The Rejected Disciple, Successor to The Demonic Path

Discovery of an Inheritance

Rong Tian crashed onto a thick mound of sand spread across the bottom of the Abyss of Suffering. His body struck the surface at full speed, and the soft sand absorbed the impact in a way he had never expected but could not refuse.

It was an unexpected stroke of fortune. The sand pile saved him from death, or at least from fatal broken bones. Had he landed on stone or hard earth, his story would have ended there.

However, a sharp pain in his abdomen quickly reminded him that he was still trapped in unending suffering. The wound left by the destruction of his spirit pearl throbbed as though something continued to strike him from inside.

Covered in injuries, he crawled weakly and tried to gather the remnants of his strength. Every movement drained what little energy he had left, but remaining still meant dying even faster.

Around him, dozens of glowing eyes reflected an unnatural light. They surrounded him like inevitable shadows, ready to pounce. The distance between Rong Tian and that ring of eyes was no more than ten steps, and the circle continued to tighten.

“Wolves,” he whispered inwardly as despair began to seep into his thoughts. “This is the end of me.”

In that suffocating hopelessness, Rong Tian reached for something near him. Yet his fingers found only sand, rough and meaningless, slipping between them like time that could not be held.

His Qi was gone. His spirit pearl had been destroyed. There was nothing he could summon, not even the most basic protection.

“Go away. Go away,” he hissed, his voice almost too faint to hear beneath the terrifying silence. Even to his own ears, he sounded weak.

Unnoticed by Rong Tian, a necklace lay among the fingers resting in the sand. It was a string bearing a strange black jade pendant, one that emitted an aura he could not explain. Its surface was smooth and cold despite having been buried beneath warm sand.

Suddenly, the wolves’ growls stopped.

They did not fade away. They stopped completely in a single moment, as though someone had silenced a room that had been filled with noise.

The shining eyes that had been filled with hunger and greed froze. They stared at the necklace in Rong Tian’s hand with undisguised fear, while their large bodies stiffened as though they had forgotten how to move.

“Come closer if you dare,” Rong Tian said. His voice somehow carried confidence, though he did not realize that the courage did not come from him. It came from the terrifying aura emitted by the black jade pendant.

That aura was neither hot nor cold. It was heavy, like the pressure of the heavens forced down upon the earth.

With distant howls, the glowing eyes vanished one after another into the darkness. Silence crept back into the abyss, leaving Rong Tian alone upon the thick sand mound.

“Heaven has not abandoned me. I am not dead today,” he whispered, his voice weak and filled with disbelief as his body sank back into the soft sand. His breath came long and uneven, the breath of someone who had just survived something he should never have survived.

Then the pain in his abdomen surged again. He raised his hand and accidentally struck the injured area, where Scarface’s palm had destroyed his spirit pearl.

“What is this?” Rong Tian thought, his gaze fixed on the necklace still clutched in his hand. The black jade pendant felt heavier than before, as if something unexpected was hidden beneath its plain surface.

“A black jade necklace?” he muttered.

Beneath the faint moonlight, he examined it more carefully and saw an engraving of five bats surrounding the pendant. Every detail was exquisitely crafted, making the five bats appear as though they were circling clouds formed around the jade.

The figures looked alive, moving with an invisible vitality. Their small wings were spread in different positions, as if each bat were caught in mid-flight.

“I found this among the sand. Could there be other treasures hidden beneath it?” Rong Tian thought, his eyes brightening. In a place like this, at the bottom of an abyss known as hell on earth, someone had once hidden something.

Although he was weak, a small thread of hope rose within him. It was not a grand hope, only enough to make his hands move again.

If this pendant truly possessed extraordinary power, he would take revenge. In his mind, the four black-clothed men had to experience suffering far worse than what they had inflicted upon him.

“They must learn how it feels when the spirit pearl they destroyed returns with even greater power,” Rong Tian thought through clenched teeth.

Scarface’s satisfied face appeared clearly in his mind, and that image lit something more enduring than momentary anger.

Fortunately, Rong Tian still had a storage pouch hidden beneath his oversized, loose scholar’s robe. The pouch was simple, but it could hold several necessary items, including food.

Inside were several boiled sweet potatoes his father had prepared. They had hardened after so many days, but they were still edible.

As the son of a carriage driver living in poverty, Rong Tian had not been given money when he went to take the imperial examination. Everything he had brought was what his father had prepared, nothing more.

“Take these boiled sweet potatoes. They will keep your stomach full during the examination, from morning until night,” his father had said with concern and affection. He had never known how to express love except through small things like that.

At the time, Rong Tian could only accept them gratefully, even though he knew their lives were far from easy. He remembered his father lowering his head every night while counting the remaining rice in the kitchen.

To be continued.