Dragonblood Chaos Heir

Chapter 7: Return to the Lin Clan Gates

Verdant Cloud City in the pre-dawn light was a beast stirring from uneasy sleep. Mist clung to the cobblestones of the outer slums, where the air smelled of woodsmoke, night soil, and the greasy promise of street-food stalls just firing up their grills. Lin Feng moved through these narrow, winding arteries like a mote of dust in a draft—present, but beneath notice.

His hood was pulled low, the rough-spun, musty fur of his makeshift cloak blending with the shadows of leaning tenements. The dirt smeared on his skin wasn't just camouflage; it was a spiritual dampener. The earthy residue, charged with a faint wisp of his own chaotic will, helped mask the otherworldly hum of his core from any casual cultivator's senses. He walked with a slight, unthreatening stoop, the posture of a tired laborer or a poor hunter bringing meager goods to the dawn market.

His destination wasn't the bustling trade district or the teeming lower markets. It was a specific vantage point: the Roosting Phoenix Teahouse, a three-story building of weathered timber that leaned precariously over the junction where the slums met the artisan's quarter. Its upper balcony, cheap and usually empty at this hour, offered a clear, elevated view of the main boulevard leading to the Lin Clan's main gates, a half-mile away.

Securing a pot of bitter black tea and a stale rice cake with one of the few copper coins he'd found sewn into the lining of his old robes, Lin Feng ascended to the top floor. He chose a shadowed corner table on the balcony, his back to the wall, his face turned toward the distant, fortified compound that was once his home.

He sipped the tea, its harsh flavor grounding him in the mundane. His other senses stretched out. He could feel the sleeping city's energy, a low, muddy river of countless weak life-forces, with brighter sparks marking the homes of low-level cultivators or the workshops of skilled artisans. He tuned it out, focusing like a hawk on the Lin compound.

From this distance, it was a silent silhouette against the brightening sky. But flags had changed. The Lin Clan banner—a white mountain peak on a field of azure—still flew. But beside it, a new, smaller pennant snapped in the morning breeze: a stylized, grasping hand of brown and green. The sigil of Uncle Tian's maternal line, the Deng Clan, minor landholders known for their ruthlessness and earth-attribute techniques. The tyrant wasn't just taking power; he was rebranding it.

Then, movement. The great ironwood gates, reinforced with bronze rivets, swung inward. A procession emerged.

Lin Feng’s grip tightened on his clay teacup. A fine, hairline crack appeared in the glaze.

At the front, borne on a simple litter by four strong servants, was a shrouded form. The body was wrapped in plain white funeral hemp, not the ceremonial silks of a clan patriarch. A calculated display of "humble mourning," Lin Feng thought, his jaw clenched. You poison him, then parade his corpse in sackcloth.

Walking directly behind the litter, his head bowed, was Uncle Tian. He wore robes of somber grey, but the cut was fine, the fabric expensive. His face was arranged into a mask of profound, tragic dignity. Even from this distance, Lin Feng could see the performance. The slow, measured steps. The occasional hand raised to cover his eyes, as if overwhelmed by grief.

A crowd had begun to gather along the boulevard, city folk drawn by the spectacle of a major clan's funeral. Murmurs rippled through them, carried on the wind to Lin Feng’s extraordinary sharp ears.

"...such a tragedy, the old Patriarch finally succumbing..."

"...and that ungrateful son!To do such a thing..."

"I heard the young master went mad with shame after the Lei rejection..."

"...Elder Tian is taking it so hard.To have to lead the funeral of his own brother, murdered by his nephew..."

"...they say the boy threw himself into the Abyssal Chasm after.A fitting end for a kin-slayer..."

"...the Lei Clan must be thanking the heavens they broke that engagement when they did..."

The narrative was flawless. Patricide by a disgraced, mentally unstable heir, followed by a coward's suicide. It absolved the Lei Clan of any guilt, made Uncle Tian a tragic, stoic hero stepping into a breach, and painted Lin Feng as a monster. The perfect story to cement a new regime.

The procession turned toward the city's central square, where the public funeral rites would be held before the body was taken to the clan's burial grounds. Lin Feng watched the litter bearing his father recede, a cold, dead weight settling in his own chest. There would be no proper farewell. No honor. His father was being buried under a mountain of lies.

As the tail of the procession passed, Lin Feng’s focus snapped to a smaller group emerging from the gates. Clan guards, their armor polished, led by a familiar, swaggering figure: Cousin Lin Tao, Uncle Tian’s son.

Lin Tao was everything Lin Feng had supposedly failed to be. At eighteen, he was at the 6th Layer of Qi Condensation, a decent talent amplified by his father's newfound resources. He wore new robes of dark green, the Deng Clan colors subtly incorporated into the Lin crest on his chest. His face, usually set in a everlasting sneer, was now arranged into an expression of somber authority. He was playing the part of the new young master, the righteous heir cleaning up the mess left by his mad cousin.

"Check the perimeter posts," Lin Tao barked at the guards, his voice carrying. "My father wants security doubled during the rites. We can't have any... disruptions from sympathizers of the traitor."

Sympathizers. So, there were still those who doubted the official story. A flicker of something that wasn't quite hope, but reconnaissance data, sparked in Lin Feng’s mind.

He watched as Lin Tao strutted, giving orders, basking in his reflected glory. This was the boy who had once "accidentally" tripped him during a clan spar, laughing as Lin Feng fell into the mud. Who had whispered "waste" whenever he passed. Now, he stood at the gates of Lin Feng’s birthright.

The rage was there, a banked fire in his chaos core. But he didn't let it flare. He observed. He learned.

Lin Tao finished his inspection and, instead of following the funeral procession, turned with two guards and began walking down the boulevard, directly toward the artisan's quarter, and indirectly, toward the Roosting Phoenix Teahouse.

Lin Feng remained still. He took another sip of his cold tea, his hood casting his face in deep shadow. He could hear Lin Tao’s voice growing clearer as he approached the teahouse's street level.

"...absolute nuisance. Having to stand guard while father handles the politics. I should be at the rites, receiving condolences."

"Your father trusts you with the clan's security,young master," one guard flattered.

"Security from what?The ghost of Lin Feng?" Lin Tao laughed, a harsh, unpleasant sound. "The worms are probably picking his bones clean at the bottom of the chasm by now. Saves us the trouble of a public execution."

They passed directly beneath the balcony. Lin Feng looked down. He could see the crown of Lin Tao’s head, the expensive jade pin holding his hair. He could sense his cousin's qi, a steady, earthy flow, competent but unremarkable. To his new senses, it looked like a neat, brown stream. Predictable. Brittle.

A part of him, the part forged in dragon's blood and vengeance, screamed to act. To drop down and let Frost Desire taste the arrogance in Lin Tao’s throat. It would be so easy. A single, chaotic strike to shatter that brown stream of qi, to consume it, to leave nothing but a frozen, bewildered statue on the cobblestones.

His fingers twitched, brushing the wrapped hilt of the sword at his side.

But he didn't move. This was not the time. Killing Lin Tao here would be satisfying, but stupid. It would bring the full, alarmed scrutiny of the city down on him. It would reveal he was alive. It would turn him from a tragic, dead villain into an active, terrifying threat before he was ready.

Patience was a blade, too. A slower, colder one.

Lin Tao and his guards moved on, their conversation fading as they turned a corner toward a well-known gambling den.

Lin Feng released a breath he'd been holding. The tension bled from his shoulders, replaced by a more strategic coldness. He had seen what he needed to see. The lie was firmly in place. The tyrant was performing his play to the city. The new heir was a tidy fool.

He placed two more copper coins on the table and stood. He descended the creaking stairs of the teahouse and melted back into the awakening slums. The sun was fully over the horizon now, painting the city in harsh, revealing light. He needed to be gone before the streets grew truly busy.

As he navigated the maze of alleys, a new plan began to form, crystallizing from the cold rage and the observed facts. He couldn't attack the clan directly. Not yet. But he could undermine it. He could feed on its edges. He could become the ghost they joked about, the nightmare that started as a whisper.

He needed a new identity. A place to operate from. And he needed his first target not to be Lin Tao, but something his uncle valued. Something that would hurt, that would send a message, and that would feed the developing power of the Chaos Dantian.

An idea, dark and perfect, began to take shape. It involved the city's underbelly, a scheduled merchant caravan, and a certain earth-attribute cultivation resource the Deng Clan—and now, by extension, Uncle Tian—prized highly.

But first, he needed to get stronger. Just a little more. He needed to test his power against something that wasn't moss or a toad.

He turned his steps not back toward the forest, but toward the Muddy Leaf River and the dense, spirit-beast-infested Blackroot Woods that lined its far bank. It was a dangerous place for even seasoned Qi Condensation hunters.

For the heir of chaos, it was a ladder.

As he left the last shanty behind and the wild, damp scent of the river flooded his senses, Lin Feng allowed the grim smile he’d been suppressing to finally touch his lips. It didn't reach his eyes, which in the shadow of his hood, swirled with a faint, hungry light.

The funeral rites for Lin Zhan were beginning in the city square.

The funeral rites for the Lin Clan's peace of mind, Lin Feng thought as he vanished into the treeline, were just about to end.