The Xiao clan's monthly tournament was approaching, and for the first time in three years, Xiao Yan intended to compete.

His father didn't understand. The clan elders laughed openly. His younger cousin Xiao Ning, who had replaced him as the clan's pride and joy, actually came to his meditation chamber to — in his words — 'offer encouragement,' which involved a lot of backhanded compliments and barely concealed smugness.

'I think it's brave of you to compete,' Xiao Ning said, standing in the doorway. 'Given... everything.'

The 'everything' in that sentence was doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Xiao Yan didn't rise to the bait. A month ago, he would have. A month ago, he was a cripple with nothing left but his pride, and even that was threadbare. But Yao Lao had taught him more than alchemy. The old ghost had taught him patience — the patience to brew a pill fifty-one times, the patience to wait three years for a single breakthrough, the patience to let fools think they'd won.

'Thank you for your encouragement,' Xiao Yan said, and meant exactly none of it.

The tournament was held in the clan's central courtyard, beneath a sky that was threatening rain. Two hundred disciples gathered around the stone platform, their chatter dying as Xiao Yan walked through the gates in his old training robes. Whispers followed him like a wake.

' — heard he can't even reach 5th Duan anymore — '

' — why would he humiliate himself — '

' — poor Patriarch, first his wife dies, now his son — '

Xiao Yan stepped onto the platform and faced his opponent: a 7th Duan disciple who looked about as nervous as a wolf facing a sheep. The referee raised his hand.

'Begin.'

The disciple lunged forward with a technique designed to end the fight in one blow — fast, showy, merciful. He didn't want to draw out the cripple's suffering. Xiao Yan sidestepped with a speed that made the crowd gasp. His palm caught the disciple's wrist, twisted, and sent him crashing off the platform in a single motion.

The courtyard went dead silent.

Xiao Yan's father, watching from the clan head's pavilion, didn't smile. But his eyes, hard and tired from years of politics and war, grew a little brighter.

'He's back,' someone whispered.