chapter 3 : feng clan

And beneath them, scattered like stones beneath a palace, were dozens of lesser clans.

The Feng Clan was one of them.

Once respected, now disgraced. Once said to carry phoenix blood, now dismissed as a failed line.

The original Feng Wu was weak — talentless, mocked, and eventually abandoned by her own kin. Her body had been discarded like trash in the medicine yard, bleeding from a wound she never even saw coming.

But now...

That body housed someone else.

A soul from another world. A warrior. An agent betrayed and shot in the back.

As Feng Wu gently touched the faint mark glowing beneath her collar — the phoenix-dragon birthmark — her eyes narrowed. Her power was sealed, her body broken, but her spirit burned fiercer than ever.

She wasn’t going to just survive.

She was going to climb — claw her way from the ashes, tear through every limit, and reclaim what the heavens had denied her.

The sunlight spilled in through the cracked wooden window, tracing golden lines across the dusty floorboards. It had been years since anyone cleaned this courtyard properly.

Feng Wu sat on the edge of her bed, staring at her calloused hands.

This body... this girl... was also Feng Wu.

fifteen years old. The ninth young miss of the once-proud Feng Clan.

A child born without spirit roots, in a world where cultivation was life.

Her parents had died young — ambushed by beasts during a winter journey. There were whispers, of course, that it hadn’t been beasts at all. But no one dared investigate. No one dared question the outcome.

She should have been discarded.

But her grandfather, Feng Xiaoyuan, had loved her deeply. He'd trained her with simple body-forging exercises, given her clean clothes, even placed her in a quiet courtyard of her own. His affection had been like a flickering lantern in the dark.

And then... he vanished.

No message. No clue. No search parties.

With his disappearance, power shifted. The clan throne fell into the hands of her First Uncle, Feng Zhihao, a cold, calculating man who believed in strength over sentiment. He stripped Feng Wu of her privileges, cut off her resources, and allowed the other branch families to mock her freely.

Still, her Fifth Uncle, gentle-hearted Feng Lianshan, never abandoned her. Nor did his wife and their quiet son. But kindness came at a price. As they sheltered the “good-for-nothing ninth miss,” they too were silenced and punished—given low-level chores, forced into outer residence quarters, forgotten by the clan.

Feng Wu rose slowly to her feet, muscles stiff but stable.

This body was weak, yes.

But she had survived worse.

“I owe you,” she whispered, touching the side of her neck where the phoenix-dragon birthmark still faintly shimmered. “I’ll live for the both of us now.”

She stepped out into the courtyard for the first time since awakening.

The wind carried the faint sound of laughter — the other clan members training, chatting, living their bright lives.

She closed her eyes and inhaled.

Let them laugh.

They would kneel later.

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