Within an ancient grotto, deep within the abysmal darkness, secrets unseen and untouched since time immemorial lay still, yet pregnant with potential. In this place of stasis, a sense of anticipation began to bubble forth.

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In a room swallowed by darkness, Yip Chor was a lone figure buried under thin quilts, a boat lost in the black sea of his mind.

His eyes, wide and haunted, stared into the unforgiving abyss. Fear was his captor, springing from a multitude of dark corners: a future shrouded in uncertainty, the omnipresent spectre of his severe, power-hungry patriarch, and a thousand other anxieties that lurked in the shadows of his psyche.

Above all else, the upcoming union with Lin Hua filled him with a cold terror. Images of his upcoming wedding night especially filled him with dread, a tempest that had him pinching his cheeks to pull him from his thoughts, a desperate bid to drown out the wild untamed storm in his heart. How does a real man perform in bed? Would Lin Hua be his type, or would she be one of those big bland blossoms? Fears that she would swallow his thin frame in the quilts pulled sweat from his brow.

Not that he could ask for much. Yip Chor himself was the eldest scion of the Yip family, bound by birthright to steer their modest lineage towards prosperity. Fate, however, had played a cruel jest on him, gifting him a fragile constitution and a frame as thin as parchment. The last business trip he took with his father proved this reality again... the journey through the desert to the Feng Clan had nearly driven him to death, such was the fever that resulted from his weeks under the hot sun. In the end, the trip had been a waste, his weakness losing the Yip Family a chance at an exclusive merchant contract. The Feng clan and the world respected strength and confidence, which he had neither. How could he, who could barely stand up to a gust of wind, shoulder the weight of his family's aspirations?

Instead, he looked to his younger siblings to help the family grasp greatness. Yip Chor was sure that his father and grandfather had the same hope. After all, each of them was far more robust than he was. In fact, they had each been accepted as disciples into the celestial city of Qilin as immortals! Surely, this overshadowed not only his meagre existence, but also reached far beyond his family's mortal merchant business! The future of the Yip family frankly rested in their worthy hands, not his.

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Nevertheless, it had been seven years since they left, and in a bid to secure the family's fortunes and form alliances, his grandfather, the patriarch of the Yip family had negotiated a marriage with the Lin family. The Lin Clan, a noble immortal cultivator clan, had a remote family branch that had fallen from grace due to their patriarch's chronic gambling addiction. As a result of certain political machinations between the Yip and Chor families, Yip Chor was to marry Lin Hua, a union that neither had anticipated and he was sure, neither desired. And the day of reckoning was fast approaching.

The thought of facing this monumental responsibility, especially the responsibility of leading a family, stirred a primal fear within him. He was plagued by visions of stumbling under his ancestors' piercing gaze and facing a barrage of criticisms and humiliations from his nearest and dearest.

As a refuge from the storm of his insecurities, he fell back on the comfort of rhythmic breathing, a survival tactic he had perfected over years of both physical and mental painful endurance.

As his regulated breaths began to tame his restless mind, a sense of calm started to descend. His worries about the next day still hung over him like a heavy cloud, but the night had promised him the sweet oblivion of sleep.

Just when he was on the brink of surrendering to the soothing lull of drowsiness, a cat's wail cut through the silence, a mournful cry that resonated with his inner turmoil. Suddenly, his fears returned with a vengeance, bearing down on him like a crushing weight.

With newfound resolve, he steeled himself against the encroaching darkness of self-doubt, forcing himself to stay composed. 'His future might be as uncertain as the wind, but sleep offered him a brief escape from his whirlwind of anxieties,' he assured himself tiredly.

Finally, on the precipice between consciousness and the dream realm, Yip Chor gave himself over to the night's embrace. He closed his eyes, praying his customary prayer for the dawn to usher in a new day where he might find the strength to break the chains of doubt and sickness that bound him and emerge as a new man, full of confidence and virility.

It was at this time that the door to his room creaked open ominously, a thin sliver of light slicing through the darkness. Yip's heart hammered in his chest as a figure materialized in the doorway, a silhouette shrouded in mystery.

The rooster crowed in the distance, it's sound jarringly loud in the looming silence.

"Fuck," Yip Chor muttered under his breath.