Chapter 4: The First Harvest of Blood
The subterranean root cellar beneath the Li family hut had evolved over sixteen years from a simple dirt hole into a fortress of quiet, paranoid industry. The air down here was thick, smelling of dried soil, aged root vegetables, and the sharp, acidic tang of crude alchemy.
It was the dead of winter in Li Mo's sixteenth year in the Great Wei Dynasty. Above ground, the world was a frozen, howling wasteland. Below, illuminated by the steady, smokeless glow of deep-cave luminescent moss that Li Mo had painstakingly transplanted from the forbidden zones of the Black Mountain, the family was working.
Li Mei, now nineteen, sat cross-legged before a small, makeshift crucible forged from dense iron-wood and lined with imported river clay. Her face, half-hidden by a linen mask, was a study in absolute, terrifying concentration.
Beside her, Li Mo sat as an imposing, silent guardian. His massive, Flesh-Tempering-enhanced frame was perfectly still, his breathing so shallow it barely stirred the air.
"The fire-silk grass binder is stubborn, Father," Mei murmured, her voice a low, musical whisper that belied the deadly nature of her work. "It clings to the medicinal essence like a parasite. If I increase the heat, the pill volatilizes. If I decrease it, the toxin remains."
"Patience, Mei," Li Mo replied smoothly. "Do not force the outcome. Observe the reaction. If heat is not the answer, what is?"
Mei's brow furrowed. She picked up a small glass vial containing a pale, milky liquid—the moon-flower extract she had spent three months carefully pressing and distilling. "Solubility. The toxin is fire-aspected. The extract is extreme yin. If I introduce it slowly, drop by drop, while the crucible is suspended in a bath of cold mountain spring water..."
"Try it," Li Mo commanded gently. "But prepare the neutralization powder. If it violently boils, we cannot afford the fumes."
Mei nodded. With steady, unshakeable hands, she used a hollowed-out reed to draw exactly three drops of the moon-flower extract. She suspended the small crucible inside a larger basin of ice water. Slowly, she released the first drop onto the three murky green pills resting inside.
A sharp hiss echoed in the cellar. A tiny plume of black, acrid smoke rose from the pills.
"Neutralization," Mei whispered, watching intently. The black smoke dissipated as the extreme yin energy of the moon-flower violently reacted with the fire-silk toxin, tearing it away from the medicinal core.
She repeated the process over the next three hours, her focus absolute. Li Mo watched her with profound pride. Mei had not inherited Changshou's physical combat genius, nor did she possess a heaven-defying cultivation talent. But her mind was a razor blade. She had fully internalized Li Mo's philosophy of invisible lethality. A sword could be blocked; a poison slipped into a well could wipe out an entire sect without the assassin ever stepping foot in the valley.
Finally, the reaction ceased. Mei carefully used a pair of wooden tongs to lift the three pills from the crucible.
They were no longer murky green. They had transformed into a pale, translucent jade color, emitting a faint, sweet aroma that instantly made Li Mo's mouth water and his dense muscles twitch with a primal hunger.
"Minor Blood Refinement Pills," Mei announced, her eyes gleaming with exhaustion and triumph as she wiped sweat from her forehead. "The toxins are completely neutralized. The efficacy is likely reduced by twenty percent due to the harsh extraction, but they are perfectly safe to consume."
"Excellent work, my daughter," Li Mo said, an authentic smile breaking his usually stoic expression. "You have opened the first gate for our family."
He turned to the shadows at the far end of the cellar. "Changping. Chang'an. Come forward."
The two younger boys stepped into the light of the luminescent moss. Changping, fourteen, was built like his elder brother—broad and solid, though his eyes lacked Changshou's sheer intensity. Chang'an, at eleven, was slighter, quicker, with a mischievous spark that Li Mo had spent years ruthlessly disciplining into cold observation.
"Sit," Li Mo instructed, pointing to two woven straw mats placed over the hard-packed dirt.
The boys obeyed, crossing their legs in the lotus position they had been practicing for the last week under Li Mo's relentless instruction.
Li Mo held out the Azure Wood Qi Gathering Art parchment. He had memorized every character, every meridian map, every breathing cadence. Though his own foundation was ruined by his brutal, self-taught mortal martial arts, his theoretical understanding was flawless.
"Tonight, we discard the Iron Wood Body Tempering Art," Li Mo said, his voice dropping an octave, resonating with the solemnity of a patriarch passing down a sacred inheritance. "You have spent years building a vessel. Your skin is tough, your flesh is dense. But you are still mortals. Tonight, you begin to draw the breath of the heavens into yourselves."
He handed one pale jade pill to Changping and one to Chang'an.
"This pill contains refined blood and spiritual essence. It is the spark. The Azure Wood Qi Gathering Art focuses on the Taiyin Lung Meridian and the Shaoyin Heart Meridian. It is a wood-aspected art, drawing upon vitality and endurance."
Li Mo stepped back, his eyes locked on his sons. "Swallow the pill. Close your eyes. Begin the breathing cycle. When you feel the heat in your stomach, do not panic. Use your will to guide it up your spine, over your crown, and down into your Dantian. If it hurts, endure. If you lose focus, the Qi will disperse and you will waste a resource our family bled to acquire."
The boys exchanged a brief, determined look, placed the pills in their mouths, and swallowed.
Silence descended upon the cellar, broken only by the rhythmic, highly specific breathing pattern of the two boys. Inhale for four heartbeats. Hold for two. Exhale for six. Hold for two.
Ten minutes passed. Then, twenty.
Suddenly, Changping's face flushed a deep, vibrant red. Veins bulged on his neck. Sweat poured from his forehead, soaking his tunic in seconds. He let out a low, muffled groan of pain.
The Qi is moving, Li Mo thought, his actuary mind analyzing the boy's physiological response. It is violent. The pill is a low-tier mortal item, but to a completely unrefined body, it is a tidal wave.
"Guide it, Ping'er," Li Mo commanded sharply, his voice slicing through the boy's panic. "Do not fight the current. Channel it. Force it into the lung meridian. Breathe!"
Changping gritted his teeth, his jaw muscles popping. He forced his breathing to stabilize, overriding his body's natural instinct to hyperventilate. Slowly, the violent red flush receded, replaced by a steady, healthy glow.
Beside him, young Chang'an was having an easier time. His thinner frame seemed to offer less resistance to the spiritual energy. A faint, almost imperceptible breeze seemed to swirl around the eleven-year-old, stirring the dust on the cellar floor.
Li Mo watched, a profound, bittersweet ache settling into his chest.
He could see it. With his enhanced Flesh Tempering senses, he could faintly perceive the ambient, invisible energy of the world being drawn into his sons' bodies. They were crossing a threshold he could never cross. He was the First Ancestor, the patriarch, the man who held the terrifying cheat of the Golden Tree, yet he was permanently grounded in the mortal dirt, forced to watch his children ascend into the sky.
I am the roots, he reminded himself brutally, crushing the momentary surge of envy beneath his iron will. Roots do not seek the sun. Roots seek the water in the dark so the leaves may touch the sky.
Two hours later, both boys opened their eyes. The exhaustion on their faces was entirely wiped away, replaced by a vibrant, startling clarity. Their eyes shone in the dim light.
Changping looked at his hands, clenching them into fists. "Father... I feel... light. But strong. The fatigue in my bones from the winter... it's completely gone."
"That is Qi," Li Mo stated simply. "You have stepped onto the first level of Qi Gathering. You are no longer mortals. You are cultivators."
He pointed a stern finger at them. "And because of this, you are now in infinitely more danger than you were yesterday. From this moment on, you will wear heavier clothes to hide your physical changes. You will intentionally slouch. You will never, under any circumstances, use Qi in the village, not even to lift a heavy bucket. If an Iron Fist enforcer senses the spiritual energy in your blood, they will not tax us. They will slaughter us all and dissect you to find our secrets."
"We understand, Father," the boys chimed in unison, the gravity of the Gou philosophy firmly implanted in their minds.
Li Mo looked at Mei, who was quietly packing away her alchemical tools. He looked at Wang Cui, who was asleep in the partitioned corner, holding little Li Lan. He looked at his two cultivating sons.
The Li family was no longer a peasant household. They were a hidden, embryonic cultivation clan.
And they had all the time in the world to grow.
Year Eighteen: The Night Tax
Two more years ground past. Clearwater Village suffered through a localized blight that ruined the wheat crop, but the Li family, insulated by their massive subterranean stockpile, remained healthy and untouched by the starvation that claimed three other households.
Li Mo was now forty-three. The ash he rubbed into his hair was no longer necessary; streaks of genuine gray had appeared at his temples, a physical manifestation of the immense psychological weight of maintaining his family's absolute secrecy.
It was mid-summer when the peace was shattered.
The Iron Fist Brotherhood rotated their enforcers every three years to prevent them from becoming too sympathetic to the locals. The new arrival, a man named Zhao Kui, was a monster.
He was a late-stage Skin Refining martial artist, built like a brick outhouse, with a cruel, pockmarked face and a penchant for sadism that shocked even the hardened villagers. He didn't just collect taxes; he extracted pleasure from suffering.
On his second visit to the village, Zhao Kui instituted the "Night Tax."
"Any family that cannot pay the grain quota in full will provide a daughter of marriageable age to serve the Brotherhood's garrison for one moon," Zhao Kui announced in the village square, his heavily ringed broadsword resting casually on his shoulder. His eyes roamed over the terrified crowd, filled with a predatory, disgusting hunger.
Old Man Wang, the village chief, was dead, having passed away the previous winter. The new chief, a spineless man named Sun, simply bowed and wept.
Li Mo stood in the back of the crowd, leaning heavily on his walking stick, playing the role of the crippled elder. Next to him stood Mei.
She was twenty-one. Despite wearing baggy, shapeless peasant clothes and having smeared dirt across her cheeks, the natural grace of her cultivator's vitality was becoming difficult to hide. The murky green pills she had purified, combined with her own modified, poison-based breathing techniques, had pushed her to the second level of Qi Gathering. Her skin was flawless beneath the grime; her eyes were sharp and clear.
Zhao Kui's gaze swept over the crowd and abruptly stopped. He locked eyes with Mei.
A slow, ugly smile spread across the enforcer's pockmarked face. He ignored the groveling Chief Sun and walked directly toward the back of the crowd, the villagers parting like water before a shark.
Li Mo's heart turned to absolute, freezing ice. His hand tightened imperceptibly on the heavy iron-wood walking stick. His actuary mind exploded into a thousand rapid calculations.
Distance: twenty feet. Target is late-stage Skin Refining. I am Flesh Tempering. I can close the distance in 0.4 seconds. I can crush his larynx with the walking stick before he draws a breath. I can kill his three subordinates in the following 1.2 seconds. But there are fifty witnesses. I would have to slaughter the entire village to maintain secrecy. Unacceptable.
Zhao Kui stopped three feet from Li Mo and Mei. He looked Li Mo up and down with sneering contempt, noting the gray hair, the stooped posture, and the limp. He dismissed the patriarch entirely and focused on the daughter.
"You," Zhao Kui grunted, pointing a thick, scarred finger at Mei. "Wash the dirt off your face. You're coming back to the garrison to work off your father's tax."
Li Mo's muscles coiled beneath his loose clothes. The Dao resonance in his soul hummed. He prepared to abandon a decade of hiding to protect his daughter. He would kill them all, pack the family, and flee into the deep mountains, becoming hunted fugitives. It was a massive setback, but it was the only option.
Before Li Mo could move, a soft, calloused hand gently touched his wrist.
It was Mei.
She did not look terrified. She did not weep. She looked at Zhao Kui, then lowered her head in a perfect display of meek, trembling subservience.
"Lord," Mei said, her voice shaking with artificial fear. "My father... my father has the tax. We have the copper. Please, do not take me. I am sickly. I will only be a burden to the garrison."
Zhao Kui laughed, a harsh, barking sound. "Sickly? You look sturdy enough to me, girl. The Brotherhood doesn't want your coppers. We want labor." He reached out, his hand grasping Mei's shoulder tightly.
Li Mo nearly shattered his walking stick.
Mei whimpered, shrinking back, but she did not pull away abruptly. Instead, she reached into the deep pocket of her apron with trembling hands. She pulled out a small, tightly tied leather pouch that clinked with the sound of metal.
"Please, Lord," Mei begged, looking up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes. She pressed the pouch directly into Zhao Kui's large, sweaty hand. "Take it all. It is our entire winter savings. Fifty coppers. Please."
Zhao Kui frowned, his greed temporarily fighting his lust. Fifty coppers was a significant bribe from a single peasant family. He squeezed the pouch, feeling the hard coins within. He looked at the weeping, dirt-smeared girl, then at her crippled father, and clicked his tongue in disgust.
"Fine," Zhao Kui spat, releasing her shoulder and pocketing the pouch. "Fifty coppers buys you one month. I'll be back next moon, girl. Keep yourself clean for me."
He turned and marched back to his horse, shouting orders to his subordinates to pack up the collected grain.
Li Mo stood perfectly still, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked at Mei.
The tears were gone. Her eyes were as cold and dead as a frozen lake. She was staring at the retreating back of the enforcer.
"Mei," Li Mo whispered, barely moving his lips. "What did you do?"
"Nothing, Father," Mei replied softly, her voice devoid of emotion. "I simply paid the tax."
Li Mo looked at her hands. The fingertips of her right hand, the hand that had pressed the pouch into Zhao Kui's sweaty palm, were coated in a faint, almost invisible layer of fine, grayish dust.
Li Mo's eyes widened slightly.
That night, in the safety of the cellar, Mei explained her methodology with the detached precision of a master assassin.
"It is a compound I call 'Widow's Breath'," Mei stated, calmly grinding dried herbs in her mortar. "It is a mixture of the blue-ringed mountain centipede venom and the dried spores of the silent-rot mushroom. It is entirely inert when dry."
She looked up at Li Mo, her eyes reflecting the lamplight.
"But when it comes into contact with human sweat and body heat, it dissolves and is absorbed directly through the pores. It enters the bloodstream. It does not attack the heart or the lungs immediately. It travels to the brain."
Li Mo listened, a chill running down his spine that had nothing to do with the cellar's temperature. His daughter was a monster of his own creation.
"How long?" Li Mo asked simply.
"Three days," Mei replied. "It causes micro-hemorrhages in the cerebral blood vessels. To any mortal doctor, and even to most low-level cultivators, it will appear exactly like a massive, natural apoplexy. A stroke caused by too much wine and anger. There will be no trace of poison. And because he is surrounded by his own gang members in the town, miles away from here, no one will ever suspect a peasant girl in Clearwater Village."
Li Mo leaned back against the dirt wall. He looked at his eldest daughter, seeing the lethal, calculating woman she had become. She had flawlessly executed the Gou philosophy. She had eliminated a lethal threat to the family without exposing a single shred of their strength, their wealth, or their cultivation.
Three days later, the news reached the village via a traveling merchant.
Zhao Kui, the brutal Iron Fist enforcer, had dropped dead in the middle of a brothel in Qinglin Town. The town doctor declared it a burst blood vessel in the brain, brought on by excessive drinking and exertion. The gang mourned him for a day, replaced him with a slightly less ambitious enforcer, and moved on.
Li Mo stood in his fields, hoeing the rocky dirt. He looked toward the town, a profound, chilling smile touching his lips.
The branches are growing thorns, he thought. The world will never know what hit them.
Year Twenty: The Breaking of the Wood
The letter arrived in the dead of winter, deposited in the hollow pine tree at the base of the Azure Peak.
Li Mo retrieved it with his usual paranoid efficiency, but the moment he touched the oil-cloth bundle, he knew something was wrong. It was hasty. The knot was sloppy, lacking Changshou's usual meticulous precision. The cloth was stained with something dark and dried.
Blood.
Li Mo moved through the blizzard like a wraith, returning to the cellar in record time. He did not wait for the family to gather. He tore open the bundle under the solitary light of his lamp.
There were no neatly copied manuals this time. There were no stolen pills.
There was only a single, jagged piece of parchment, the handwriting frantic, slashed across the page in a dark, rusty brown.
Father,
The Gou strategy has failed. The sect is falling. The Grand Elder attempted to break through to the Core Formation realm and died to his inner demons. The Blood Saber Valley and the Iron Mountain Sect had spies waiting for this exact moment. They launched a joint strike at midnight.
The Inner Sect is a slaughterhouse. Geniuses are dying like pigs. The elders are throwing us Outer Disciples at the enemy as meat shields while they try to escape with the treasury.
I could not hide entirely. A Blood Saber disciple, early Qi Gathering, cornered me and three junior martial brothers in the archives. I had to use my Flesh Tempering strength to crush his skull. I saved them, but my cover as a weakling is blown among my peers. They are clinging to me.
I am currently hiding in the third level of the underground medicinal vaults. The sect is burning above us. I found something. In the chaos of the Grand Elder's death, a secret compartment in his private study was blown open by the backlash. I secured a genuine spatial pouch. Inside is a jade slip. I cannot read it without spiritual sense, but it radiates pure, terrifying Dao energy. It must be a Foundation Establishment manual, or higher.
I will not make it to the hollow pine. They are locking down the mountain with a perimeter array. I am going to attempt a breakout through the eastern gorge, using the aqueduct tunnels. I will bury the spatial pouch at the base of the weeping willow by the old ruined shrine at the mouth of the gorge.
If I do not send another letter by the spring thaw, do not look for me. Do not seek revenge. Take the pouch, burn this letter, and hide deeper. Protect the family.
I am proud to be your son. I am the stone in the river.
Changshou.
Li Mo sat frozen in the chair. The parchment trembled in his hands.
His actuary mind, the cold, calculating machine that had kept them alive for two decades, slammed to a halt. The numbers, the probabilities, the risk assessments—they all vanished, replaced by a roaring, deafening silence in his ears.
Changshou. His firstborn. The boy he had trained, the boy he had sent into the wolf's den to be a spy, the boy who had played the fool for a decade to steal the future for his siblings.
He is trapped, Li Mo realized, a sickening dread pooling in his stomach.
Li Mo stood up abruptly, his chair clattering to the dirt floor. He grabbed his heavy blackwood club. He would go. He would tear through the Blood Saber Valley lines. He was Flesh Tempering; his physical strength could crush Qi Gathering cultivators if he got close enough. He could—
He stopped.
He closed his eyes, his breathing ragged.
He sank into his sea of consciousness. The Golden Tree stood there, vast and silent.
He looked at the thickest branch on the right. Changshou's branch.
It was still glowing. The boy was alive.
But as Li Mo watched, the golden light began to flicker. It pulsed erratically, like a heartbeat struggling against a crushing weight.
If I go, Li Mo's terrifying logic returned, cold and brutal. It will take me three hours to reach the Azure Peak. The mountain is locked down by a perimeter array. I do not know how to break arrays. If I am caught, I die. If I die, the tree dies. Cui, Mei, Changping, Chang'an, Lan... they will all be defenseless. The Iron Fist Brotherhood, or the rogue cultivators from the fallen sect, will sweep through the villages. The bloodline will be extinguished.
He was the First Ancestor. He was the anchor. He could not risk the entire ship to save one sail, even if that sail was his beloved son.
Li Mo slowly lowered the blackwood club. He fell to his knees on the hard-packed dirt of the cellar. He pressed his forehead against the cold earth.
He stayed there for hours, suspended in the agonizing purgatory of helplessness, watching the flickering light of his son's life in the depths of his soul.
Year Twenty-One: The Severed Branch
The spring thaw brought mud, blooming wildflowers, and rumors of the absolute destruction of the Azure Wood Sect. The Blood Saber Valley had claimed the territory, slaughtering anyone who did not surrender and swear a blood oath of servitude.
Li Mo had not slept in three months. He had lost weight, his muscular frame looking gaunt and terrifyingly intense. He spent his days in a fugue state, performing his farm duties with mechanical precision, his mind locked entirely on the Golden Tree within.
It happened on a quiet Tuesday evening.
Li Mo was in the cellar, watching Changping and Chang'an practice their Qi Gathering breathing.
Suddenly, a sound echoed in Li Mo's mind—a sound that did not exist in the physical world. It was a sharp, violently resonant CRACK, like a massive redwood tree snapping in a hurricane.
Li Mo gasped, clutching his chest, falling backward off his chair.
"Father!" Changping yelled, breaking his cultivation state and rushing forward.
Li Mo didn't hear him. His consciousness was entirely consumed by the sea of his soul.
The Golden Tree was writhing.
Changshou's branch—the thickest, brightest limb—flared with a blinding, agonizing, supernova-like brilliance. It was a final, desperate surge of vitality.
Then, it snapped cleanly from the trunk.
The severed branch did not fall. It disintegrated into a trillion motes of pure, incandescent golden light.
The Dao resonance, the ironclad rule of his transmigration, activated with terrifying, absolute authority.
Feedback Initiated.
The golden light rushed toward the roots of the tree. It slammed into the single, glowing root that represented Li Mo.
In the physical world, Li Mo arched his back, a silent scream tearing at his throat. His eyes rolled back into his head, showing only the whites.
The influx of feedback was not a gentle stream; it was a catastrophic flood of pure, refined existence.
Memory.
Li Mo was suddenly running. He felt the burning in his lungs. He felt the terrifying, suppressive weight of a Foundation Establishment cultivator's spiritual sense locking onto him. He was in a muddy ravine. Three junior disciples were weeping behind him. "Run," Changshou's voice echoed in Li Mo's own mind. "Take the tunnels. I will hold the bottleneck." He turned, drawing a cheap iron sword coated in Mei's Widow's Breath. A man in blood-red robes descended from the sky, sneering at the Outer Disciple trash. Changshou didn't roar. He didn't boast. He used his father's Gou stealth, dropping his Qi signature to zero, letting the man underestimate him. When the elder casually swiped his blade, Changshou exploded with ten years of repressed Flesh Tempering strength. He shattered the elder's knee with a kick and dragged the poisoned blade across his arm. The elder screamed in shock and unleashed a massive palm strike of pure, materialized Blood Qi. The strike crushed Changshou's chest cavity instantly. As the darkness closed in, Changshou smiled, seeing the junior disciples escape, knowing the spatial pouch was buried deep by the willow tree. 'I am the stone,' he thought, and died.
Cultivation.
The memory faded, instantly replaced by raw, unadulterated power. Ten years. Ten years of pristine, flawless, methodical practice of the Azure Wood Qi Gathering Art. Changshou had not rushed. He had not taken shortcuts. He had built a foundation as solid as bedrock, intentionally stalling at the peak of the third level to remain unnoticed.
All of that purified Qi, all of that perfect meridian comprehension, slammed directly into Li Mo's ruined, violently scarred mortal body.
It was an act of brutal, divine surgery.
The pure Qi acted like a raging river breaking through a dam. It tore through Li Mo's blocked, damaged meridians, causing immense, agonizing pain. But where it tore, it instantly rebuilt. The Dao feedback did not just transfer energy; it transferred perfection.
Li Mo's Flesh Tempering bottlenecks shattered. The dense, compacted muscles shifted, becoming leaner, infinitely more powerful, and thoroughly saturated with spiritual energy.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
The sound of his bones restructuring echoed in the cellar. The marrow inside his bones was forcibly cleansed, turning from mortal red to a pale, luminescent white. He was blasting straight through the Bone Forging and Marrow Cleansing realms of mortal martial arts in mere seconds, fueled by the sacrifice of his son.
The Qi didn't stop there. It hit his Dantian, the spiritual center below his navel. It formed a perfect, swirling vortex of wood-aspected spiritual energy.
First level of Qi Gathering.
Second level.
Third level.
Peak of the Third Level.
Li Mo's aura exploded outward, a concussive wave of pure force that threw Changping and Chang'an backward against the dirt walls of the cellar. The iron-wood table splintered. The luminescent moss flared blindingly bright and then shattered, plunging the room into darkness.
Longevity.
Finally, a soft, warm, melancholic breeze seemed to blow through Li Mo's soul. It was a wisp of pure life force. Changshou was twenty-one when he died. He had easily sixty years of natural mortal lifespan remaining, perhaps more due to his cultivation. A fraction of that unlived potential—a pure, refined decade of absolute life—wove itself into Li Mo's root.
The gray in Li Mo's hair instantly vanished, turning jet black. The deep wrinkles around his eyes smoothed out. His stooped, weary posture straightened. The lingering aches of two decades of brutal mortal training evaporated.
He was forty-six years old, but his body had returned to its absolute, perfect physical peak of a twenty-five-year-old, supercharged by spiritual energy.
The feedback ended. The Golden Tree settled into a solemn stillness. The severed stump where Changshou's branch had been pulsed with a faint, eternal glow, a permanent scar on the ancestor's soul.
In the dark cellar, Li Mo slowly opened his eyes. They glowed with a faint, verdant light.
He slowly stood up. He did not need the walking stick. He felt a terrifying, boundless strength coursing through his veins. He could feel the ambient Qi in the air, the life force of the roots in the walls, the terrified heartbeats of his younger sons.
He had done it. He had crossed the chasm. He was a true cultivator, possessing a perfect foundation and the combat experience of a man who had fought in a sect war.
He had won the ultimate prize.
"Father?" Changping whispered from the darkness, his voice trembling with terror at the immense, suffocating pressure radiating from Li Mo. "What... what happened?"
Li Mo stood in the dark. The power within him was intoxicating, god-like compared to the mortal he had been minutes ago. He could wipe out the Iron Fist Brotherhood tonight. He could walk into Qinglin Town and tear the magistrate's head off.
But as he raised his hand and looked at his perfectly smooth, flawless skin in the dim light filtering from the trapdoor above, he felt nothing but a hollow, infinite abyss opening in his chest.
He had power. But the cost was absolute.
Li Mo, the ruthless actuary, the cold-blooded patriarch, the man who had planned for a millennium, fell to his knees in the dark.
He buried his face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking violently.
For the first time since he transmigrated into this brutal, unforgiving world, the Immortal Ancestor wept. He wept for the boy who played the fool. He wept for the stone in the river. He wept for the first, bloody harvest of the Li family's long march to eternity.
"Changshou," Li Mo sobbed into the silence, the sound a ragged tear in the fabric of the dark room. "My son. My brave, foolish son. I have received your filial piety."
He stayed on his knees for a long time, letting the grief wash over him, letting the human part of his soul mourn the terrible price of his cheat.
When he finally stood up, the tears were gone. His eyes were dry, cold, and burning with a terrifying, absolute resolve that would shake the foundations of the Great Wei Dynasty.
He turned to his terrified sons in the dark.
"Pack your things," Li Mo commanded, his voice no longer that of a weary farmer, but the chilling, resonant tone of a true cultivator. "Tell your mother and Mei to prepare for immediate departure. We are leaving Clearwater Village tonight."
"Where are we going, Father?" Chang'an asked, his voice small.
Li Mo looked up toward the ceiling, his gaze piercing through the dirt, through the hut, toward the distant, blood-soaked peaks of the Black Mountain Range.
"To the weeping willow by the old ruined shrine," Li Mo said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion, a man who had fully embraced the monstrous nature of his path. "We are going to collect your brother's inheritance. And then, we are going to disappear entirely. The roots must grow deeper in the dark."