"Father, how many more spirit medicines are we going to waste on him?"
A slightly sharp, youthful voice shattered the heavy silence in the room, its tone carrying an undisguised impatience and dissatisfaction.
"Clear Accumulation Pills are so precious. The family's monthly stipend for you and the several elders is already tight. Now look, a full 3 bottles have been poured into this bottomless pit, and for what? We haven't even seen him move an eyelid."
In a corner of the room, a middle-aged man in dark green martial attire — the Ling Family Head, Ling Zhan — stood with his hands behind his back before a window. He didn't turn around, his gaze passing through the carved wooden window and falling upon a parasol tree in the courtyard that appeared somewhat desolate as autumn set in.
The dew condensed on its leaves shimmered with a cold, faint light in the morning sun.
"Silence, Ling Wei." Ling Zhan's voice was low and steady, yet it contained an authority that permitted no argument. "The one lying in that bed is your cousin."
The youth called Ling Wei curled his lip, his gaze sweeping over the bloodless, faintly breathing figure on the bed. He snorted softly, lowering his voice slightly, but the disdain in it did not diminish in the least.
"Cousin? Just a fool who dared to venture alone into the inner perimeter of the Blackwind Mountain Range to chase after an insignificant 'Flame-Tailed Fox.' He was seeking his own death."
"It was already the height of benevolence for the family to retrieve this broken body of his. Now, 70% to 80% of his meridians are severed, and cracks have appeared in his dantian. Even if we use heavenly treasures to save him, he'll be nothing more than a complete and utter cripple."
"Father, you are the Family Head. You should prioritize the family's overall situation, not squander our already limited resources on a cripple."
Ling Zhan slowly turned around. His face was resolute, with deep lines etched between his brows — marks left from years of toiling for the family. He looked at his own talented son with a complicated expression.
Although Ling Wei's words were harsh, every sentence was true.
"The effects of the Clear Accumulation Pills can last for at least another 12 hours," Ling Zhan's tone betrayed no joy or anger. "If he still hasn't woken up after 12 hours, then... let fate decide."
After he spoke, the crisp sound of a teacup being placed on the table broke the brief stagnation. He picked up the teacup, the motion of the lid lightly scraping the rim of the cup seeming somewhat absent-minded.
Only then did a barely perceptible curve appear on Ling Wei's lips. This was the sentence he had been waiting for.
A crippled Ling Yan would only be a burden to anyone, especially to him, the prodigy of the family's younger generation. Getting rid of him sooner would be better for everyone.
Neither of them noticed that on the bed they had determined to be a "bottomless pit," under the eyelids of the body they believed to be completely unresponsive, the eyeballs were, at an extremely slow rhythm, turning slightly.
Consciousness, like a wisp of residual smoke that had drifted for an unknown number of years in endless darkness, was being slowly condensed and pulled together by an external, gentle force.
Pain.
This was the first sensation Ling Yan felt after regaining consciousness.
It wasn't the excruciating pain of having his immortal body torn apart by divine abilities and magic treasures, but a dense and sharp stabbing pain that seeped out from the deepest parts of his body, from every inch of bone and every meridian. It was as if his entire body had been crushed and then clumsily pieced back together.
This was followed by a boundless sense of weakness, like a divine soul's flame having been stripped away, leaving only the faintest spark, which could be extinguished by a slight breeze at any moment.
Where... is this place?
He remembered that his last memory was in the "Heavenly Law's Return to the Void" formation, where he had activated the forbidden secret art that even he himself had not fully mastered — the "Anchor of Time Reversal" — at the cost of burning his millennia of Dao Fruit and his indestructible divine soul.
It was a mad gamble that staked his very existence, an attempt to forcibly set a new coordinate in the long river of time. The probability of success was minuscule; the slightest misstep would lead to the complete annihilation of his divine soul, without even the qualification to become cosmic dust.
Looks like I lost the gamble... Is this the moment of lingering before the soul dissipates?
No.
The intermittent conversation reaching his ears, though blurry, was real. And the pain coming from this body was also far too real.
Ling Yan expended a tremendous amount of mental energy to finally, barely, condense that wisp of scattered consciousness. Like controlling a puppet that had been rusted for a thousand years, he arduously drove his divine sense to investigate his own body.
This was an extremely young body, its bone age seemingly no more than 17 years old. The residual cultivation aura within it was pathetically weak, hovering around the 7th or 8th level of the Body Tempering Realm, not even touching the threshold of manifesting true qi.
In an era where the Immortal Dao flourished, this level of cultivation was no different from a mortal's.
Worst of all, the condition of this body was even worse than he had expected. Meridians were severed and atrophied in multiple places, like a dried and cracked riverbed. The clearly visible fissures on the dantian were a declaration that this body's cultivation path had already reached its end.
This was the "cripple" the youth spoke of.
Indeed, thoroughly crippled.
Just as Ling Yan's thoughts were racing, the room's door was gently pushed open, and the conversation between Ling Zhan and Ling Wei ceased.
"Family Head, Young Master Wei," a soft female voice sounded, carrying a hint of timidity.
Ling Yan felt a pair of soft hands gently rest on his forehead, testing his temperature, before carefully pulling up the corner of his blanket for him.
"Still not awake?" Ling Zhan asked.
"Replying to the Family Head, not yet..." The female voice held a trace of an unnoticeable tremble. "But just now... I think I saw Young Master Yan's finger move."
"Oh?" A ripple of emotion appeared in Ling Zhan's tone. He strode quickly to the bedside, his sharp gaze locked tightly on Ling Yan's face.
Ling Wei also followed, but his eyes were filled with suspicion and impatience, as if he thought it was just the maid's imagination.
At this moment, however, Ling Yan's heart was in turmoil.
He had finally "seen" this body's appearance.
It was a young face that bore a 70% resemblance to his past life, only lacking the profoundness of one who had weathered the vicissitudes of life, and possessing more of the greenness a youth should have.
Ling Yan...
His name is also Ling Yan?
A coincidence? Or could it be that the "Anchor of Time Reversal" had not completely failed, but had instead, in a way he couldn't comprehend, sent his remnant soul into a body that had some inexplicable causal link with him?
Moreover, he had just caught a key term from the conversation of that father and son — the Ling Family.
A torrent of chaotic and fragmented memories suddenly flooded his mind. They were the memories belonging to this body's original owner, jumbled, fragmented, and filled with unwillingness and pain.
The Ling Family, a second-rate cultivation family within Green Sun City of the Great Zhou Dynasty.
And he, Ling Yan, was a disciple from a side branch of the Ling Family. His parents had died early, and he had always been cared for by his uncle, the Family Head, Ling Zhan. His talent was mediocre, but his temperament was somewhat overly ambitious, always wanting to achieve something spectacular to prove himself.
A few days ago, in order to obtain the inner core of a Flame-Tailed Fox to please a certain inner sect senior sister, he had ventured deep into the inner perimeter of the Blackwind Mountain Range, a place that was tantamount to a forbidden land for someone of his realm.
As a result, he was attacked by a demonic beast far beyond his ability to handle. Barely escaping with his life, he had only half a breath left when he was discovered by the family's search and rescue team.
"Looks like you saw wrong." Ling Wei's voice pulled Ling Yan's thoughts back to reality. He looked at his still unmoving cousin on the bed, the mockery in his tone growing thicker. "Perhaps it was a convulsion before the final flash of life. Father, it's getting late. You still have to preside over the family competition at the martial arts arena. There's no need to delay any longer for him."
Ling Zhan silently stared at Ling Yan for a moment. Not a trace of life could be seen on that young and pale face. The last sliver of hope in his heart slowly sank. He sighed softly. In that sigh, there was pity, but more of it was the decisiveness of a burden being lifted.
"So be it." He turned and walked toward the door. "Shu Ying, in a few more hours, if... if he doesn't make it, then prepare his funeral affairs. Keep everything simple."
"Yes, Family Head," the maid named Shu Ying answered in a low voice, a hint of a sob in her tone.
Ling Wei followed behind Ling Zhan. Just as he was about to step over the threshold, he paused, turned his head, and shot a cold glance at Ling Yan on the bed. That look was like looking at a piece of trash about to be thrown away.
As the door was closed, the room returned to silence once more, with only Shu Ying's suppressed, faint sobs remaining.
Very good.
Ling Yan thought calmly in his heart.
The identity of a cripple whom everyone had determined would surely die was the best disguise for him right now.
He needed time, and an environment where he would absolutely not be disturbed, to completely sort out the current situation, and... to inspect the secrets hidden within this body.
In his previous life as the War God of the Heavenly Court, he had seen countless miraculous techniques, secret arts, heavenly treasures. Mere severed meridians and a damaged dantian were not, in his eyes, an incurable terminal illness, just a bit troublesome.
What truly made him concerned was the final fragment of this body's original owner's memory.
On the verge of losing consciousness after being heavily wounded by that demonic beast, he seemed to have felt another force intervene... It was not the sharp claws of the beast, but a sinister, cold, and bizarre stream of energy that, in an extremely cunning and ruthless manner, traveled once through his body, precisely destroying all his vitality.
This was not an accident at all, but a deliberate murder.
Using the demonic beast as a cover to carry out an assassination.
Who was it?
Ling Wei? Unlikely. Although that youth was arrogant and harsh, his scheming was not yet at that level. His dislike was written all over his face.
Ling Zhan? Possible. As the Family Head, he had sufficient motive to eliminate a side branch disciple who could become a stain on the family. But his style of doing things seemed to lean more towards open schemes rather than this kind of insidious assassination.
Or could it be... that there was a deeper, hidden current within the Ling Family?
Ling Yan was in no hurry to "wake up."
He lay in wait silently, like the most patient of hunters, waiting for the opportune moment.
After about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, the door was pushed open again.
This time, a young girl in a light purple dress entered. She was about 15 or 16 years old, with a pretty face, but a trace of irremovable worry hung between her brows.
"Brother..." The girl walked to the bedside and called out softly, her voice full of sorrow and helplessness.
This was Ling Yan's biological younger sister, Ling Shuying.
She was carrying a bowl of medicinal soup that was still steaming. She carefully scooped some up with a spoon.