The bells of Azure Cloud Sect rang at dawn, a deep iron sound that rolled through the mountains. Disciples in neat blue robes streamed out of their quarters, heading for the training fields or lecture halls.

  Among them was a thin figure in plain grey servant’s cloth, carrying a heavy basket of laundry on his back. His steps were steady, but his shoulders sagged beneath the weight.

  That boy was Li Wei.

  Once, his name had been spoken with respect. He had stood proudly on the martial platform a year ago, a prodigy of the outer sect, praised for his sword talent and swift comprehension of martial art techniques.

  But that glory had been shattered in a single day.

  It had been during the Grand Outer Sect Tournament.

  Li Wei had faced Zhao Feng, another young genius, arrogant and ambitious.

  Their duel had been fierce, and though Li Wei had the upper hand, Zhao Feng unleashed a sinister technique that struck directly at Li Wei’s meridians. The injury had crippled him. His dantian cracked, his meridians burned into useless threads.

  From that moment, his path of cultivation was severed.

  The elders declared it unfortunate but final. No one dared to punish Zhao Feng, for he had powerful backers in the inner sect.

  Li Wei’s friends drifted away, unwilling to associate with a cripple.

  Even his fiancée, the gentle-faced Yu Mei, returned the engagement token, her eyes sorrowful as she spoke, “Once, I entrusted you with the rest of my days. But Heaven has rewritten your fate, and the man before me is no longer the one I promised to follow. Though my heart grieves, I dare not yoke my future to a path already broken. Let this be our parting, and may the ancestors forgive my resolve.”

  Her words had cut deeper than any sword.

  Now, a year later, Li Wei lived at the bottom of the sect hierarchy. Stripped of his robes, he served as a menial worker, running errands, cleaning courtyards, fetching water, washing clothes for disciples who once called him brother.

  Many laughed at him openly.

  “Ah, Young Master Li, how mighty you look carrying baskets!” sneered a group of outer sect disciples as he passed them. “Be careful, don’t trip. Your weak body might not handle it.”

  Their laughter echoed in the corridor.

  Li Wei lowered his head and said nothing. The humiliation no longer made his face flush as it once had; it only settled heavier in his chest.

  Only one person still treated him kindly.

  Xian Lan.

  He was a chubby boy with bright eyes and stubborn courage, another outer sect disciple who had grown up with Li Wei in the same village before they joined Azure Cloud Sect together. He often spoke with him when others would not, and reminded him that he was still Li Wei, no matter what the sect thought.

  That evening, after finishing his errands, Li Wei sat alone in the dim servant quarters, a small stone building nestled between the outer gardens and the storage halls—far removed from the grandeur of the main pavilions.

  The other servants were asleep, but he lit a small oil lamp and unrolled a pile of worn manuals he had borrowed from the sect library. Most of them were discarded scraps, incomplete techniques, or obscure writings no one cared to read.

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  He traced the faded characters with his finger, whispering to himself. His body could no longer circulate spiritual qi, but his mind refused to stop learning.

  Perhaps, he thought, some forgotten knowledge might one day show him a way back.

  On this night, as rain tapped against the roof, he pulled out a half-burnt scroll he had discovered hidden behind a shelf of dusty bamboo slips. The parchment was blackened at the edges, the ink smudged, but the title was still visible.

  The Heavenly Dao Lotus.

  He read quietly.

  The text was fragmented, but the pieces painted a strange tale.

  The Heavenly Dao Lotus was a mythical plant said to bloom only once every ten thousand years. It was not a mere treasure for boosting cultivation; it was described as a bridge between heaven and man, a lotus born from the harmony of the five elements and nourished by the laws of the Dao itself.

  Most importantly, one line stood out, half-charred but still legible: ‘Its essence may restore what has been broken, even meridians shattered beyond repair.’

  Li Wei’s hand trembled. He read the line again and again.

  If this was true, then his fate was not sealed! There might still be a chance...

  But the scroll ended abruptly, the rest consumed by fire long ago. There were no instructions on where the lotus might be found, nor how to cultivate it.

  "Damn it," Li Wei cussed under this breath. He felt like he was holding onto a fragment of a dream.

  After calming down, he leaned back and closed his eyes. For an entire year he had endured mockery, pity, and silence. Tonight, for the first time, he felt a spark flicker in the ashes of his heart. That spark was called hope. Even though he wasn't sure if the Heavenly Dao Lotus truly existed, this discover dampened his pessimism, if only a little.

  A knock came at the door. Li Wei quickly rolled up the scroll and hid it under his bedding.

  “Brother Wei?” A familiar voice whispered.

  He opened the door to see Xian Lan, holding a small food bundle wrapped in cloth.

  “You worked all day again, didn’t you? I thought you might be hungry.” Xian Lan smiled and handed it over. Inside were two steamed buns, still warm.

  Li Wei’s throat tightened. “You shouldn’t keep giving me food. You need your strength for cultivation.”

  “And you don’t?” Xian Lan tilted his head stubbornly. “Even if you can’t train, you’re still my friend. Don’t tell me not to care.”

  Li Wei was silent for a while, then a faint smile curved his lips. “Thank you, Xian Lan,” he said.

  Xian Lan glanced around the messy room, his eyes narrowing at the scattered manuals. “Still reading these? Brother Wei, you should rest more. You’re wearing yourself down.”

  “I can’t stop,” Li Wei said quietly. “If I stop, then… it’s like admitting defeat.”

  Xian Lan hesitated, then sat down beside him. “Then I’ll read with you. Even if I don’t understand half of it.”

  They laughed softly together, then began to read the scrolls littered around the room.

  Li Wei did not show Xian Lan the scroll about the Heavenly Dao Lotus. Not because he didn’t trust his friend, but because the scroll was an object he’d stolen from the library. Xian Lan knowing of it would make him automatically an accessory to theft, which did him more harm than good.

  The world outside felt distant as the two boys read and exchanged paragraphs that hinted at methods of recovering one’s cultivation base.

  “Listen to this one,” Xian Lan said, squinting at a brittle page. “‘The Ninefold Spirit Reversal Art—by soaking oneself in the marrow of a thousand-year-old turtle for forty-nine days, the meridians may be reborn.’”

  Li Wei snorted. “We’d have to catch a thousand-year-old turtle first.”

  “Or just steal one from the Sect Lord’s pond,” Xian Lan said with a straight face, then grinned when Li Wei nearly choked.

  Li Wei flipped open another manual. “This one says if a cultivator recites the Evil Dragon’s Repentance Sutra backwards, while standing under a thunderstorm, he can ‘coax the heavens into rewriting his fate.’”

  “Backwards?” Xian Lan leaned over. “Doesn’t that just mean you get struck by lightning?”

  “Probably,” Li Wei said, smiling faintly.

  They moved through several more. Some manuals were so obscure their meaning was lost to archaic phrasing. Others were simply absurd. One described carving runes into the bones to ‘reshape destiny from within’, another claimed enlightenment could be achieved by drinking only dew gathered from flower petals under moonlight.

  Despite their absurdity, they contained phrases like ‘reconnecting fragmented spiritual pathways’ and ‘harmonizing the broken flow through resonance’, which made Li Wei’s heart stir, even if the methods were clearly illogical.

  Later, after Xian Lan left, Li Wei lay awake staring at the ceiling. His fingers brushed against the hidden scroll.

  The Heavenly Dao Lotus…

  Was it real, or only legend?

  He did not know.

  But in his heart, he had already made a vow.

  Even if the path was impossible, even if he had to crawl through thorns and mud, he would search for it.

  He would not remain a cripple forever.

  Li Wei closed his eyes.