Rebel Bone: The Path to Godhood

For fifteen years, Zhang Wenxuan has been chained inside a cellar behind his own home. He has never seen a marketplace, a river, or the face of another person his age. His only companion is Shen Zhaoming, a young disciple stationed by the Immortal Alliance to guard him. Shen teaches him to read and paints vivid pictures of the outside world—whales that soar through the eastern seas, a western mountain whose peak eternally smokes. Wenxuan listens with shining eyes, clutching Shen's hand and promising, "When I get out, we'll go see those whales together." Shen Zhaoming nods with a smile, yet that very night writes in his confidential report: "Target harbors no suspicion toward the Alliance. Recommend continued surveillance." In the winter of his fifteenth year, the cellar's aging seal weakens. Seizing a gap during the guard rotation, Wenxuan claws his way above ground for the first time. He emerges into the streets of Chenzhou to a heavy blizzard, every home shuttered tight. Through the walls, he hears whispered voices: "That monster has gotten out." He sees his father, the blacksmith, standing at their doorstep, iron chain in hand, red-rimmed eyes trembling—who finally manages only a single hoarse word: "Go back." Wenxuan does not go back. He turns and runs. But the Alliance's hunters are faster. They corner him on a broken bridge outside the city walls. Shen Zhaoming stands at the far end, holding the Alliance's death warrant aloft as he reads the charges aloud: born with a forbidden bone, escaped confinement by force, and intent to throw the three realms into chaos. Stunned, Wenxuan asks, "Weren't you going to take me to see the whales?" Shen gives no reply. He raises his hand, and behind him, the Alliance archers loose a volley of arrows. Pierced through and through, Wenxuan tumbles from the bridge into the freezing river below. As icy water floods his lungs, the defiant bone buried in his chest blazes to light for the very first time.