.
"The master of the bloodline has returned to the threshold at last."
Li Yan spun around. The room remained empty. His heart hammered against his ribs.
"Who is there?" he demanded, his voice rough from disuse. "Show yourself."
"I possess no flesh for you to see, child. I am the Spirit of the Mythical Pavilion, the consciousness bound to your Phoenix bloodline since the moment of your birth. You carried me within your soul for an entire lifetime, yet you never once heard my call."
Li Yan’s breath caught. Phoenix bloodline. His mother had whispered those words to him when he was small, speaking of ancient glory and hidden inheritance before illness took her. He had dismissed the stories as comforting lies told to a worthless Ger child.
"In your previous life, your soul remained too weak and too shackled by fear," the Spirit continued. "You lived as an enslaved person of lesser men and died without ever touching the power that belonged to you by right. Death shattered the final seal on your spirit. Now you stand at the gate once more. The Mythical Pavilion awaits its master."
Li Yan swallowed hard. "What must I do?"
"The unlocking requires a drop of your essence blood placed upon the glabella. Prick your thumb. Press the blood between your brows. Let your will command the gate to open. Do this, and the realm that can raise you above every enemy will answer only to you."
Li Yan did not hesitate. He looked around the sparse room and found a small sewing needle left behind by a servant.
He heated the tip briefly over the oil lamp, then drove it into the pad of his right thumb. Bright red blood welled up at once.
He raised his hand and pressed the bloody thumb firmly against the center of his forehead, right between his eyebrows.
The moment blood touched skin, fire lanced through his skull. Li Yan’s back arched.
A deafening crack resounded inside his mind as though a mountain of ice had split apart.
Blinding golden light flooded his inner vision. He felt his consciousness expand violently, stretching beyond the limits of his physical body and pouring into a vast new dimension.
When the light faded, he stood in spirit form upon rich black soil that glittered as though mixed with crushed stars.
Endless mist drifted across the landscape in slow, graceful currents.
At the center of the realm, a crystal-clear spirit spring bubbled and released a fragrance so pure that his meridians tingled and expanded.
Heaven-tier herbs he had only seen illustrated in forbidden manuals grew in neat, thriving clusters.
Trees heavy with glowing fruits lined distant paths. The air itself thrummed with dense spiritual energy that put the thin qi of the mortal world to shame.
The Spirit of the Mythical Pavilion hovered beside him, now clearer and stronger.
"This realm is timeless. A single day outside may equal months within if you will it. The spring water can heal mortal wounds and wash away impurities. The soil will mature any plant you sow in a fraction of the natural time. Treasures, pills, and weapons may be stored here without decay. In your first life, you died never knowing this power existed inside you. Do not waste the second chance you have been given."
Li Yan sank to his knees in the black soil and dug his fingers into the earth.
Rage and fierce joy tangled together inside his chest until he could barely breathe. The Li family had treated him as disposable trash because he was born a Ger.
His adopted brother had sold him for a sack of silver. Strangers had beaten him to death while Li Wei laughed. All that time, this realm had slept inside him, waiting.
He rose slowly. His spiritual form already felt heavier with gathering power.
He memorized the layout of the spring and the herb fields, then withdrew his consciousness.
Li Yan’s physical eyes opened in his small room.
The bloody thumbprint still marked his glabella. He wiped it away with a damp cloth, yet the connection to the Mythical Pavilion remained steady and clear at the back of his mind.
His body felt lighter. His senses stretched farther. The weak, cowering boy who had begged for mercy was gone.
In his place stood someone who remembered every lash and every humiliation, and who now possessed the means to repay them a thousandfold.
He washed his face, tied his robes properly, and bound his hair with a simple wooden pin.
Then he opened the door and stepped into the corridor. Morning light fell across the rear courtyard.
Servants hurried past with lowered eyes, offering no greeting to the discarded Ger of the household. Their disdain no longer touched him.
Li Yan turned his steps toward the main study. He knew exactly what scene waited behind that door.
Li Wei would be lounging behind the desk with the sale contract already prepared. Their father would sit in cold silence.
A merchant would count silver on the table.
They believed the worthless boy would walk in and sign his own death warrant once again.
They were wrong.
Li Yan’s lips curved into a thin, cold smile as he walked.
The Phoenix had burned to ash once. This time it would rise from the blood and set every enemy ablaze.
His revenge would not be quiet. It would be thorough, public, and soaked in the same suffering they had once forced upon him.
The door of the study stood only a few paces ahead. Li Yan did not slow down. He raised his hand and pushed it open.