For Che Fang, the late autumn storm was nothing but another agonizing night of cultivation.

In the moonless gloom, his room was pitch black.

The gale from outside easily penetrated the rickety wooden walls of his hovel. Claiming it as his own might have been disingenuous, as Che Fang was squatting in an abandoned building.

The familiar smell of human waste, blood, sweat, and filth was thick in the air.

His concentration slipped as another hunger pang racked his body.

He reached a hand down to trail against emaciated ribs before letting it come to rest over his empty stomach.

Che Fang slammed his hand against the stone floor in protest, knowing that the display was futile.

In his other hand the grimy low grade spirit stone he clung to shattered under his clenched fist.

He bit down a curse and swallowed the tears that again threatened to overwhelm him, knowing the miraculous appearance of similar cultivation resources happened irregularly.

Without a concentrated source of Qi, Che Fang’s cultivation would stagnate until he could get his hands on another stone.

Over the last six months he had made an effort to keep track of the frequency of the mysterious deliveries. The average was one measly stone per week.

An ordinary Qi Condensation disciple could go through a single stone in a day if they cultivated to the exclusion of all else. For one with as much talent as Che Fang, it was a pittance.

Still, it was a ray of light in the misery that his life had become. If left completely without the resources to cultivate, he would have long since departed the Misty Cradle valley in search of a better life.

Whatever he might have been, Che Fang was never ungrateful. In his heart, he had long sworn to repay the debt to his faceless guardian.

It meant everything to him that there existed a person virtuous enough to risk the wrath of the Che clan to correct the injustice done to him.

On more than one occasion he had wondered who exactly held enough courage to do so. The most likely possibility was that it was more politics, perhaps another clan keeping him on the edge of life in case he could be used later.

His intuition disagreed for reasons alien to his logical mentality.

The wind battered his broken body, and Che Fang shivered, wondering if tonight was the night he would die.

He clutched the black ring that remained stubbornly affixed on his right hand, remembering his father and cursing the damned trinket.

A part of him was glad for it. The last vestige of his former glory. It was a reminder that he was still the same person, that Che Fang was not worthless.

The heavens had taken everything from him, but he would not give in.

He retook his meditative position and blocked everything out as he took in the dregs of ambient Qi that existed in the mortal slums of his former sect’s valley.

The Qi circulated reluctantly, most of it draining through his right arm into the ring, until he finished a cycle gasping for air.

Che Fang was so close to breaking back into the second stage of Qi Condensation, but lacked enough resources for the final push.

Sleep warred with exhaustion as he stared through a hole in the wall towards the miserable torrential downpour outside.

Footsteps splashed outside and someone banged on his door, causing it to splinter and fall to the floor, splattering him with mud.

“There’s nothing left to steal,” Che Fang mumbled hollowly, his will to resist the invader snuffed out by the man’s powerful Qi. “The heavens have taken it all.”

The tempest whipped the stranger’s robes chaotically about, and Che Fang realized he was from the Misty Cradle Sect. “Finally sent an assassin?” he deduced sullenly, mustering his Qi for a fight.

No attack came from the man, though he examined Che Fang ferociously, as if searching for impossible secrets. “Do you believe in fate?” he intoned gravely.

A barked laugh was all Che Fang could manage. “No,” he bristled. “I am in control of my life, and I will break the cursed destiny forced upon me.”

With a jerk, a deft hand flew out of the voluminous sleeves the nameless disciple wore.

Having expected a blade, Che Fang flinched when instead he caught a spirit stone covered in muck.

“Do you know who I am?” inquired a familiar face inches from his own.

The puzzle pieces fell together in Che Fang’s mind instantly. Then, for the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, he stared blankly.

When Che Fang managed to open his mouth all he could manage was an idiotic exclaimation. “You?!”

Dumbfounded by the implication that a lowly Assistant Admissions Disciple was responsible for his survival, Che Fang fell on his rear.

“Me. Zhao Mi,” confirmed the cultivator.

“I have come to ask for your help,” Zhao Mi said easily, as if the statement made sense. There was a hint of hysteria in his voice. “In exchange I will share with you my meager savings to aid in your cultivation.”

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Che Fang thought he was hallucinating, but when a hand reached down and brought him to his feet he could not deny the reality of the situation.

His heart throbbed painfully in his chest, and he realized a great truth; the disgraced young master of the Che clan had always sworn to repay whoever his anonymous supporter was.

In his imagination Che Fang had conjured an Elder, a wandering cultivator, a hidden master, and an infinite number of experts that he could swear fealty to.

Never had it occurred to him that a junior might have taken pity on his circumstances rather than rejoiced at his fall.

Staring at Zhao Mi he altered his assumption, for there was no mercy in the eyes that beheld him. Only righteous fury and fear.

Despite taking action, Zhao Mi was afraid. He would’ve been a fool not to be, as the Che clan could ruin him easily.

That only served to make his action more commendable.

His father had told him years ago that everyone came to junctures in their lives that would forever define them.

Though it was widely believed that only oaths before the heavens held consequences, Che Fang knew that whether he honored the vow he had made would fundamentally alter who he was.

Was he Che Fang, former young master of the imperious Che clan, raised to be willing to do anything to carve his way back to power… even if that meant taking advantage of the one person that had believed in him?

Or was he Che Fang, honorable son and brother, who repaid kindness in turn and made good on his promises?

Zhao Mi could not know which path he walked, yet came to him in his hour of need.

With enough resolution to chop nails and sever iron, Che Fang dropped to a kowtow. “Zhao Mi, hear me pledge myself in service!”

Grinding his forehead into the dirt, he lowered himself with a cry. “Let the oath in my heart be spoken aloud and witnessed by the heavens: I, Che Fang, swear to serve you in return for your faith in me. This is my honor!”

A bone chilling sensation spread over him as the heavens recorded Che Fang’s words.

With them, he had made a mockery of the Che clan.

No member would ever be permitted to be a servant for an outsider, let alone a mere disciple.

He didn’t care. The Che clan was run by traitors and cowards, and he would not allow himself to be cowed into inaction.

To be unyielding was in his nature, an intrinsic part of Che Fang that could not be denied.

Speechless, his new master stared at him quietly as the rain poured through the doorway. “Well,” he concluded, “that makes everything much simpler and much more complicated.”

Pulling Che Fang to his feet again, the disciple continued, “Let’s head back to the sect. I’ll explain everything once we’re out of the storm.”

With a nod Che Fang followed without complaint.

They swiftly left the dirt-caked streets of the mortal slums to find themselves on the stone path that ran through the village towards the Misty Cloud Sect.

Passing under the massive torii that demarcated the official sect boundaries stirred a complex jumble of emotions in his stomach, but fighting to stay on the path in the harsh weather kept Che Fang focused.

After the gate, their path veered upwards steeply, and the subsequent climb was torturous; far more difficult than he remembered.

His drop in cultivation combined with his skeletal frame led him to almost fall off the edge of an exceptionally thin section of the winding trail.

Zhao Mi had spun around to catch his arm with the extraordinary speed associated with Qi reinforcement. Then he had hauled Che Fang onto his back like a child, ignoring his wheezed dissent to dash up the mountainside at a rapid pace.

In his youth, Che Fang had spent most of his time confined to the Che clan’s compound, but as they advanced deeper he began to recognize familiar sights in the night.

The pair soon found themselves in the sect officials’ quarters, where mismatched cobbles and well maintained hedges lent a modest comfort to the final stage of the journey home.

As usual, the heavens seemed to have a sense of humor when it came to him as the rain only dissipated when they reached shelter.

After depositing him on the ground gently, Zhao Mi’s divine sense wrapped Che Fang faintly.

“Use the Qi freely,” he instructed Che Fang with a motion to the soiled spirit stone he still held. “I’ll make you a light meal.”

The hospitality brought tears to his eyes.

Throwing himself at another’s feet could have easily been the worst mistake of his life. Instead it seemed he had chosen a benevolent master.

Inhaling the thick ambient Qi as he straightened his back, Che Fang closed his eyes and concentrated on cultivation as instructed.

‘Use the Qi freely’ had probably been said with the intent that Che Fang squander it on his body to restore his drained stamina and recover from the multitude of minor injuries he sported.

When the heavenly energy entered his spiritual roots, any commitment to limiting its usage to those tasks was lost immediately.

A sensation akin to a caught fish throwing itself back into the water overwhelmed Che Fang, relief and elation so powerful that they must have been stimulating his very soul.

The ancient Che clan’s mantra ran through his mind while Che Fang’s breathing became irregular in a precisely controlled practice.

With what remained of his divine sense, he could feel the water attuned Qi surge towards him.

He drank it with a thirst that couldn’t be sated.

On his right hand the ring that had ruined him partook more than its share, but for once it didn’t matter. The flood of Qi could not be dammed by the strange band’s efforts, and with frenzied glee Che Fang broke back into the 2nd stage of Qi Condensation.

Riding the high of success, he doubled down on his draw.

All the ambient Qi seemed to welcome his influence like an old friend meeting him again for the first time in decades.

Che Fang could feel the power rising, a tide carrying him over the hurdle of the next stage. It was so close, all he had to do was- a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

A much greater cultivation simultaneously suppressed his efforts.

Cracking open his eyes, he instinctively glared murderously at Zhao Mi.

Unperturbed, the young man smiled and placed a bowl in his hands. As its warmth passed into him, Che Fang realized his entire body was shivering and coated in a thin sheet of sweat.

A wistful scent pulled his attention to the soup while he reached for the proffered spoon automatically.

“There will be time for that later,” Zhao Mi stated tenderly, patting the shoulder he had gripped. “Although it seems congratulations are in order for taking the first step back up.”

The praise was almost lost in the explosion of flavor that Che Fang was shoveling into his mouth.

Part of it was certainly the quality of the ingredients, another part assuredly the result of skill, but a third part was unidentifiable.

Searching his memories, only one shared the same unidentifiable element.

Before his father had disappeared, Che Fang remembered a time when he had cooked a meal for the two of them.

His younger self had scoffed at his father’s insistence that the menial task was not beneath him.

That contempt had melted away when he partook of his first dinner made with affection.

Although not exactly the same, Zhao Mi’s heart had clearly contributed itself to the dish.

Rather shamefully, Che Fang allowed himself to cry in front of another for the first time in his life.