Moonlight painted Azure Cloud City in silver. Lin Xuan moved through shadows like smoke, a child's body surprisingly agile once he remembered how to use it.
Sixteen years of combat experience guided muscles that had never swung a sword.
The eastern pavilion's well sat forgotten, covered by rotting boards.
Lin Xuan pried them aside with a stolen iron bar, wincing at the rusted screech. He dropped a stone, counting heartbeats until the splash—fifteen feet down.
Too deep to climb without cultivation.
He smiled, producing rope stolen from the stables. Preparation separated survivors from corpses.
The descent took longer than expected. His small hands burned, muscles trembling. At the bottom, stagnant water reached his waist, cold seeping through thin robes. He struck flint to torch—another stolen item—and examined crude brickwork.
Left seven, right three, push.
The bricks moved as memory promised, revealing a hollow space. Lin Xuan reached inside, fingers closing around bamboo scrolls. Three of them. His heart hammered against ribs.
Heavenly Spirit Breathing Method. Foundation establishment technique abandoned because it required absurd spiritual energy density—density that existed only in ancient eras. Useless to modern cultivators.
Except Lin Xuan knew something others didn't. Azure Cloud City sat atop a fractured ley line, spiritual energy bleeding upward for three more years until sects would seal it. During those three years, cultivation speed here exceeded legendary holy lands.
He had forgotten this detail in his previous life, starting too late to benefit.
Not this time.
Lin Xuan tucked the scrolls into waterproof oilcloth, climbed back up, and returned to his chambers without encountering a single guard.
The Lin Clan's security was as pathetic as he remembered—another detail that had cost them everything during the great purge of his twentieth year.
He spread the first scroll across his desk, brush and ink ready. Copying. The originals would return to the well tonight; discovery now would be fatal.
But the knowledge—that was his forever.
The Heavenly Spirit Breathing Method demanded practitioners absorb energy through all three hundred sixty meridian points simultaneously. Impossible for normal humans. Possible for someone with adult soul strength controlling a child's flexible channels.
Lin Xuan began to read, memorizing every diagram, every breathing pattern. Dawn found him cross-legged on the floor, attempting his first circulation.
Pain lanced through his body. He gritted teeth that had once endured lightning tribulation and continued.
By morning, he had opened twelve meridian points.
The original Lin Xuan had opened four in his entire first year.