The smell of burning flesh was the first thing Zingphen remembered. It was a sickly sweet scent, mixed with the metallic tang of blood and the acrid smoke of the Broken Peak Sect's libraries. In his final moments, the future had been a bleak landscape of ash and snow, where he lay broken at the feet of the Demon Emperor, a nameless cripple whose life had amounted to nothing but a footnote in someone else's glory.
Then, there was silence.
Zingphen gasped, his lungs seizing as if he had just breached the surface of a deep, freezing lake. He didn't feel the cold bite of the northern winds or the agony of his severed meridians. Instead, he felt the rough, splintered texture of a wooden practice sword against his palm and the dull throb of a bruised shoulder.
He opened his eyes.
The world was not gray and dying. It was vibrant, almost aggressively so. The sky was a piercing blue, and the air was thick with the scent of pine and damp earth. He was standing on the outer grounds of the Crimson Peak Sect—the very sect that, in his memories, had been razed to the ground twenty years from now.
"Zingphen! Stop daydreaming and raise your guard!"
The voice was sharp, slicing through the fog in his mind. Zingphen blinked, his vision swimming. Standing before him was Senior Brother Ren. In Zingphen's previous life, Ren had been a cruel, petty man who had tormented the outer disciples. In that future, Ren had died a gruesome death during the Sect's downfall, screaming for mercy.
Here, Ren was alive, young, and arrogant, his wooden sword raised for a strike.
'I'm back,' Zingphen realized, the thought crashing into him like a physical blow. 'I am back at the beginning.'
He looked down at his hands. They were small, calloused but unscarred by the wars he had yet to fight. He was fourteen again. A failure. A disciple with blocked meridians who couldn't gather even a wisp of Qi. The shame of the Outer Court.
Ren sneered, stepping forward. "Are you deaf now, too? The Grand Elder is watching from the balcony. If you embarrass me, I'll make sure you scrub the latrines for a month."
Zingphen didn't move. He was too busy staring at the wooden sword in Ren's hand. The sunlight caught the grain of the wood, highlighting a small crack near the hilt.
And then, the world shifted.
It happened without warning. The vibrant blues of the sky bled into a monochrome gray. The sounds of the shouting disciples and the rustling leaves vanished, replaced by a hollow silence. Time didn't stop—it accelerated.
In his mind's eye, the scene unfolded with terrifying clarity. He saw Ren's foot pivot slightly to the left. He saw the muscles in Ren's forearm tense. He saw the trajectory of the strike—a diagonal slash aimed at his left ribs.
Three seconds, a voice whispered in his head. Impact in three seconds.
Zingphen gasped as the vision ended, snapping back to the present. The world returned to its normal pace, but the knowledge remained, burning in his brain like a brand. He knew exactly what Ren was going to do before Ren even knew he was going to do it.
Ren lunged. "Take this!"
It was a clumsy strike, meant to bully a weaker opponent. In his past life, Zingphen would have panicked, raised his sword in a feeble block, and been knocked to the ground, humiliated.
But now, he saw the red line of fate.
Zingphen didn't raise his sword to block. He shifted his weight, pivoting his body a mere two inches to the right. The wooden blade whistled past his chest, missing him by a hair's breadth.
Ren's eyes widened in surprise. He had overextended, expecting resistance. As his momentum carried him forward, the crack in the hilt of his sword— the one Zingphen had seen in the vision—groaned under the strain.
Now.
Zingphen flicked his wrist. He didn't have the strength to overpower Ren, but he had the geometry of the future memorized. His wooden sword tapped the inside of Ren's wrist, not hard, but precise.
"Ah!" Ren yelped, his grip faltering. The sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the ground.
The courtyard went silent. The other disciples, who had been waiting for the usual beatdown, stared with open mouths. Senior Brother Ren, a mid-stage Qi Condensation student, had just been disarmed by Zingphen the Cripple.
Ren's face flushed a dark crimson. He scrambled to pick up his sword, his knuckles white. "You... how did you?"
"The wind shifted," Zingphen said, his voice quiet. It was an excuse he had used in his past life to explain luck, but now, it felt like a lie on his tongue. He hadn't won because of skill. He hadn't won because he was strong. He had won because he had cheated time.
Ren stepped forward, his aura flaring with killing intent. He looked ready to abandon the practice match and strike with real force. Zingphen tensed, his heart hammering. He could feel the weakness in his own legs. He was still the boy with the blocked meridians. If Ren used Qi, Zingphen would be crushed. He couldn't see a way out of that future.
"Enough!"
The voice boomed across the training grounds like a thunderclap. The Grand Elder, an old man with a beard like white silk, stood on the balcony. "Control yourself, Ren. The match is decided. Do not lose face over a sparring loss."
Ren gritted his teeth, bowing stiffly. "Yes, Grand Elder."
He turned back to Zingphen, his eyes promising a slow, painful death later. "Lucky catch, trash. Don't think this changes anything."
Zingphen bowed his head, the picture of submission. He wanted to scream. He wanted to tell Ren that he knew exactly how Ren died—that he knew Ren would betray the sect for a pouch of gold in fifteen years, leading the demons to the rear gate. He wanted to crush him.
But he couldn't. He was still just a boy with a wooden sword and a body that refused to cultivate Qi. The rage of a thirty-year-old failure burned inside him, trapped in the cage of a fourteen-year-old's weakness.
An hour later, Zingphen sat by the waterfall at the edge of the sect grounds. This was where he used to come to cry in his past life, hiding his shame from the others. Today, he sat there to tremble.
He held a smooth river stone in his hand. He squeezed it, trying to channel the faintest wisp of energy into it. He felt the blockage in his chest—the stubborn wall in his meridians that had defined his entire existence.
"Useless," he whispered.
Flicker.
The vision came again, unbidden. The monochrome world took over.
He saw himself throwing the stone into the water. He saw the ripples spreading. He saw a fish jumping to catch a fly. He saw a red-robed figure walking down the path behind him.
The vision faded. Zingphen exhaled, a headache throbbing behind his eyes. The power—the Future Gaze—was not a gift without cost. Every time he used it, it felt like a hot iron was being pressed into his temples. It was a power of desperation, not dominance.
He turned his head toward the path.
A moment later, the red-robed figure appeared. It was a woman, young and beautiful, with a sword on her back. Elder Lian. In his past life, she had been the only one who showed kindness to him, the only one who didn't mock his lack of talent. And she had been the first to die when the demons attacked, sacrificing herself to save the fleeing disciples.
Seeing her alive, walking with purpose and vitality, felt like a knife twisting in his gut.
"Zingphen?" Lian stopped, noticing him. She smiled, a gentle expression that made the pain in his head worse. "Why aren't you at evening meal? Still training?"
Zingphen stood up. He wanted to warn her. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders and scream, Run! Leave this sect! In twenty years, you will die screaming! But he knew how that would end. They would call him mad. They would lock him up. He was a failure, a nobody. Who would believe the boy who couldn't gather Qi?
"I... I was just resting, Elder Lian," Zingphen said. His voice cracked slightly—the voice of a boy on the cusp of manhood, not the hardened survivor he felt like.
Lian walked over, her eyes scanning his face. She frowned. "You look pale. And your eyes... they seem old today, Zingphen. Are you feeling unwell?"
'Old.' The word struck a nerve. "I am fine, Elder. Just... tired of being weak."
Lian sighed, placing a hand on his shoulder. "We all walk our own path. Some bloom late. Do not let the taunts of Ren and the others weigh you down. Strength is not just about Qi."
She squeezed his shoulder and turned to leave.
Zingphen watched her go. He saw the back of her robes. And then, the vision struck him again, harder this time.
Monochrome. Silence.
He saw Lian walking down the path. He saw a shadow detach itself from the trees—a figure in black, a dagger glinting in the dusk.
Assassin.
The vision was choppy, fragmenting at the edges. He saw blood on the rocks. He saw Lian falling.
Five seconds. It happens in five seconds.
Zingphen's heart stopped. He was weak. He had no Qi. If he ran to help, he would likely die alongside her. He was a failure. That was his identity. That was his fate.
But as he looked at the back of the woman who had shown him mercy in a life of cruelty, the memories of his past mistakes surged. He had hidden. He had cowered. He had watched the world burn because he was too afraid to stand.
I was a failure in the future, he thought, his hand tightening around the hilt of his wooden sword. But I am not dead yet.
The vision ended. Reality snapped back.
Lian was walking away, unaware.
Zingphen didn't think. He moved. He didn't have the speed of a cultivator, but he had the desperation of a man who had already lost everything.
"Elder, get down!"
He didn't shout a warning; he acted. He lunged forward, tackling Lian from behind. It was a clumsy, unrefined movement—the tackle of a street brawler, not a martial artist.
They hit the dirt just as a throwing knife hissed through the air, slicing through the space where Lian's neck had been a moment before. It embedded itself deep into the trunk of a pine tree with a solid thunk.
Lian gasped, rolling over, her hand instinctively going to her sword. "Who—"
A figure in black dropped from the trees, snarling. The assassin hadn't expected a miss. And he certainly hadn't expected the warning to come from the sect's weakest disciple.
The assassin lunged at them, a short blade flashing.
Zingphen scrambled backward, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He looked at the assassin, and the Future Gaze triggered involuntarily.
He saw the blade coming for his throat. He saw the angle. He saw the shift in the assassin's weight.
Left. Dodge left. Then trip.
Zingphen's body screamed in protest. He was slow. He was uncoordinated. But he had the blueprint.
The assassin stabbed. Zingphen threw his body to the left, stumbling like a drunkard, but moving just enough so the blade tore his sleeve instead of his flesh. As the assassin overextended, Zingphen lashed out with his leg, tripping the man.
It wasn't a powerful technique. It was desperation. But it worked.
The assassin stumbled, and in that split second, a flash of silver light erupted.
Lian had drawn her sword. With a single, fluid stroke, she severed the assassin's head from his shoulders.
Silence returned to the forest, broken only by the rushing water of the waterfall.
Zingphen lay on the damp moss, his chest heaving, staring up at the canopy of leaves. His body ached. His head felt like it was splitting open from the overuse of his vision. He was trembling—still the weak, fearful boy.
But he was alive. And so was she.
Lian stood over the body of the assassin, her face pale. She turned to Zingphen, her eyes wide with shock. She looked at the torn sleeve, the bruise forming on his arm from the tackle, and then into his eyes.
"Zingphen," she breathed, sheathing her sword and kneeling beside him. "How did you know? You... you have no cultivation. You shouldn't have been able to sense him."
Zingphen sat up, wincing. He looked at the dead assassin, then at the woman he had saved. He wanted to tell her about the vision. He wanted to tell her about the time travel. But the words died in his throat. Who would believe a child claiming to see the future?
"I... I saw a reflection in the water," he lied, his voice raspy. "And... I guessed."
Lian stared at him, searching his face. She didn't look entirely convinced, but she didn't press. "You saved my life. You risked your own life for me."
Zingphen looked at his hands. They were still shaking. He felt no pride. He only felt the crushing weight of how close it had been. He had seen the future, but he had barely been able to change it. If Lian hadn't been there to deliver the killing blow, he would have died. His power was a window, but he was still too weak to climb through it.
"I was just tired of being a victim," Zingphen whispered, more to himself than to her.
Lian helped him to his feet. "You are no victim, Zingphen. Today, you were a warrior."
She looked at him with a new respect, a light in her eyes that he had never seen in his previous life. "Come. We must report this to the Sect Master. You will be rewarded."
Zingphen nodded, following her silently. As they walked back toward the sect, he looked up at the peaks of the mountains. In his vision, these mountains were graves. In his past life, he had walked them as a ghost.
'I can see the end,' he thought, clutching his bruised chest. 'But I am still learning how to walk.'
He had changed one small thread of fate today. But the tapestry of the future was vast and terrifying. He had saved Lian, but the assassin was just a ripple in a much larger pond.
Zingphen glanced at his reflection in a puddle as they passed. A boy looked back, but the eyes were ancient, filled with a sorrow that no fourteen-year-old should possess.
He was the Seer. The failure who had returned. And his long journey to redemption had only just begun.