The stench of rot was overwhelming.
Jun Mo Xie stood—barely—on trembling legs, his body drenched in cold sweat, chest smeared with dried blood. The vessel he now inhabited was broken, bruised, burned... as if someone had tried to erase his existence with torture and fire.
He looked around.
A cracked mirror reflected a pale, unfamiliar face—his new face. Aristocratic features, handsome, yet fragile... as though this body had never experienced a real fight.
> "So this is the trash they called the heir of the Jun Clan..."
Voices murmured beyond the door. Angry, mocking, curious.
He stepped forward and nearly collapsed. Pain tore through his abdomen—stab wounds, at least two. Internal damage. Had his soul not taken over, this body would have long since died.
But Jun Mo Xie was not one to accept fate.
He had rewritten fate before—with a blade.
And now... he would do it again, in this fragile body, in this cruel new world.
---
Outside the chamber, an old steward whispered fearfully: "He shouldn't have survived... the poison should've killed him."
Another replied coldly: "Maybe it did... no one survives that toxin... unless..."
A pause.
"... unless something else woke up inside him."
---
Jun Mo Xie smirked as he opened the door.
Five stunned faces turned toward him—guards, servants, a minor elder. They looked at him as if seeing a ghost. And to them, he was. A man who should've been in a grave.
He said nothing.
He stared.
The air grew heavier.
Something old, suffocating, radiated from him. Not bloodlust. Not rage. But precision. The silent calculation of a predator who measures the worth of his prey before deciding if it's even worth the kill.
One guard dropped his weapon. Another stepped back.
Jun Mo Xie finally spoke, his voice calm and sharp:
> "Clean up this filth. Burn the sheets. Bring food... and inform the patriarch his heir has returned."
No one moved.
He tilted his head slightly, a cold smile on his lips:
> "Or don't. I'll visit him myself—after I rinse your blood from the hall."
They moved.
Quickly.
---
He walked the corridor slowly, confidently—like a man with nothing left to lose. But inside, lightning was forging strategy.
The hallway was lined with faded murals of Jun Clan glory. Men with thick mustaches, holding swords, smiling in victory. But what amused him most was that one of them—his supposed grandfather—was poisoned just like he was.
> "This entire place... built on treachery wrapped in honor."
---
He arrived at the main hall, where the elders convened. More guards caught sight of him, eyes wide, as if death itself had come walking.
A pair of large doors swung open.
Inside, the clan elders sat in a circle. At the center was Jun Tian Bai, the patriarch—gray beard, sharp eyes.
The moment he saw Jun Mo Xie, his face shifted—shock mixed with suspicion.
"You..." he rasped. "You're alive? How?"
Jun Mo Xie smiled, stepping into the center of the circle.
> "I'm curious, grandfather... who ordered poison in my meal?"
Silence gripped the room.
"You accuse the clan?" a senior elder barked. "How dare you!"
"I don't accuse," Jun said coldly. "I ask."
He looked around—at the men who had scorned him for years.
> "You waited for the heir to fall, didn't you? Well, he did… but he rose."
---
Outrage spread, but Tian Bai raised a hand. Silence returned.
"We'll hold a clan tribunal. If you are innocent, you will remain untouched. If you accuse falsely—you will be exiled."
Jun Mo Xie chuckled, genuine amusement in his voice.
> "A tribunal? Fine. But I won't be the one judged today."
---
Just then, the hall doors opened again.
A young maid entered, holding a tray with a bowl of soup.
"The meal that nearly killed me…" Jun said, pointing, "...is not far from us."
"When did you know?" one elder asked.
"Since I awoke. The pain told me... but my new soul never misses."
Suddenly, he pointed to one of the elders:
> "You. Your hand trembles. Because you helped poison me. Now you'll pay."
The man froze, then tried to rise... but a blade flashed across a guard's neck. The man fell without a sound.
All eyes turned to the maid—but she was gone.
---
Silence fell once more.
Jun Mo Xie stood at the center like an unspoken king, risen from death.
> "I will not beg for justice... I will carve it myself."
He turned and walked away, leaving behind trembling eyes and questions no one dared voice.
---
Outside, the sky had begun to rai
n.
But the rain brought no life.
It felt instead... like the world itself was welcoming something dark.
> "The Seventh Shadow is not dead... he has returned."