The Sect of Zongyuan stood silent in the folds of the northern peaks — a place so forgotten even the clouds above seemed to pass without glance.
There, among the outer disciples, a boy moved like a shadow. No one spoke to him. No one remembered his name. When they did, it was only to spit it out.
"Shen Wuqing."
A name that meant "without emotion." As if fate itself had carved the insult into his birth.
He was beautiful in the way winter is — still, distant, and too cold to touch. His long black hair was tied with fraying thread, his robes stitched and faded, and his gray eyes carried no flame. Not even hatred. Only quiet.
Today was his sixteenth spring.
But there were no candles. No congratulations. Only the ritual every disciple must undergo: the Root Testing.
He knelt before the altar, hands folded, as the jade slab before him shimmered faintly. The elders watched from above, their eyes already half-lidded with disinterest.
"He won't even crack it," someone whispered.
"Why waste the stone on a corpse?"
The Sect Elder, white-bearded and dull-eyed, gestured with two fingers. "Proceed."
Wuqing stood, slowly. His body moved with precise, lifeless grace — not from discipline, but from long familiarity with pain.
He placed both palms on the jade.
It remained still.
Seconds passed. Then a minute.
The other disciples began to laugh — softly at first, then louder, like crows gathering at the scent of rot.
The slab did not glow. Not a single vein of qi responded.
Finally, a faint crack appeared — not in the stone, but in Shen Wuqing's skin. His palms had begun to bleed.
Still, he said nothing.
"Enough," the Elder muttered. "Remove him. He has no root. He is… empty."
Empty.
That word echoed through the chamber long after Wuqing was dragged away.
But no one noticed the faint shimmer behind his gray eyes — the glint of something listening.
---
He lay in the dust behind the cultivation grounds, where the soil was cracked and dry, and the grass grew thin like brittle hair.
His body hurt. His ears rang.
He touched his lips, as if trying to remember how it felt to smile.
Footsteps approached. Soft, measured, fragrant.
Lan Caixia.
Daughter of the Sect Master. Venerated as the jade flower of Zongyuan Sect.
She knelt beside him. "You didn't cry."
Wuqing didn't reply.
She reached out, brushing his cheek with fingers like silk. "Do you know what they call you?"
He blinked slowly.
"They call you Rootless." She laughed — not cruelly, not kindly. "But I think you're beautiful. I've always thought so."
Wuqing turned his head slightly, meeting her gaze.
"Would you like… help?" she whispered. "Just a little technique. Something to protect yourself."
Still, no words came from him.
"Here." She pressed a small bamboo scroll into his hand. "This is secret. My father would never allow it. Use it when no one sees."
And like mist, she was gone.
---
That night, he opened the scroll.
The words on it swam strangely — not like normal ink, but as if written in something alive.
He felt a throb in his skull. A weight behind his teeth. A soft whisper in his ear.
"They mock you because they fear your silence."
He tried to circulate qi.
It didn't move.
He pushed again — harder.
Something snapped inside his chest. A meridian tore.
Blood trickled from his mouth.
He coughed quietly, staring at the scroll. It had begun to fade, its ink vanishing like breath in winter.
He understood.
It was never meant to help him.
---
Days passed.
The sect announced a tournament.
An opportunity for disciples to rise in rank, gain new techniques, and prove themselves.
Shen Wuqing, who still bled when he breathed, was ordered to participate.
"Don't embarrass the sect," the elder warned with a yawn. "Die quietly, if you must."
Wuqing bowed.
The arena was a raised stone ring carved into the mountain's edge. The wind howled around it, scattering cherry blossoms like broken feathers.
Lan Caixia sat in the pavilion above, fanning herself with a smile too perfect to be sincere.
His opponent was Yun Cheng, a senior disciple with fire-root qi and a long memory.
"You again," Yun Cheng said, sneering. "I thought you died already."
Wuqing didn't answer.
The fight lasted less than a minute.
Fists against bone. Fire against flesh. Laughter against silence.
Wuqing fell, broken and bleeding.
The audience booed. Not because he lost — but because he wasn't fun to kill.
---
They threw him down the Blackpine Ravine.
A place where the roots grew deep, and bones stayed hidden.
They didn't even check if he was breathing.
---
It was cold.
Colder than silence.
He crawled through dead pine needles and found a cave — small, damp, with the scent of metal and rot.
A skeleton sat inside, robes long decayed, its spine arched against the wall like it had died in pain.
On the walls were carvings — spirals, runes, lines of text in a language no longer spoken.
He reached out, fingers brushing the stone.
And the world turned black.
---
He did not dream.
He fell.
And in the falling, he heard voices.
"You have no root."
"You have no name."
"You are not meant to cultivate."
"So… devour."
The voices were not loud.
But they were deep — like something beneath the world had spoken its first word in centuries.
He opened his eyes.
The skeleton was gone.
So were the carvings.
But his hands felt full — of heat, and cold, and memory.
He felt something shifting inside his veins. Not qi. Something older.
A hunger.
---
He stood slowly.
The blood on his skin had dried. The pain in his bones had dulled. His breathing was even — too even.
He tried to speak.
No sound came out.
He smiled.
It was the first time he ever did.
Not because he felt joy.
But because the silence
had finally become his.
---
Above, in the sect, no one remembered Shen Wuqing's face.
They thought he had died.
And in a way… they were right.
The boy without root was dead.
Something else had taken his place.