The skies wept blood the day Lin Yan was born.
In a remote village buried deep within the Bonefire Mountains, the birth of a child usually brought joy. But on this day, villagers watched in terrified silence as the crimson clouds boiled above and strange heat pulsed through the earth. The newborn's first cry caused the temple bells to ring on their own, and flames ignited around the altar where he was delivered.
The elder midwife, her hands trembling, backed away in fear.
"This child... he bears the Furnace Star," she whispered. "He is cursed."
And cursed he was.
By the time Lin Yan was eight, his parents had been executed by a roaming cultivator who sensed his potential. At ten, he was sold to a low-tier sect known as The Cauldron Hall, where female disciples used his body to amplify their cultivation. Day after day, week after week, his body was drained. Pain, humiliation, and confusion became his only constants.
Each night, Lin Yan would lie under the cold moon, the taste of copper in his mouth and tears drying on his cheeks.
"Why me?" he would whisper, voice barely audible.
But no one answered. The heavens were cruel, and no one pitied a furnace.
He was not a person to them. He was a tool.
At age fifteen, he tried to run. But his spiritual veins had been crippled—broken deliberately to prevent him from cultivating on his own. The elders said he didn't deserve strength. He was born to serve.
Eventually, he stopped counting the years.
Now, at seventeen, Lin Yan had become something of a legend among rogue sects and female cultivators. His body, matured and overflowing with pure yang energy, was the prize of the year. Auctions were held in secret. Nobles fought in back alleys for a chance to own him.
One rainy night, he managed to escape again—barely.
He staggered into the Blackpine Forest, wounded, half-conscious, clothes torn and soaked. He hadn't eaten in days. Behind him, the cries of female cultivators echoed in the trees, laughing, hunting him like an animal.
He collapsed.
"…Please…" he murmured into the mud, arms trembling. "Kill me already."
The world turned black.
But fate is strange.
Somewhere in the darkness of that night, a voice called out to him. Calm, cool, and unfamiliar.
"You don't want to die, do you?"
Lin Yan stirred.
"...Who…"
A pair of boots stepped into his vision. Silver, polished, elegant. A long cloak fluttered in the wind. He couldn't see her face, only the silhouette of a woman against the storm.
"If you want to live—truly live—then come with me."
Before he could answer, she reached out and touched his forehead. The pain vanished. A warmth spread through his body—not violating, not consuming—but healing.
Lin Yan passed out, but not in fear this time. For the first time in years, he felt... safe.