The fever dream was a chaotic tapestry of two lives clashing. In one moment, Mo Yan was sprinting across the tiled roofs of the Imperial City, his lungs burning with the cold night air; in the next, he was drowning in a vat of expensive, honeyed wine while voices laughed at his gluttony.
When he finally clawed his way back to consciousness, the sun was setting, casting long, orange shadows across the master bedroom of the Jin Estate. The smell of jasmine incense was gone, replaced by the sharp, medicinal tang of bitter herbs and the metallic scent of dried blood that still clung to his skin.
He tried to move, and a hiss of pain escaped his teeth. Every muscle in Jin Taoran's soft body was screaming. He had pushed this neglected vessel far beyond its limits in that courtyard.
"Don't try to sit up yet. Your meridians are screaming louder than you are."
Mo Yan turned his head.
Sitting by the bed was a man he recognized from the memories of the "Sleeping Pig." This was the Seventh Husband, Lin Xue. He was the youngest of the seven, a prodigy of the Healer's Valley who had been sold to the Jin Clan to settle a sect debt. He had delicate features and fingers stained yellow from grinding herbs, but his eyes were hard and clinical.
"The 'Sleeping Pig' actually has muscles," Lin Xue remarked, pressing a damp cloth to Mo Yan's forehead. "Hidden under layers of lard and lethargy, but they are there. Or rather, they were. You've torn half of them."
"The tea," Mo Yan rasped, his throat feeling like it was lined with glass.
"Han Zhou is bringing it. Along with the others. They've been arguing outside your door for three hours about whether to kill you while you're weak or wait to see if you've truly been possessed by a vengeful spirit."
Lin Xue leaned in closer, his scent—a cooling, minty Omega fragrance—wafting over Mo Yan.
"So, which is it? Are you a ghost, or did you finally hit your head hard enough to remember you're an Alpha?"
Mo Yan stared at him, his gaze unnervingly steady. "I am the man who saved your life today. Is that not enough?"
Before Lin Xue could respond, the heavy oak doors swung open.
A procession of men entered, and the room suddenly felt very small. These were the pillars of the Jin Clan—the seven Omegas who had kept the name from vanishing entirely while Taoran slept.
At the front was Lu Cheng, the First Husband. He was a tall, imposing man who should have been a general. He carried an aura of disciplined strength, his hand never far from the heavy broadsword at his hip.
Behind him came Bai Shu, the Second Husband, a slender man with a calculating gaze and a silver abacus hanging from his belt. He was the one who managed the clan's dwindling coins.
Then came Han Zhou, the Third Husband, whom Mo Yan had met earlier. He carried a tray of tea, his expression a mix of confusion and simmering resentment.
The Fourth and Fifth Husbands, the twins Xiao Ren and Xiao Ra, stood by the door like twin sentinels. They were scouts and saboteurs, their movements synchronized and deadly.
Finally, there was the Sixth Husband, Yuan Yi, a youth of ethereal beauty with eyes that seemed perpetually misty. He was a master of the zither, capable of using sound as a weapon, though he looked as though a strong breeze might knock him over.
They stood in a semi-circle around the bed. The silence was heavy, thick with the scent of seven different Omega pheromones—some sharp with anxiety, others cold with distrust.
"The collectors are dead or fled," Lu Cheng said, breaking the silence. His voice was like grinding stones. "We stripped the bodies as you ordered. We found four hundred silver taels and several promissory notes. It will buy us food for the month, but it won't stop the Iron Fist Hall from sending a hundred men next time."
Mo Yan struggled into a sitting position, ignoring Lin Xue's protest. He took the tea from Han Zhou's trembling hands and drank it in one go. The heat grounded him.
"There won't be a next time," Mo Yan said.
Bai Shu, the Second Husband, stepped forward, clicking a bead on his abacus. "And why is that? Because you performed a miracle today? Let's be blunt, Patriarch. You moved like a master of the Shadow Realm. You didn't use the Jin family's Golden Sun techniques. You used the strikes of a common executioner. Efficient, dirty, and lethal."
"Does it matter?" Mo Yan asked, setting the cup down. "The gold is gone. The deed to the North Mountain is gone. Your lives were on the line. Would you prefer I had stayed asleep?"
"We want to know who is sitting in our husband's skin," the Fourth Twin, Xiao Ren, barked from the door. "Jin Taoran couldn't kill a chicken without weeping for more wine. You killed twenty men without breaking a sweat."
Mo Yan looked at each of them. He saw the scars of their neglect—the frayed edges of their expensive robes, the thinness of their faces, the way they stood ready to defend themselves even in their own home. Jin Taoran had been a monster of a different kind—a monster of apathy.
"Jin Taoran is gone," Mo Yan said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous register that made the twins reach for their blades. "Call it a breakthrough, call it possession, or call it a miracle. It doesn't change the reality. I have inherited his debts, his clan, and his husbands. And I do not like losing."
He looked at Bai Shu. "You. The Second Husband. How much is the total debt of this clan?"
Bai Shu hesitated, then pulled a small scroll from his sleeve. "If we include the underworld gambling dens, the Imperial taxes, and the private loans... forty-two thousand gold taels. We are not just bankrupt, Patriarch. We are buried."
"And what are our assets?"
"Three pawned warehouses, a depleted medicinal forest, and this estate," Bai Shu said bitterly. "And, of course, us. Seven high-grade Omegas. On the black market, we would fetch enough to clear half the debt."
The room went cold. It was a joke they had all lived with for years—the fear that one day Taoran would sell them.
Mo Yan stood up. His legs wobbled, but he forced them to hold his weight. He walked toward Bai Shu, the sheer pressure of his Alpha presence causing the shorter man to catch his breath. Mo Yan reached out and took the scroll.
"As of this moment," Mo Yan said, "no member of the Jin Clan is for sale. Not a servant, not a horse, and certainly not a husband."
He looked at Lu Cheng. "First Husband. You were a disciple of the Iron Mountain Sect before your family fell. You know their forms."
Lu Cheng nodded slowly. "I do."
"Tomorrow at dawn, you will meet me in the courtyard. You will teach me the Jin Clan's Golden Sun techniques. This body has the foundation, but the memory of the moves is... clouded."
"You want me to train you?" Lu Cheng asked, a disbelieving smirk tugging at his lips. "You haven't stood for more than an hour in five years."
"Then you will have the pleasure of watching me fall," Mo Yan replied.
"But I will get up. And by the end of the month, I will have the strength to kill the Master of the Iron Fist Hall."
He turned to the rest of them.
"The rest of you have roles. Lin Xue, I need a regimen of herbs to purge the toxins from this blood. Bai Shu, I want a list of every man Jin Taoran lost money to—not just the amounts, but their locations and their reputations. Han Zhou, you handle the servants; I want this estate cleaned. It shouldn't look like a tomb."
The husbands looked at each other. The "Sleeping Pig" was giving orders. He wasn't whining for cakes or complaining about the light. He was organizing a campaign.
"And if we refuse?" Han Zhou asked, his voice defiant but his scent betraying his curiosity. "If we decide we liked the Pig better when he was unconscious?"
Mo Yan walked over to Han Zhou. He was significantly taller than the Third Husband, and he used that height now, leaning in until their noses were inches apart. He could smell the jasmine Han Zhou used to mask his anxiety.
"Then you can leave," Mo Yan whispered. "The gates are open. I will tear up your marriage contracts tonight. You can go back to your failing sects or try your luck in the world as masterless Omegas. But if you stay... If you stay, you will work. You will fight. And I will make the name Jin mean something more than a punchline."
Han Zhou's eyes widened. The marriage contracts were the chains that bound them. To offer to tear them up was unthinkable.
"You're serious," Yuan Yi, the Sixth Husband, whispered from the back.
"I don't make jokes," Mo Yan said. "I find them inefficient."
He felt a sudden wave of dizziness and gripped the edge of the table to stay upright. His body was failing him again.
"The Patriarch needs rest," Lin Xue said, stepping in with the authority of a healer. He placed a hand on Mo Yan's chest, pushing him gently back toward the bed. "Go. All of you. Discuss your 'rebellion' elsewhere. I have to ensure he doesn't die of a heart collapse before dawn."
One by one, the husbands filed out.
Lu Cheng was the last to leave. He paused at the door, his hand on the frame.
"Taoran... or whoever you are. If you're lying to us, if this is just some elaborate game to get us to lower our guard... I will be the one to put the sword through your heart. Not the Iron Fist Hall."
"I would expect nothing less from my First Husband," Mo Yan said, his eyes already closing.
The night was long and filled with the sound of the wind whistling through the dilapidated eaves of the manor. But for the first time in years, the Jin Estate felt alive.
In the Third Husband's quarters, the seven men gathered. A single candle flickered on the table between them.
"He's possessed," Xiao Ra, the Fifth Husband, said, sharpening a small dagger. "I saw his eyes. Those aren't the eyes of a man who likes wine. Those are the eyes of a wolf."
"I don't care if he's a demon from the nine hells," Han Zhou muttered, though he looked shaken. "He offered to burn the contracts. Do you know what that means? We could go home."
"Home to what?" Bai Shu asked, his abacus clicking rhythmically. "My sect was absorbed by the Black Lotus. Your family's lands are salted. We have nowhere to go, Han Zhou. We are the 'Husbands of the Pig.' That is our identity in the Murim."
"He killed twenty men with a blunt decorative sword," Lu Cheng added, his voice low. "I watched him. His footwork was... haunting. He didn't waste a single movement. If he truly wants to learn the Golden Sun technique, and if he can apply that level of lethality to it... he might actually survive the month."
"He smells different," Yuan Yi whispered, his face flushed. "Usually, his Alpha scent is like rotten fruit. Thick and cloying. Today... It was like snow. Cold, clean, and terrifying."
The Omegas fell silent. In the world of Murim, strength was the only currency that mattered. They had spent years tied to a man who was a vacuum of power, a black hole that swallowed their dignity. Now, suddenly, there was a fire in the center of the house.
"We wait," Lu Cheng decided. "We do as he says for now. Lin Xue, keep him alive. Bai Shu, get him the list. If he is a demon, we will learn how to bind him. If he is a miracle... we will see if he can burn the world down before it burns us."
At dawn, the mist lay heavy over the training grounds.
Mo Yan stood in the center of the cracked marble, wearing a simple gray training robe. His body ached, a dull throb that pulsed with every heartbeat, but he ignored it. He had spent years training in the freezing waterfalls of the Shadow Pavilion; this was nothing.
Lu Cheng walked out, carrying two wooden training sabers. He looked at Mo Yan, noting the lack of trembling in the other man's hands.
"The Golden Sun technique is based on 'Yang' energy," Lu Cheng explained, tossing one of the wooden swords to Mo Yan. "It requires a clear mind and a body capable of acting as a conduit for heat. Your qi is currently a stagnant swamp. If you try to force the heat, you will burn your own meridians."
"Then show me how to clear the swamp," Mo Yan said, catching the sword.
For the next four hours, the courtyard was filled with the sound of wood striking wood.
Mo Yan was a genius of slaughter, but the Golden Sun technique was the opposite of everything he knew. The Shadow Pavilion taught him to be small, to be hidden, to strike from the dark. The Jin Clan's style was expansive, radiant, and loud. It required him to push his presence outward rather than pulling it in.
He fell. He fell thirty times.
Each time, his knees would buckle, or his breath would catch, and Lu Cheng's wooden blade would find his ribs or his neck.
"Again," Mo Yan would rasp, spitting blood into the dirt.
By the fifth hour, the other husbands had gathered on the balcony to watch. They expected him to quit. They expected him to throw a tantrum and demand a jar of wine.
Instead, they watched a man reinvent himself.
Mo Yan began to find the rhythm. He realized he didn't need to fight the "Sleeping Pig's" massive qi reservoir; he just needed to direct it. He began to breathe in sync with his strikes. A faint, golden glow began to shimmer around his hands—the first sign of the Jin family's internal power awakening after a decade of slumber.
Lu Cheng swung a horizontal strike aimed at Mo Yan's temple.
Mo Yan didn't dodge.
He stepped into the strike, parrying with the hilt of his wooden sword, and spun, his palm striking Lu Cheng's chest. A small burst of heat exploded from the contact, sending the First Husband stumbling back three steps.
Lu Cheng looked down at his chest, then at Mo Yan. His eyes were wide.
"You... you just accessed the first stage of the Radiant Heart."
Mo Yan stood panting, his robe soaked in sweat, his skin steaming in the cool morning air. "It's... inefficient. Too much energy is wasted in the display."
"It's not a display," Lu Cheng said, his voice hushed. "It's power."
Mo Yan wiped his brow. "It's a start."
He looked up at the balcony, meeting the gazes of his other husbands. He saw the shift in their eyes—the cynicism was still there, but it was being crowded out by something else. Fear, perhaps. Or the beginning of a terrifying loyalty.
"Bai Shu!" Mo Yan called out.
The Second Husband leaned over the railing. "Yes, Patriarch?"
"Is the list ready?"
"It is. And you won't like it. The man who holds the largest portion of your debt isn't a merchant. It's the Regional Governor's brother. He has a private army and a penchant for 'collecting' high-grade Omegas."
Mo Yan smiled. It wasn't a pleasant sight.
"Good. I was worried this would be boring. Lin Xue, prepare a bath with the 'Bone-Strengthening' herbs. Lu Cheng, keep your sword sharp. We're going to pay a visit to the Governor's brother tomorrow."
"You're going to pay him?" Han Zhou asked from the balcony.
"In a way," Mo Yan said, turning back to the training dummy. "I'm going to show him the interest rate on a Jin Clan debt."
As Mo Yan resumed his forms, his wooden sword whistling through the air, the seven husbands stayed on the balcony. They didn't speak. For the first time in their marriage, they weren't looking for a way out. They were looking at the man in the center of the courtyard, wondering if the "Sleeping Pig" had truly died—or if he had simply been a cocoon for something much more dangerous.
The Alpha fragrance of cold steel and winter snow intensified, settling over the Jin Estate like a promise. Or a threat.