THE CRIPPLED SON-IN-LAW UNLOCKED IMMORTAL CULTIVATION

Chapter 4: The Patriarch’s Suspicion

The guards brought me back to my room as if I were a prisoner returning to his cell.

One stayed outside the door, another watched from the corridor, and a third followed us until I crossed the threshold. The Zhao family had ignored me for three years unless they needed someone to ridicule. Now they feared I might disappear before they understood why their altar had failed.

I pressed a hand against my chest. The wound left by the ceremonial blade had closed around its edges, though every breath stirred an ache beneath my ribs. My body was repairing itself faster than it should, but the energy moving through me remained unfamiliar. When I tried to draw on it, the current tightened like a cord pulled too hard.

“You redirected the formation,” the ancient presence said inside my thoughts. “You did not master it.”

“I noticed the difference when it nearly tore me apart.”

“You survived because the energy found a path through your bond. Attempting the same feat without understanding the formation could kill you.”

I sat on the edge of the bed and studied my hands. They looked no different from yesterday, but the old helplessness no longer sat in my bones the way it once had. “Then teach me how to control it.”

“Control requires patience.”

“Convenient advice from something that doesn’t have a body to bleed.”

A knock interrupted my thoughts. One of the guards opened the door and told me Grandfather Zhao expected me in the eastern study. He did not bother to hide the fact that I was not being invited. I followed him through the corridors, noting how the servants moved aside when we passed and how conversations faded behind closing doors. The ritual had been meant to make the family stronger. Instead, it had given them a problem they could not explain.

Grandfather Zhao’s study overlooked the estate’s western grounds. Tall shelves lined the walls, crowded with old records and lacquered boxes, while three bronze instruments sat on a table beside the window. The patriarch stood behind his desk, still wearing the gold-trimmed robe from the ceremony. Two elders waited nearby, their faces tight with suspicion.

“Sit down, Ryan.”

I lowered myself into the chair without showing how much my chest hurt. Grandfather Zhao watched the movement, then glanced at the instruments. “Tell me what happened on the altar.”

“The elder cut me, the formation activated, and then the stone broke. I remember pain. After that, I was on the floor.”

“You expect me to believe you remember nothing else?”

“I remember that everyone expected me to die.”

One of the elders shifted angrily, but Grandfather Zhao raised a hand to silence him. The patriarch’s expression barely changed. “You were seen near the western grounds last night. What were you doing there?”

I had expected that question. “I got lost while trying to return to my room.”

“After midnight?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

I kept my shoulders slightly hunched and my gaze low, the same posture that had helped me survive years of being underestimated. It was easier to hide a secret when people were determined to see only what they expected.

Grandfather Zhao gestured toward the bronze instruments. “Place your hand on the first plate.”

I obeyed. The metal felt cold beneath my palm, and a faint ring spread across its surface as the elder guided spiritual energy through the instrument. Pressure settled over my skin, probing for the familiar signs of cultivation. I kept the current inside me still, breathing slowly as the entity had taught me in the cave.

For a moment, I felt the hidden energy rise in response. I held it down before it could reach my hand. The plate gave a weak flicker, then dimmed.

“Strange,” the elder muttered. “There is a disturbance, but no stable cultivation base.”

Grandfather Zhao moved closer and pressed two fingers against my wrist. His spiritual pressure searched with the confidence of someone who had never met a locked door he could not open. I let my breathing falter and allowed him to find only the traces left by the ritual, not the current beneath them.

The patriarch withdrew his hand. “Your condition has not changed enough to explain what happened.”

“Then perhaps the formation was damaged.”

“Do not tell me how my family’s formation works.”

Grandfather Zhao returned to his desk and folded his hands. “You can remain with the family if you cooperate. We will examine you again, and you will tell us everything you remember. Refuse, and I will have you confined until we find the truth.”

It was an offer built around a threat. If I agreed, they could study me until they discovered something. If I refused, they could keep me locked away and call it necessary. Either way, the patriarch wanted control.

“Would you have offered me a place here if the ritual had worked?” I asked.

The room grew still. One elder looked ready to strike me, but Grandfather Zhao only narrowed his eyes.

“Do not mistake survival for a change in your position,” he said. “You are alive because we have questions. Nothing more.”

“Then I’ll answer what I know.”

I left the study with my secret intact and the certainty that Grandfather Zhao would keep testing me until one of us made a mistake.

Crystal was waiting in the corridor beyond the study. She had changed out of her ceremonial clothes, but the strain in her face remained. When the guard stepped away to speak with another servant, she approached me with a small packet of medicine.

“Your wound needs treatment,” she said. “This will help with the pain.”

“I’m healing.”

“That doesn’t mean you should ignore it.”

I looked at the packet without taking it. “Did you know they would use a blade?”

Crystal’s fingers tightened around the medicine. “I knew the ritual required blood. I didn’t know exactly how they planned to carry it out.”

“You knew enough to warn me, and you didn’t.”

“I thought I could change their minds. Every time I tried, my grandfather reminded me of the oath and what would happen if I broke it.” Her voice dropped. “I was afraid he would turn on me before I found a way to help you.”

I wanted to believe her, because part of me still remembered the quiet kindness she had shown when no one else was watching. But kindness had not kept me from the altar, and fear could explain her silence without making it harmless.

“I understand that you were afraid,” I told her. “I won’t pretend it didn’t cost me.”

She nodded, accepting the words without asking me to soften them. “I can find out what he plans to do next. I can also look for the records of the ritual. If there’s something wrong with the formation, those records may explain it.”

“Then find out. Don’t promise me anything you can’t do.”

For the first time that morning, she met my eyes without trying to defend herself. “I won’t.”

The guard returned before either of us could say more. Crystal stepped away, leaving the medicine in my hand, and went toward the family wing. I watched her leave, uncertain whether she would follow through, but aware that she had finally chosen an action instead of another apology.

Back in my room, I locked the door and sat cross-legged on the floor. The entity guided me through slow breaths, teaching me to notice the current without pulling at it. Anger made the energy surge toward my hands, while controlled breathing settled it near my chest. I tried to sense the guards outside, detecting faint movement and spiritual pulses through the door.

The door handle turned suddenly. I broke the exercise and let my shoulders slump just as a guard entered to check on me. He glanced at my face, then at the untouched medicine on the table.

“Rest until the patriarch calls for you again,” he said. “And don’t wander around the estate.”

“I’ll try to stay out of trouble.”

Outside, two guards spoke in low voices. Their words carried through the thin wooden door, and one name made me stop breathing for a moment: the western grounds. Grandfather Zhao had ordered a search and demanded every record connected to the ceremony. At dawn, he intended to inspect the grounds himself, and I was expected to accompany him.

I asked the entity whether the patriarch knew what lay beneath the estate. For the first time since our bond began, it offered no answer at all.

That silence frightened me more than a threat. At dawn, I would walk beside the most powerful man in the Zhao family toward the place where my new life had begun, uncertain which of us was leading the other into a trap. The estate was waking around us, unaware its oldest secret had already begun changing the balance of power beneath its roof.