"The body may forget pain, but the Qi never does."
— From Foundations of Iron, The Sectless Cultivator's Handbook
*Gertherd POV*
The sun was beginning to lower, its rays glinting against the iron hinges of the gate, when Jo and I returned from the council meeting. The trip had taken longer than expected - Bernhard had cornered me again about discussing some sort of apprenticeship scheme, which ultimately ended up just being him bragging about his family's connections. I was still complaining to Jo all about it when we reached the path behind our house.
"Do you feel that?" asked Jo.
I stopped walking.
There was a warmth surrounding the home, and not from the sun. Something unnatural shimmered around the air, like the surrounding world had been wrapped in a skin of heat - a barrier formation around my home. I extended my hand and tested the aura, but the ward was too complicated for me to understand.
Johanna's brows were already drawn.
"Someone's activated protective Qi around the house," she said. "Recently. You didn't-"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "This is someone else's pattern - someone far more skilled than me."
It didn't seem malicious, and didn't prevent us from entering its confines. We didn't run, but we walked faster around the house to get to the front door.
The door was ajar.
Inside, the kitchen sat quiet. Suspiciously quiet.
Johanna brushed past me, her movements careful but tense. I followed her on high alert, but nothing could have prepared me for the sight in the corner of the living room.
Richard sat on the floor, his back against the wall, his knees pulled tight to his chest. His whole frame trembled in shallow, rhythmic spasms, and his chin rested on his kneecaps. His arms locked around this shape, holding him together by sheer force of will. Tears trickled down his cheeks, and his breath hitched with each inhalation, shallow and sharp, as if his lungs couldn't expand properly. Afraid that too much air would hurt.
His eyes were wide and red. Empty. Stripped bare by something no one his age should have had to face.
Jo dropped to her knees right beside him. "Rich..."
He flinched. My heart broke.
"Son," I said, as gently as I could muster. "We're here."
I tried my best to sound as calm and collected as possible, feigning a sense of confidence for my boy to latch onto, and it seemed to have worked. He looked up, eyes still hollow, before he started speaking - rushed and barely coherent, his words stumbling out of his mouth in a hurry..
"There was a letter that appeared in my room in the middle of the night and it was a request for a poster and it came with a coin and then I saw another coi-"
I listened in closely, trying to patch together the information he fed me.
"and then Theo found something similar because his mum came over and confirmed the feeling that someone's watching-"
He gasped, trying to catch his breath to continue his story. He wasn't crying anymore, not quite, but the fear in his voice had sunk in deep.
"I didn't do anything wrong," he whispered. "I didn't."
Jo wrapped her arms around him, wiping off his tears and gently rocking him.
"We know. We know."
I crouched down beside my wife and son, resting my hand on his back. I could feel the thudding of his heartbeat, quick and fluttering, like an animal being chased by a hunter.
The three of us sat there, in silence, before I spoke again. This time, in a low voice.
"You said Elisabeth came to protect you, didn't you? That whoever these coin people are - that they're watching you from dangerously close. That, for some reason, you of all people are the one being watched."
I think back to the potential reasons why Rich could have been chosen. It's either the invention, or the spirit roots. The invention shouldn't have attracted someone strong enough to worry Elisabeth, so it must have been the roots.
Jo and I exchanged a look. One that meant we had to break the secret we've been holding from him for the past few months.
"Rich, we were warned about you too," began Jo, "and it could be related. I don't know how to tell you this, Rich, but the Detector lied to you. She told us the truth, but we kept it from you - to keep you safe. I hope you understand."
"Son, you have a spirit root. A strong one - one that comes with misfortune. She told us you'd go mad if you cultivated, Rich. That your root eats away at people. That it breaks them, slowly. She said... no one with it has ever stayed whole. They could have noticed this. That's what makes you special."
Rich looked down at his hands as if they didn't belong with him.
"We'll start with the very basics - sensing and manipulating Qi before moving onto body cultivation. The same way we learnt," said Jo.
"It'll be painful and slow, but it'll make you harder to kill."
"Harder to scare," smiled Jo forcefully.
*Richard POV*
I couldn't stop shaking.
Even after everything was said, even after I knew that I wasn't alone - that someone far stronger than anything I could imagine had woven protective Qi around the house like a cocoon... my arms still wouldn't loosen from around my knees.
They kept talking, my parents. Putting up a brave front for their child, trying to soothe me. But I couldn't seem to hear them right. Their voices felt muffled, like my head was underwater, and they were speaking from the surface. Like something deep and cold had settled inside my chest and was weighing me down.
I had a spirit root.
A strong one.
I'd already touched it, hadn't I? The Qi. That burning thread. But now we'd name it. Guide it. That was different. That was real.
That was supposed to be good news - that was my reincarnator bonus. Yet, cruelly, it was bad news for me.
It was why I was being watched.
"You lied to me," I murmured out of reflex. My voice was still thin after whatever the fuck Elisabeth pulled on me. The only solace I had was that I had emptied my bladder before her visit.
"No-" mum tightened her grip around me. "We were trying to protect you. From the world, and from what it does to people with roots like yours."
"You were supposed to have a quiet life. We wanted you to grow up slow, normal. That's why we didn't tell you. If we didn't let you cultivate, you'd be invisible. Beneath notice," sighed Gertherd.
"Well," I said, my voice cracking. "That went well."
Silence.
I hadn't meant for it to sound so bitter, but it did.
"I didn't even do anything. I just helped out in the village... made a couple posters. Tried to be useful. Tried to use the knowledge in my head. That's all. So why, why would anyone care?"
Silence.
"You said it comes with misfortune, the root. What kind of misfortune?"
I didn't bother speaking to them like a child. I was way too tired to put up that facade. Thankfully, they were a bit too stressed to notice or care.
"Madness... loss of self-control. And," Johanna took a moment to collect herself. "They typically cause their own demise. Take their own life, I mean," she sobbed.
I let the words sink in. Let them settle into that part of me that had stopped crying but hadn't started healing. Take their own life. I must say, I wasn't feeling very suicidal. Just afraid for my life. That's the complete opposite, right?
Another beat of silence passed. Then I looked up at both of them, blinking against the sting in my eyes again. "You really think I'm ready to learn?"
There was a hesitant nods from both adults. I wasn't sure if it was comforting or terrifying - maybe it was both.
We stayed there, huddled in the half-dark, my parents flanking me like shields, their presence the only warmth I could trust.
And still, behind my ribs, something had changed. A pressure I hadn't noticed before - like a door had cracked open.
Like something on the other side was waking up inside me.