Memories surged like a tidal wave, crushing Yuyan's senses as she knelt on the ground starting at her brothers corpse who was still stuck to his murderers hand while he moved towards her dragging the corpse wlong his arm while limping.
Her vision blurred—not from the gas, not from Lin Shu's presence—but from the flood of a childhood long buried.
She remembered the smell of herbs and warm broth, the small room they shared with their mother in the distant eastern courtyard of the Jiang clan. A concubine's quarters. Modest and tucked away where no "real" children could see the shame of their existence.
She remembered being shoved face-first into a pond by one of the main wife's sons, water flooding her lungs as the others laughed.
"dirty half blood i don't really know why they kept you all around but i guess people of our status do need the likes of you to serve us after all i can't see myself cleaning or cooking"
And she remembered Junxi's tiny hands dragging her out, trembling but defiant. "If you touch her again, I'll break every bone in your body."thay day junxi was beaten but even after thay he still had a smile while he held her hand ensuring her thay everything would be okay.
She smiled back then. She was only seven.
Their mother tried her best to give them everything. She was Gentle, clever, kind—but powerless.
Still, she was beautiful. And the patriarch grew fond of her.
For a brief time, things changed.
The bullying stopped.
The servants became more respectful.
Their food got better, their robes cleaner. Some even called their mother "favored."
But comfort only bred jealousy.
The main wives seeing how close their mother got close to the patriarch feared for the possibility of a new main wife.
They simply didn't want any competition to their authority, and not knowing what the patriarch had planned for her, they feared he might one day get fond of her enough to intervene and protect her if they try anything. So they acted before that could happen. Rather than using poison—the most obvious method in a clan ruled by poison techniques—they paid an outside organization to assassinate her. And they succeeded. But when they attempted to target her children as well, they were stopped by the patriarch himself. He had apparently known about their plans all along, yet hadn't cared about Jiang Yuyan's mother. However, when it came to her children, he did not tolerate interference. That was something they couldn't understand—but they had no choice but to accept it still they were all puniched severely for daring to do something behind his back.
The night their mother died was a blur of screams and crimson-stained moonlight. She was returning from a private meeting with the patriarch when shadows descended. Assassins.
Yuyan had never heard someone gurgle on their own blood before. Not until that night.
Junxi had covered her eyes.
But she remembered the way his fingers trembled afterward, and how he vomited behind the peach tree.
The clan told them nothing.
Just, "She was unfortunate."
They grieved alone.
They buried her in silence.
They made a vow that very night:
"No matter who did it… even if it's the patriarch himself—we will avenge her."
They'd whispered it to each other over and over for years. When Junxi trained until he coughed blood, when Yuyan hid her tears behind fake smiles, when they were mocked and pushed down.
Their bond was forged in grief, sharpened in rage.
That's why they took the mission.
That's why they wanted Lin Shu's corpse.
Because the reward would give them power, resources—leverage.
And now—
Now Junxi was gone.
The one person in the world who truly knew her. Who stood by her. Who made the pain bearable.
Gone.
Her chest heaved as she screamed again, a howl of pure devastation. Her fingers clutched her head as she screamed in agony.
"You promised, Junxi... You said we'd get revenge together..."
She fell on the ground, sobbing so hard her body shook uncontrollably.
"We were supposed to do it together... you can't just leave me—"
And infront of her—
Lin Shu stood.
Breathing hard, his armor cracked, his claws dripping red. One hand still bound in black goo, the other dripping with the blood of a life he'd just taken.
His voice came low.
"Don't worry... You'll see him again soon."
Lin Shu dragged Junxi's corpse behind him, his legs trembling, the black binding goo still chaining them together like rotting iron. Every inch he moved felt like dragging a mountain across his spine. His breath was shallow. His bones cracked with each step. But in his mind, only one thought repeated like a war drum:
"It's over."
He raised his half-shattered bone blade, its edge jagged and dull, but still sharp enough to slit a throat. Jiang Yuyan stood ahead of him, unblinking, her eyes hollow from grief.
Just as the blade came down—
BANG.
A brutal, burning hole tore through Lin Shu's shoulder.
His body spun and dropped backward. He coughed, blood spitting from his lips.
"Wha—where?!"
He looked around, panicked.
No one was around except them.
But then—another flash.
BOOM.
His leg was ripped open as if a beast had taken a bite, muscle torn and bleeding down to the bone. He screamed, voice breaking, eyes wide with madness and fear.
"DAMN IT! NOT AGAIN! NOT AGAIN!"
He tried to crawl—limp—anything.
Every mission. Every damned task.
They were all death traps for him at this point.
"One day… I swear… I'll butcher whoever sends me to these cursed missions!"
But he couldn't run.
So he turned, desperate—insane—and charged at Jiang Yuyan.
If he couldn't flee, he'd make her his shield.
Her eyes didn't even follow him.
They followed Junxi's corpse.
She didn't move.
Didn't resist.
Didn't care.
Lin Shu reached for her, one hand still barely clinging to his half-broken bone blade—
And the world cracked.
A shadow fell from the sky.
CRACK-BOOM!
A kick struck Lin Shu in the ribs like a collapsing mountain, sending him flying through two trees. He bounced off the bark like a doll, crashing against a broken stump.
He couldn't move.
His shoulder dangled loose. Blood flowed from his mouth and ear. The armor was gone. Everything was gone.
A man stood above him.
Middle-aged. Veins bulging across his forehead like writhing snakes. Eyes filled with absolute rage.
"You bastard," the man growled. "The patriarch personally ordered their safety. And you—YOU—killed him…"
The man stomped forward.
Lin Shu's vision blurred. The world spun. His breath hitched.
His fingers trembled, reaching toward his ring.
"The pill... Berserker's Brand… I just need to..."
Too slow.
The man dropped down, grabbing Lin Shu's wrist, crushing it beneath iron fingers.
"You won't even die quickly," he hissed. "You'll suffer more than I will for losing him."
And Lin Shu—suddenly saw it.
This was the end.
All the pain. All the sacrifices.
All the corpses left in his wake.
His dream—to rise above them all, to claw his way through rivers of blood and corpses until no one could ever hurt him again—
It was about to end here.
His eyes stung. His heart pounded like a death knell.
"Am I really… going to die here?"
But then—he grit his teeth.
His gaze sharpened like a blade.
He looked up at the man, blood pouring from his lips, and whispered:
"Good luck saving her. I poisoned her before you got here."
The man's grip faltered.
He didn't know if this was a bluff or not but he didn't dare to try his luck especially with his life on the line if he can't save yuyan at least.
Lin Shu smiled, teeth cracked and bloody as he was trying to make the man move away from him and check on yuyan to give himself a chance to take his berserker's Brand pill and swallow it.
"From the way you shouted, I guess you're already screwed for Junxi's death. Add Yuyan's body to that list."
The man's eyes bulged. "What poison? Where's the antidote?! Tell me you damned pest and I'll make your death quick"the man being a master of poison wasn't a medicine expert but he did have pills that nullified poisons but he didn't know if they could be useful as there are all kinds of poison and you never know which one to prepare for so he wanted what Lin Shu had fearing losing yuyan because he kept searching for a cure rather then taking the one with the person infront of him.
Lin Shu chuckled—genuinely. "Guess I'll be tortured. And so will you after she dies so why not make a deal with me let me live and I'll save her for you."
The man roared, rage drowning logic. He raised his arm to crush Lin Shu's bones—
FWOOOM.
A wind like a spear tore past them.
The man flew back, crashing into the dirt with an explosion of dust.
Lin Shu blinked in disbelief. He couldn't even see what had hit him.
A second later, a shadow landed beside him.
A scarred man. His aura radiated of might and authority he was the third strongest of the stone path hall, he was none other then Instructor Tao Mu.
"Eat this."
He shoved a pill into Lin Shu's mouth.
Lin Shu choked—but didn't swallow.
He didn't trust anyone. Especially those who send him to these missions.
As Tao Mu dashed off to face the Jiang elite cultivator, Lin Shu spat the pill out.
"I don't take charity. Not from snakes nor from sheep and especially from you bastards who send me on these death missions."
His one functioning hand, still partially bound by black goo except the junxi's Corpse was not there anymore as the attack he just suffered separated them from each other when Lin Shu tried to protect himself with junxi corpse which is why he isn't paralyzed yet. He looked at his bloodied body his armor had shattered completely"i need to heal fast.
He reached his spatial pouch, pulled out a cluster of pills, and devoured them—Qi restoratives, bleeding stoppers, body-stabilizers.
Then he sat.
He sat in the blood. In the dirt. In the burning wreckage of trees.
And he closed his eyes.
Focused.
The world vanished into flame.
Inside his body, his Burning Vein Art began to awaken again.
Like a dying coal being breathed back to life.
He didn't care how strong the enemy was.
He would fight.
He would rise.
Even if he had to kill kings and burn empires he will do anything he can to achieve his goal.