The voices cut through the darkness like rusty blades.

"You've brought shame to this family!" His father's voice cracked with fury, the kind of raw emotion that made seven-year-old Cao Jinghui pull his thin blanket over his head. But the fabric was too threadbare to muffle the shouting from the main room.

"I didn't choose this!" That was his older brother Cao Mingshan, though his voice sounded different now. Deeper. Harder. Like something had broken inside it and healed wrong. "The Crimson Fist Clan chose me! Do you know what an honor that is?"

"Honor?" Their mother's bitter laugh rang. "You call learning to drink blood an honor? You call becoming a monster an honor?"

The floor creaked as heavy footsteps paced back and forth. Jinghui could picture his brother the way he'd looked when he came home three days ago: taller, broader, but with something cold in his eyes that hadn't been there before. And his right hand... his right hand was always clenched now, like he was holding something invisible.

"The Crimson Fist Clan teaches strength!" Mingshan's voice rose to match their father's volume. "Real strength! Not the weak philosophies of those temple monks who preach about compassion while the world tramples over them!"

"Strength built on blood is no strength at all," their father shot back. "It's corruption. It's everything our ancestors warned us against."

Jinghui squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his small palms against his ears. These arguments had become a nightly ritual ever since Mingshan returned from his years of training at the clan compound. Every evening, the same words. The same accusations. The same growing distance between the brother who used to carry him on his shoulders and the stranger who now spoke of blood like it was wine.

In the Mortal Martial World, the Crimson Fist Clan occupied a position that walked the razor's edge between respect and revulsion. Their techniques were undeniably powerful: single strikes that could shatter stone, movements that blurred the line between human and lightning. But their methods... their methods required sacrifices that most martial artists found unthinkable.

"You don't understand the dedication it takes!" Mingshan continued, and now there was something manic in his voice, something that made Jinghui's stomach twist with fear. "Every day, we drink from the Blood Cups. Every training session, we feed our gloves with our own life force. You think strength comes from sitting in meditation? From practicing forms in the air? Real strength requires sacrifice!"

"And what have you sacrificed?" Their mother's voice had gone quiet. "What did they make you give up, my son?"

The silence stretched long enough that Jinghui found himself holding his breath. When Mingshan finally spoke, his words came out like broken glass.

"They said... they said a true Crimson Fist warrior has no room for weakness. No room for sentiment. They said family ties make you hesitate. Make you soft."

"Oh, Mingshan." Their mother's voice cracked. "What have they done to you?"

"Nothing!" The word exploded from Mingshan. "They've made me stronger! I can feel the Blood Qi flowing through my meridians. I can sense the life force of everything around me. I could kill a Form Unification master with my bare hands!"

"But at what cost?" Their father's voice had gone deadly quiet. "Look at yourself, boy. Look at what you've become. When was the last time you smiled? When was the last time you showed kindness to anyone? The Crimson Fist has stolen your humanity."

"Humanity is weakness!" Mingshan roared, and Jinghui felt the floorboards shake under the force of his brother's Martial Qi. "Compassion is what gets you killed! The Blood Cups have shown me the truth; there are only predators and prey in this world!"

The next sound was his mother crying. Not loud, weeping sobs, but the quiet kind of tears that spoke of a heart breaking in real time.

"Please," she whispered. "Please, just... stay away from your little brother. Don't let whatever poison they've put in you touch him."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

That's when everything went wrong.

The silence that followed was different. Heavier. Like the air before lightning struck.

"Poison?" Mingshan's voice had gone flat. Empty. "You think I'm poisoned?"

"Son, she didn't mean—" their father started.

"No, I see it now. You'll never understand. You'll never accept what I've become. You'll spend the rest of your lives trying to 'cure' me. Trying to drag me back to your pathetic, weak existence."

"Mingshan, please, we just want our son back—"

The scream came so suddenly that Jinghui's hands flew away from his ears without conscious thought. It was his mother's voice, but distorted by agony and terror into something barely human. The sound cut off abruptly, followed by a wet thud that made Jinghui's blood turn to ice.

Then his father's voice: "What have you—"

Another scream, shorter this time. Another thud.

Then silence.

Jinghui lay frozen in his bed, his child's mind struggling to process what his ears had just heard. The house felt different now, like all the warmth had suddenly drained out of it. Like something fundamental had broken that could never be fixed.

Slowly, moving like he was underwater, Jinghui pushed the blanket away and climbed out of bed. His bare feet found the cold wooden floor, and he padded toward his bedroom door with the careful steps of someone who didn't want to make a sound.

The main room was lit by a single oil lamp, casting long shadows that danced across the walls like spirits. In the center of those shadows stood his brother.

Mingshan's back was to the doorway, his shoulders shaking in a way that might have been laughter or sobbing. His right hand, the one that was always clenched now, hung at his side, and in the lamplight, Jinghui could see something dark and wet dripping from his fingers.

On the floor in front of Mingshan lay two still forms.

"Papa?" Jinghui's voice came out as barely more than a whisper. "Mama?"

Neither figure moved. Neither figure breathed.

"Papa! Mama!" This time he screamed it, the words tearing from his throat as he rushed toward the bodies of his parents.

The sound seemed to break whatever trance had held Mingshan. He spun around, and Jinghui saw his brother's face for the first time since entering the room. Blood splattered his cheeks like grotesque war paint. His eyes were wide with shock and something that might have been horror.

"I... I didn't..." Mingshan stammered, staring at his blood-soaked hand like it belonged to someone else. "It was an accident. The Blood Qi, it just... when they said I was poisoned, I felt it surge, and I couldn't control it, and they were so close, and..."

Jinghui knelt beside his parents' bodies, his small hands shaking as he touched his mother's cold cheek. Their eyes were open but empty, staring at nothing. A pool of blood was spreading beneath them, soaking into the wooden floor like spilled ink.

"You killed them," Jinghui whispered.

"No, I didn't mean to! You have to understand, the clan teachings, they change you, and when I got angry, the Blood Qi responded, and I lost control for just a moment—"

"Monster."

The word hung in the air between them like a curse. Jinghui looked up at his brother: his brother who had once taught him to tie his shoes, who had snuck him extra rice cakes when their parents weren't looking, who had promised to always protect him, and felt something cold and hard settle in his chest where love used to live.

Mingshan stumbled backward as if the word had physically struck him. "Jinghui, please, you don't understand—"

"Monster," Jinghui repeated, his seven-year-old voice carrying a weight of hatred that belonged to someone much older. "You're a monster."

His brother's face crumpled. For a moment, he looked like the old Mingshan again, the one who cried when birds fell from their nests. Then the mask slipped back into place, and the stranger with their brother's face turned and ran.

Jinghui heard the front door slam, heard footsteps fading into the night. Then there was only silence… and the cooling bodies of his parents… and the growing pool of blood that would—

"Cao Jinghui!"

The world jolted sideways.

"Wake up! You're going to be late again!"

The room shifted. The wooden floor was gone. So was the lamplight. The shadows scattered like dust. The blood vanished.

Jinghui's eyes snapped open, his body jerking upright so violently that his sleeping mat skidded across the stone floor. His chest heaved as he struggled to separate the nightmare from reality, sweat cooling on his skin in the morning air of the dormitory.

"Easy there," said a gentle voice. A warm hand settled on his shoulder, and Jinghui turned to see Yu Ganglie crouched beside his mat, concern written across his round face. "Same dream again?"

Jinghui nodded, not trusting his voice just yet. Even after ten years, the nightmare felt as real as it had the night it actually happened. He could still smell the blood, still hear his mother's scream cutting through the darkness.

Yu Ganglie was one of the few people in the Iron Body Temple who knew about Jinghui's past. They'd been assigned as sleeping partners when Jinghui first arrived, both of them barely nine years old and trying to find their place in a world that had suddenly become much larger and more dangerous. While other children had come to the temple seeking enlightenment or following family traditions, Jinghui had arrived as a traumatized orphan with nowhere else to go.

The Iron Body Temple had taken him in not because of any great potential; his martial talent was, frankly, terrible, but because their philosophy demanded compassion for all living beings. Master Huang had looked at the hollow-eyed child standing at their gates and seen not a promising disciple, but a soul in need of healing.

Ten years later, the healing still wasn't complete.