THE CRIPPLED SON-IN-LAW UNLOCKED IMMORTAL CULTIVATION

Chapter 3: The Altar Could Not Kill Me

The guards marched me through the Zhao estate as pale morning light spilled across the polished stone paths.

I had walked these grounds for three years, usually with my eyes lowered while servants and relatives found new ways to remind me that I did not belong. Today, the same people hurried toward the ancestral hall, dressed for a ceremony they believed would bring honor to their family. None of them looked at me as a man being led to his death. To them, I was an offering that had finally become useful.

I kept my shoulders rounded and my breathing uneven, careful not to let the new strength in my body change the way I moved. Beneath my skin, the energy from the cave rested like a current held behind a dam. I could feel it, but I could not yet trust myself to direct it without drawing attention. The entity had given me a path, not mastery, and the distinction mattered more with every step toward the hall.

The ancestral hall stood at the center of the estate, its dark wooden doors framed by carved dragons and old family crests. Inside, red banners hung above a circular formation etched into the floor. Fine silver lines connected the formation to a raised stone altar, where bowls of herbs and shallow bronze vessels had been arranged.

Grandfather Zhao sat before the altar in a robe embroidered with gold thread. He had never needed to shout to make people obey. When his gaze passed over me, I saw no hatred there, only the cold assessment a merchant might give a damaged tool.

“The family has gathered to witness a necessary offering,” he said. “The old ways have carried the Zhao name through generations. Today, we honor them and secure the strength of those who come after us.”

As the guards forced me to my knees beside the altar, I found Crystal standing near a pillar at the far side of the hall. Her face was pale, but she held her chin up, trying to look like a daughter who accepted the family’s decision. Only her hands betrayed her. She had twisted a small fold of her sleeve so tightly that her knuckles had lost their color.

An elder stepped forward to check the restraints around my wrists. Crystal moved as if she meant to approach, then stopped when her grandfather glanced her way. A moment later, she slipped between two relatives and reached me under the pretense of adjusting the cloth around my arm.

“Don’t fight them yet,” she whispered. “Wait for the formation to begin.”

I looked at her. “Did you know they were going to kill me?”

Her eyes flickered toward the elders. She could have lied, but the silence between us answered before she did. “I knew there was a ritual. I thought I could find a way to stop it.”

“You had three years to tell me.”

“I was afraid.”

The admission was small, but it landed harder than an excuse. I remembered the meals she had left outside my room, the warnings she had slipped me, and the times she had turned away when her relatives mocked me. Her kindness had been real, but so had her silence. I could understand her fear without pretending it had protected me enough.

“Then be afraid of what happens next,” I said quietly. “Not just what your family might do to you.”

Two guards lifted me onto the altar and secured my wrists to metal rings set into the stone. An elder began chanting, and the silver lines carved into the floor brightened one by one. I felt the first pull in my chest, followed by a pressure that spread down my arms and legs.

The formation was designed to drain vitality and gather it at the center. I could sense the direction of its flow more clearly than I could see the glowing lines. Energy moved from the room toward me, then curved through the stone beneath my back. My body began to weaken as the formation searched for the spiritual roots I did not have. The elders expected that absence to make me easy to consume, but the ancient path inside me responded in a way the ritual could not understand.

The primordial entity stirred in the back of my mind. “They are taking your life. Give me your hatred, and I will give you theirs.”

I held my breathing steady. “I need control, not another master.”

Its presence withdrew, though I could still feel its attention. The formation tightened around my chest, and the pain grew sharp enough to blur the faces above me. I focused on the silver lines, searching for the place where their currents met. One narrow channel pulsed harder than the others, feeding the altar from the bronze vessels. The whole ritual depended on that point. I could not break the formation outright, but perhaps I could redirect what it sent into me.

Grandfather Zhao rose from his seat. “Begin the final transfer.”

The elder at my feet lifted a short ceremonial blade. Its edge caught the red light of the formation as he pressed it against my chest. I tried to shift away, but the restraints held me. Others looked toward the floor, unwilling to meet my eyes even now.

The blade drove down.

Pain burst through my body, and the formation poured its gathered force into the wound. For one terrifying instant, I felt my heart falter. Then the energy inside me opened a route that had not existed before. I caught the incoming force and guided it away from my heart, letting it run through the strange channels the entity had awakened. The force struck the formation from within.

A crack split the altar beneath my back. Silver light flashed across the floor, then shattered into sparks. The elder staggered away as the ceremonial blade snapped near its handle. A wave of pressure swept through the hall, knocking over the bronze vessels and throwing incense ash into the air. The restraints around my wrists sprang loose, and I rolled off the stone before another part of it collapsed.

For several breaths, no one spoke. The pain remained, but my heart was beating, and the energy inside me had not vanished. I forced it down before it could spill into the room. I could not let them see what had happened inside my body. If they understood that I had redirected the ritual’s power, I would become a target before I had learned how to defend myself.

“He should be dead,” one elder said, staring at the broken altar.

“He was,” another replied, though his voice shook. “The formation reached its final stage.”

Grandfather Zhao did not look at either of them. His gaze stayed on me, sharp and searching. “What did you do?”

I pressed one hand against my chest and made my breathing rough. “I don’t know. I thought you were going to kill me.”

A cousin pushed through the crowd, his face twisted with anger. “You ruined the ritual, you useless—”

He swung at me before finishing. I saw his shoulder turn and moved just enough to let his fist pass my cheek. My hand caught his wrist, guiding him forward until he stumbled against the edge of a bench. I released him at once. To the witnesses, it could have looked like luck. To me, it felt like the first careful use of a tool I barely understood.

“Enough,” Grandfather Zhao said.

The cousin backed away, rubbing his wrist. No one rushed to defend him. They were too busy looking at me, trying to fit the man standing beside the ruined altar into the story they had told themselves for three years.

Grandfather Zhao descended the steps. “The ceremony is over. Nobody speaks of what happened here outside this hall. Ryan stays on the estate until I understand why the formation failed.”

It was not mercy. He wanted me close enough to study and contained enough to control. I lowered my head as if the order had frightened me, while quietly noting the guards he assigned to the doors and the elder who avoided looking at the broken blade. The ritual had failed, but the family had not surrendered its power.

As the guards led me from the hall, the entity’s voice returned. “You had the strength to destroy them.”

“Not without showing them what I am.”

“Mercy will make you weak.”

“Then I’ll learn to be strong without becoming you.”

At the end of the corridor, Grandfather Zhao waited beneath the family crest. “Tomorrow, you will answer my questions in person.”

His eyes held no trace of the contempt he had shown me before. That was worse than hatred. For the first time, Grandfather Zhao considered me a problem he could not solve by ordering my death, and I knew he would not stop until he discovered why.