The Fifth Failure
The Outer Court's training grounds fell silent as Lou Fang Chen collapsed to his knees, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
"Failed again."
Elder Xu's voice carried across the stone courtyard, cold and final as winter frost. Around them, fifty disciples stood in perfect formation, their foundations glowing with stable golden light—proof of successful qi cultivation. Lou Fang Chen alone knelt in darkness, his meridians empty, his dantian hollow.
Five times now. Five attempts to establish his foundation. Five failures.
"Lou Fang Chen." The Elder's shadow fell across him like a burial shroud. "You have exhausted your attempts. The Sect provides no sixth chance. You are dismissed from candidacy."
The words should have crushed him. Perhaps once, they would have.
But Lou Fang Chen had stopped feeling crushed somewhere between the third and fourth failure. Now he felt only the cold weight of mathematics: his mother had three months before the wasting sickness consumed her completely. The medicine cost two spirit stones per month. His father's death in the mines had left them nothing.
Without the Sect's support, without a cultivator's stipend, she would die.
He tasted copper and defeat. Forced himself to stand.
"Elder, I—"
"No." Xu didn't even look at him. "You lack the spiritual roots. Your meridians are malformed. Some are simply not meant to walk this path." The old man's robes whispered as he turned away. "Clear your belongings by sunset. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
The other disciples avoided his eyes as Lou Fang Chen walked past them. Pity was worse than mockery. At least mockery acknowledged you as a threat.
He made it to the outer wall before his legs betrayed him, forcing him to lean against ancient stone. His reflection stared back from a rain puddle—long black hair loose and tangled, golden eyes dim with exhaustion, the lean frame of someone who'd trained too hard on too little food.
Father died in the mines seeking spirit stones to buy us a better life. Mother wastes away while I fail at the one thing that could save her.
The sunset painted the sky the color of dried blood.
Three months.
Lou Fang Chen straightened. His hand found the jade pendant at his throat—Father's last gift, pressed into his palm with final words: *Don't give up. Never give up.
"I won't," he whispered to the empty courtyard. "I'm sorry, Father, but I won't give up. Not yet."
---
The Archives
The Azure Peak Sect divided its knowledge into three repositories.
The Outer Library held basic cultivation techniques—simple qi circulation methods any disciple could access. The Inner Archive stored advanced techniques for promising students who'd proven their foundations. And the Forbidden Vault...
Lou Fang Chen stood before the Forbidden Vault's entrance at the stroke of midnight, heart hammering against his ribs.
The door was ironbound oak, inscribed with sealing formations gleaming with residual qi. Two stone lions flanked it, their eyes following him with carved menace. Warning talismans fluttered on chains: ENTRY FORBIDDEN UPON PAIN OF EXPULSION, KNOWLEDGE CONTAINED HEREIN IS RESTRICTED BY ORDER OF THE SECT MASTER, DISCIPLES WHO TRESPASS WILL BE STRIPPED OF CULTIVATION AND EXILED.
Lou Fang Chen had nothing left to lose.
He'd spent his last coins bribing a drunk formation-student to explain the ward's weak points. The outer seal was keyed to cultivation bases—but he had no foundation to detect. The secondary ward responded to hostile intent—but he came seeking help, not harm. The final lock required a key—but the ventilation grate near the ceiling had been left unwarded, too small for any reasonable person to fit through.
Lou Fang Chen was not reasonable anymore. Desperation made men flexible.
Twenty minutes of silent climbing. The grate came free with a soft scrape of metal. He slipped through gaps that scraped skin from his ribs, landing in darkness that smelled of old paper and older secrets.
The Forbidden Vault stretched before him like a tomb of knowledge.
Shelves rose three stories high, packed with scrolls and bound texts. Moonlight filtered through high windows, painting everything in shades of silver and shadow. Dust motes danced through the air like tiny spirits.
Lou Fang Chen moved between the stacks, fingers trailing across ancient spines. The organization system was opaque—no helpful labels, no clear categories. Just rows and rows of forbidden knowledge, sealed away because someone centuries ago had decided these truths were too dangerous.
Alternative Foundation Methods. Unorthodox Cultivation. Techniques of the Heretical Masters.
His hand stopped on a slim volume bound in black leather, tucked between two larger tomes like it didn't want to be found. No title on the spine. He pulled it free, and dust cascaded like falling ash.
The cover was blank except for a single character pressed into the leather: 拒
Rejection.
Something about that word made his breath catch. He opened to the first page.
The text was written in old script, the kind scholars spent years learning to read. But Lou Fang Chen had spent his childhood in his father's library before the money ran out, before the mines became necessary. The characters swam before his eyes, then resolved:
The Foundation Method of the Azure Peak assumes that qi flows like water—seeking the path of least resistance, filling the dantian through careful accumulation. This is the Way of Affirmation: accepting what is given, building upon stable ground.
But what if the foundation itself is flawed? What if the spiritual roots are malformed? What if the meridians reject the orthodox flow?
Then one must not accept what is given. One must REJECT the assumption. One must forge foundation not through accumulation but through NEGATION.
Lou Fang Chen's hands trembled. His eyes devoured the next paragraph:
Orthodox cultivation says: "Gather qi until the dantian overflows, compress it into foundation." But this assumes the dantian can hold what is gathered. For those whose vessels are cracked, this path leads only to spillage and failure.
The Rejection Method says: "Identify what prevents foundation. Deny it validity. Reject the limitation until only possibility remains."
Warning: This technique is forbidden because it requires the practitioner to reject their own assumptions about cultivation, their body's natural responses, sometimes their very sense of self. Many who attempt it lose their way. Some lose their minds. A few lose their souls.
But for those with nothing left to lose, it offers a path where none existed before.
Lou Fang Chen read the technique three times. Each reading made less sense logically but felt more TRUE in some deep place beneath logic.
Orthodox cultivation: gather qi, compress it, form foundation.
Rejection Method: identify the blockage in your meridians, then reject its right to block you. Deny the limitation until it has no choice but to dissolve.
It sounded insane.
It sounded desperate.
It sounded exactly like what he needed.
---
The Attempt
Lou Fang Chen found a quiet corner of the Vault, far from the entrance. If someone discovered him, he wanted at least a chance to complete the attempt before they dragged him out.
He settled into meditation posture, the black-bound text open before him. His breath slowed. His pulse steadied. The world narrowed to the rhythm of inhalation and exhalation.
First: locate the blockage.
He turned his awareness inward, following the familiar paths of his meridians. The Azure Peak method had drilled this into him—trace the channels, find where qi should flow, identify the problem.
There. In his lower dantian, where foundation should form. A knot of resistance, like scar tissue in his spiritual flesh. Every time he'd tried to gather qi there, it leaked away through cracks he couldn't see, couldn't fix, couldn't overcome.
Five failures. All because of this single flaw.
Second: reject its validity.
This was the part that made no sense. How do you reject something that simply IS? His meridians were damaged. That was physical reality. You couldn't deny reality through willpower.
But the text insisted: Rejection is not denial of what exists. It is denial of what existence means. The blockage exists—but does it HAVE to block? The scar exists—but does it HAVE to bind? Question the necessity. Withdraw your affirmation of the limitation.
Lou Fang Chen focused on the knot in his dantian. Instead of trying to force qi through it or around it, he... withdrew his acceptance of it.
You are a blockage because I believe you are a blockage.
But what if you're not?
What if you're just... neutral tissue that I've been treating as an enemy?
What if the problem isn't you—it's my assumption about you?
Something shifted.
Not physically. Deeper than that. His awareness of the blockage changed. It was still there, but it no longer felt like an obstacle. It felt like... possibility. Like a door that wasn't locked, just stuck, waiting for someone to question whether it needed to stay closed.
Third: circulate qi through the rejected space.
Lou Fang Chen drew a thread of ambient qi from the air—barely enough to be called cultivation, but more than he'd managed to hold in months. He guided it toward his dantian, toward the space where the blockage lived.
Orthodox cultivation would have tried to force through. The Rejection Method said: don't force. Simply move as if the obstacle isn't there. Reject the necessity of resistance.
The qi touched the blockage.
And passed through.
Lou Fang Chen's eyes snapped open. Golden light flickered across his vision. His meridians blazed with sudden heat, not burning but alive, responding for the first time in his life to his will.
It's working. Gods and ancestors, it's actually working—*l
Pain lanced through his chest.
Not the clean pain of exertion. This was something wrong, something twisting inside him like a blade made of frozen lightning. His qi circulation spun out of control. The thread he'd been guiding became a torrent, ripping through meridians too fragile to contain it.
The text had warned him: The technique requires precise control. If you reject too much, too fast, you may reject your own body's cohesion.
He'd been too desperate. Too reckless. Too—
His foundation ignited.
not the warm, solid weight of proper cultivation settling like a foundation stone, but wildfire. Purple-black at the edges, crackling through his dantian like lightning trapped in a bottle that was already cracking. He could feel the instability, each pulse of qi threatening to spiral into patterns his body didn't recognize
Stop. I have to stop. This is too much—
But he couldn't stop. The rejection-qi had momentum now, feeding on itself, devouring his assumptions faster than he could rebuild them. His sense of self wavered. His understanding of his body flickered. For one horrible moment, he couldn't remember if he was Lou Fang Chen or just the idea of Lou Fang Chen, a pattern that someone had rejected—
A hand grabbed his shoulder.
"ENOUGH."
The voice was like a mountain falling. Lou Fang Chen's runaway cultivation slammed to a halt. His awareness snapped back into his body with painful force.
Elder Xu stood over him, face carved from stone and fury, one hand on Lou Fang Chen's shoulder pumping stabilizing qi into his system. The old man's foundation blazed with true power, several magnitudes beyond anything Lou Fang Chen could imagine touching.
"You foolish, suicidal child." The Elder's voice shook. Not with anger. With something worse—disappointment sharp as broken glass. "Do you have any idea what you just attempted?"
Lou Fang Chen couldn't speak. His throat was raw, his body trembling with spiritual exhaustion. Had he been screaming?
Elder Xu released him, and Lou Fang Chen collapsed forward, catching himself on trembling hands. The black-bound text lay open beside him, its pages now scorched at the edges.
"The Rejection Method." Xu's voice was flat. "Of course. Of course you would find that cursed technique." He kicked the book away. "Do you know how many disciples have destroyed themselves attempting this? Do you know why it's forbidden?"
Lou Fang Chen forced words past his burning throat. "Because... it works?"
The Elder's hand cracked across his face.
Lou Fang Chen tasted blood again. Familiar flavor by now.
"Because it kills, boy." Xu's composure cracked. "Because it offers false hope to the desperate, and false hope is crueler than honest despair. Because it requires you to reject fundamental truths about existence, and some truths cannot be rejected without losing yourself entirely."
Lou Fang Chen looked up through watering eyes. "Then why keep the text?"
"To remind us." The Elder's face was granite. "To remind us what happens when we forget that some paths should never be walked."
Silence stretched between them like a chasm.
Finally, Lou Fang Chen spoke, voice hoarse but steady. "Did I form a foundation?"
Elder Xu's expression went carefully blank.
"Answer me." Lou Fang Chen pushed himself to sitting despite the pain. "Did. I. Form. A foundation?"
The Elder was quiet for a long moment. Then, grudgingly: "...Yes."
Something like triumph blazed through Lou Fang Chen's exhaustion. "Then it worked."
"It is UNSTABLE," Xu snapped. "Your dantian is riddled with cracks. Your meridians are torn. Your qi flow is chaotic. You have perhaps three days before your foundation collapses entirely, and when it does, it will tear your spiritual roots apart permanently. You will never cultivate again. You may not survive the backlash."
"Three days is longer than I had this morning."
"You arrogant—" The Elder stopped. Breathed. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, almost gentle. "Why, Fang Chen? Why risk everything for this?"
Lou Fang Chen met his eyes. "My mother has three months before the sickness kills her. Without the Sect's support, I can't afford the medicine. I need to become a cultivator. I need the stipend. I need..." His voice cracked. "I need to not fail her like I've failed everything else."
Understanding flickered across Xu's weathered face. Then hardened into resolve.
"No."
"Elder—"
"The answer is no." Xu's voice was iron. "I will not watch another student destroy themselves. I've seen too many geniuses reduced to cripples by forbidden techniques. I've buried too many children who thought they could master powers beyond their comprehension." He stood, robes settling around him with terrible finality. "You will report to the medical pavilion at dawn. They will attempt to stabilize your foundation. If they succeed, you will be expelled with your cultivation sealed. If they fail..."
"I'll die."
"Perhaps that would be kinder."
Lou Fang Chen watched the Elder turn toward the door. Watched his last chance at saving his mother walk away. Felt something inside him—something new, something that tasted like purple-black lightning—rise up in defiance.
"Elder Xu."
The old man paused.
"What if I could stabilize it myself?"
Xu didn't turn around. "Impossible."
"The text says—"
"The text is forbidden for a reason!"
"The text says," Lou Fang Chen continued, voice gaining strength despite his body's weakness, "that the Rejection Method's instability comes from incomplete rejection. That cultivators who attempt it halfway create foundations that exist in contradiction—neither fully orthodox nor fully rejected. But if someone committed completely..."
"They would lose themselves," Xu finished. "Their sense of identity would dissolve. They would reject their own existence."
"Or they would achieve a foundation that transcends the binary."
Now Xu did turn. His eyes were sharp as surgical knives. "You understand what you're suggesting?"
"No," Lou Fang Chen admitted. "But I understand I have three days to figure it out, or three months to watch my mother die, or zero days if I give up now." He forced himself to stand, legs shaking but will ironbound. "I choose three days."
The Elder studied him for a long moment. Finally: "If you attempt to complete this technique without supervision, you will be expelled immediately."
"Understood."
"If I catch you circulating this method again, I will seal your cultivation personally."
"Understood."
"And if you somehow, against all probability and common sense, succeed..." Xu's expression was unreadable. "I will personally sponsor your advancement to Inner Disciple status."
Lou Fang Chen blinked. "Elder?"
"Because anyone foolish enough to master the Rejection Method is either a genius or a catastrophe waiting to happen." A ghost of dark humor touched Xu's voice. "And the Sect has always preferred its catastrophes pointed outward rather than inward."
He turned to leave, then paused at the threshold. "Your mother's medicine. I will ensure she receives it for the next three months, regardless of your status."
Lou Fang Chen's throat tightened. "Why?"
"Because I also failed to save someone once." The Elder's voice was distant. "Because I understand what it means to be desperate. And because..." He looked back, and for a moment the stern Elder vanished, replaced by an old man who'd seen too much death. "Because that text chose you as much as you chose it. And I've learned not to ignore when the universe offers someone a cursed gift."
Then he was gone, leaving Lou Fang Chen alone with the scorched text, his cracked foundation, and three days to achieve the impossible.
Lou Fang Chen sank back to the floor, every muscle screaming. His dantian pulsed with unstable qi—simultaneously too much and too little, chaotic and ordered, orthodox and heretical.
The Rejection Method requires complete commitment.
He looked at his reflection in a nearby glass case. Golden eyes stared back, now shot through with threads of purple-black. His long black hair seemed to move in wind that didn't exist. His lean frame trembled not just with exhaustion but with barely-contained energy.
He looked like someone who'd touched something they shouldn't have.
He looked like someone who had three days to master it or die trying.
Lou Fang Chen picked up the scorched text and began to read.
Three days until his foundation collapses.
Three months until his mother dies... and he had no idea if the cost would be his life or his soul