The scent of iron and rain-soaked earth filled Meng Ruohan’s nostrils, sharp and unforgiving. Each gasp burned, a fire stoked in a ruined forge. He stumbled through the swaying curtain of weeping bamboos, the slender stalks lashing his face like vengeful whips. Crimson bloomed across his tattered silken robes, a stark, wet stain blossoming from his chest where the Azure Marrow once beat with the lifeblood of the Meng clan. His father, Meng Tianxiao, had ripped it from him with his bare hands, a surgical brutality that left behind not just a gaping wound, but a hollow echo where his core once resided. He pushed harder, legs faltering. The blood loss made the world swim in hazy greens and grays. Somewhere behind him, the baying of the clan’s hunt hounds grew closer, a chilling chorus accompanied by the heavy footfalls of the clan enforcers. They weren’t after a capture; they were after a clean erasure, a final proof of his father’s utter repudiation. A glint of moonlight on polished dark steel. Three figures emerged from the dense bamboo thicket ahead, their faces obscured by the conical straw hats of the Meng clan’s enforcers. The burliest pursuer, sporting scarred forearms, gripped an obsidian blade. Its edge hummed with latent power. Ruohan’s heart, a weak, frantic drum against his ribs, seemed to shrivel. Cornered. “Meng Ruohan,” the lead hunter’s voice was a flat, unfeeling rasp. “The Patriarch’s decree is absolute. Your lineage has been revoked. Your life is forfeit.” Ruohan coughed, a spray of red mist escaping his lips. He pressed a trembling hand against his chest, the wound throbbing with an agony that transcended mere physical pain. The tiny, unremarkable stone miniature he’d kept in his inner pocket since childhood, a seemingly useless trinket, slipped from his grasp, tumbling to the wet earth. His blood, warm and thick, seeped from his fingers, tracing crimson lines across the relic’s rough, grey surface. Then, a jolt. Not from his ravaged body, but from deep within his mind. The stone carving flared with a dull, sickly green light, then burst into a blinding, searing gold. The world dissolved around him. The weeping bamboos, the moon, the grim faces of the squad—all melted into a swirling vortex of orange and black. He found himself standing in a realm of pure, incandescent fire. Pillars of emerald flame licked at an impossibly high, smoky ceiling. Rivers of molten aurum snaked across the floor, bubbling with noxious fumes. Before him, perched precariously atop a teetering stack of charred cauldrons, was Old Master Gu. His hair, a wild shock of white, stood on end, singed at the tips. His eyes, the color of burnt amber, gleamed with manic delight. He clutched a pill, no bigger than a thumbnail, that flickered with an internal, chaotic light. “Ah, Meng Brat! You finally bled on it!” Gu cackled, a dry, rattling sound that vibrated through the fiery air. “Took you long enough! Now, for the good part! Open wide, boy! It’s for your own good, I assure you! Mostly.” “What… what is this place?” Ruohan tried to speak, but his voice was a raw croak. “And that pill? What are you—” “No time for questions, boy!” Gu lunged, a surprisingly agile blur. He forced the volatile pill into Ruohan’s mouth. It tasted like ash and lightning, burning a path down his throat. Ruohan gagged, his body arching in protest. Excruciating fire tore through him, far worse than the missing marrow. His shattered pathways flared with an inferno of alien qi, not his own, but wild and untamed. Back in the bamboo forest, the pursuers watched in stunned silence as Ruohan’s body began to glow. A brilliant, fiery aura erupted from him, pushing outwards in violent, rhythmic ripples. The bamboo stalks around him withered and blackened. The air crackled. The swordsmen raised their blades, but it was too late. A concussive blast of scorching force slammed into them. They flew backwards, slamming into the ground with sickening thuds, their bodies limp but unmistakably breathing. Unconscious. Ruohan had held back. “Idiot boy!” Gu’s voice, now a booming echo in Ruohan’s mind, grated. “You could’ve vaporized them! Why pull your punch? You think they’d show *you* mercy?” Ruohan gasped, sweat plastering his hair to his face. The fiery qi receded, leaving him trembling, but alive. His chest no longer bled. The wound was raw, puckered, but closed. His ruined meridians felt like scorched earth, yet a faint, unfamiliar warmth now hummed within them. “Mercy… is not weakness,” Ruohan whispered, his voice hoarse. He was alive. The realization was a shock. “Fool’s sentiment!” Gu scoffed. “No matter. The pill did its job. Artificial meridians, crude but functional. They’re unstable, a ticking time bomb, really. You have thirty days, Meng Brat. Thirty days until the Heavenly Furnace Tribulation hits. Fail to stabilize them, and you’ll detonate into a fine mist of spiritual residue. Find the White Heron Alchemical Pavilion. Your only hope is there.” The fiery realm flickered, then vanished. Ruohan lay panting amidst the unconscious men, the stone miniature resting innocuously beside him. He pushed himself up, every muscle screaming. Thirty days. The sect grounds awaited. He had to go. He skirted the perimeter of the sprawling White Heron Alchemical Pavilion under the shroud of pre-dawn darkness, its intricate rooftops and spiraling spires silhouetted against a bruised sky. A figure, short and squat, practically vibrating with restless twitching, waved him over from behind a supply shed. Fan Bo, his only remaining friend, a failed beast tamer whose sole companion was a creature of legendary gluttony. “Ruohan! You made it!” Fan Bo hissed, his voice a frantic whisper. Beside him, a creature resembling an armadillo but thrice its size, with scales the color of polished jade, snorted softly. It was his spirit pangolin, “Pudge,” currently gnawing on a pilfered mooncake. “Barely,” Ruohan replied, his gaze sweeping over the compound’s formidable walls. “Any luck with the servant quarters?” “Best I could do,” Fan Bo fretted, rubbing his hands together. “The lower-tier alchemy apprentices share bunks. No one checks too closely tonight, the Inner Court trials start tomorrow. You’ll be invisible among the dregs.” He eyed Ruohan’s pale face. “You… you look like you wrestled a thunder beast and lost.” “Something like that,” Ruohan said, a bitter smile touching his lips. He followed Fan Bo through a concealed gate, past bustling kitchens where early morning fires were being stoked, and into a cramped, stuffy dormitory. The air was thick with the smell of stale linens and medicinal herbs. He found an empty bunk, pulling a rough blanket over himself, the unfamiliar warmth in his chest a constant, uneasy reminder of Gu’s desperate gamble. Just as he started to drift, a sudden, piercing alarm echoed through the halls. A shrill, metallic whine that cut through the early morning quiet. Fan Bo yelped, nearly dropping Pudge, who merely blinked sleepily. A moment later, a searing red glow radiated from a crystalline artifact mounted high on the dormitory wall, casting garish crimson streaks across the sleeping apprentices. It signaled an unregistered, foreign disturbance. The dormitory door burst open. A figure stood framed in the sudden light, tall and slender, with a sword whose hilt glowed faintly, a beacon of austere power. Her gaze swept the room, instantly locking onto Ruohan. The sword-bearing disciple glared with frigid intensity. Her blade, swift as a viper’s strike, was at his throat before he could even blink.

Blood in the Weeping Bamboos