The cart rocked gently as it creaked over the uneven dirt road. Kai sat near the back, wrapped in a threadbare blanket, the merchants stealing glances at him between hushed whispers.
He barely noticed.
His body was here, but his mind…
His mind was drowning.
It started as a headache. A dull pressure behind the eyes. Then a flash — a whip cracking in the dark. A name shouted. A boot to the ribs. A bitter laugh. Then hundreds of images pouring in at once — scattered, broken, blinding.
"Kai Jin, worthless."
"Clean the blood or you'll sleep without food."
"Your mother died screaming. Just like you will."
"You are nothing."
They weren't his memories.
But the pain was real.
He clutched his temples and bit back a groan, curling into himself as the memories bled into his nerves. The real Kai — the boy whose body he now wore — had lived through torment far worse than death. And now, he was inheriting that knowledge like a broken library set on fire.
Not all of it made sense.
Names. Faces. Symbols. Techniques he didn't understand. Maps he couldn't read.
But some of it stuck.
Enough to answer questions.
Enough to pretend.
"I still don't understand what a child was doing all the way out here," said the older merchant — a stout man named Jiren, who rode at the front with the reins in hand.
His wife, Marra, shook her head. "He's no ordinary orphan. Look at his eyes. One blue. One clouded. Spirit-touched, maybe."
"Or cursed," muttered the third — a younger man named Shen. "That forest devours everyone. And he came out of it?"
Kai stayed quiet.
They weren't talking to him — not really. Just around him. About him.
Until Marra turned from the front bench and gave him a kind, if tired, smile.
"You understand what we're saying, don't you, child?"
He nodded slowly.
Her voice softened. "Can you tell us your name?"
"Kai," he rasped. "Kai Jin."
Jiren glanced back. "That's a sect name. You were raised in one, weren't you?"
Kai's lips parted. The words came before he had time to think — not his own, but something that surfaced from the boy's fractured memories.
"I was… with the Crimson Bone Orphan Sect," he said slowly. "They cast me out. Said I couldn't cultivate. Said I was a curse."
The cart went quiet.
Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Jiren frowned. "The Crimson Bone... in the north?"
Kai nodded.
Shen hissed. "They don't cast kids out unless they want them to die. You were meant to be food for the beasts."
Kai didn't answer.
Marra leaned closer. "You survived," she said quietly. "That matters more than whatever they said."
For a moment, Kai almost believed her.
As the cart rolled on, the landscape shifted. Trees gave way to open hills and distant fields. Smoke trailed from far-off villages. Herds moved across plains. And, slowly, the mountains shrank behind them.
In the far distance — past the horizon — towers rose into the sky like spears of silver and gold.
Kai squinted.
"Tiansheng," Jiren said, following his gaze.
"The largest country on the continent of Virelya," Marra added. "And the most dangerous."
Kai blinked.
He recognized the name.
Tiansheng — land of cultivator dynasties, forbidden arts, ancient bloodlines, and unspeakable power. The boy's memories painted pieces of it: noble sects floating on clouds, blood feuds that burned cities, emperors who feared immortals more than gods.
It was beautiful.
And deadly.
Marra watched Kai with a motherly expression that didn't quite reach her eyes. "We're heading to the outer market cities. We can drop you at Haicheng — you'll find food, shelter, even work if you're clever. But beyond that… you'll be on your own."
"I know," Kai said quietly.
She reached out, brushing a hand across his tangled hair. "Just be careful who you trust, little one. This world has teeth."
Kai looked down at his hands. Still shaking. Still small.
But not empty.
Not anymore.
Chapter 4: Embers of a Forgotten Life