The Return of the Almighty Dragon Jackal

Chapter 2: Forged with Fire

The mountains had no birthdays. No candles, no balloons, no frosting on lips. What Andrew found instead was silence, discipline, and the endless echo of his mother’s last breath.

For weeks after Master Yuan carried him from that bloodstained clearing, Andrew beseeched himself to sleep with Richard beside him, whispering questions no child should ever have to ask. Where was his father? Why did his mother have to die? What was the tattoo? Each time, Yuan’s answer was as cold as stone yet as steady as truth: “To question an injustice before you're strong is to die before your destiny begins.”

Andrew learned to stop asking.

The days in Zhenlong Province were merciless. He woke before dawn and stood barefoot on frozen stones, lungs burning as mist clung to the mountain air. He balanced on poles above waterfalls until his knees buckled. He carried buckets filled with water, arms stretched so far the muscles screamed for release. He stumbled through combat drills until his skin split, then pressed herbs against his own wounds and started again. Bruises hardened into callouses. His boyhood faded into scars.

But Master Yuan never let him become a mere fighter. “A soldier obeys,” Yuan told him, “but a warrior understands.” He was made to memorize scrolls by lantern light, to learn histories of betrayal and loyalty, to study the weight of silence in a man’s eyes. He was taught how to see beyond a smile, to calculate risk before the blade was drawn, to ask why people chose greed over love.

And when training ended, Andrew sat beside his brother. He read scrolls aloud to Richard’s unblinking face. He wiped his brother’s brow, pressed his fingers into his still palm, whispered promises through clenched teeth. On nights when his own body shook, he lay next to the futon and let his tears fall soundless, swearing into the darkness that one day he would wake Richard, one day he would make the world pay.

Master Yuan saw him and said quietly, “You fight for more than yourself. That makes you dangerous.”

Andrew’s reply was calm, almost frightening in its steadiness. “Good. Because when I go back, I want the world to be afraid of me.”

Far away, in the city Andrew once called home, his father was being broken in a different way. Roger searched relentlessly for his sons, pouring millions into private investigators, bribing officers, even dipping into the underworld for whispers. Nothing came back. No ransom, no sighting, no clue. It was as if his boys had been swallowed by the earth.

The police stopped returning his calls. The media dropped their headlines. Friends and family offered condolences, then moved on with their lives. Roger remained behind, suffocating in silence, tormented by guilt that chewed through him day and night.

That was when Carina found her chance.

She was sharp, attentive, a woman who had worked under him as a secretary long enough to know the rhythms of his despair. She stayed late after meetings, brought him coffee, placed a soft hand on his shoulder when grief bent him over his desk. She asked about the boys, listened as he cursed himself for failing them, tilted her head as if she cared.

The night she stayed during a storm, she offered more than sympathy. Roger was half-drunk, hollow, and tired of waking up to an empty bed. He let her kiss him. He let her slip into the hollow his wife had left behind.

He thought it was a mistake, a single moment of weakness. Carina knew better.

A week later, she appeared pale, hands trembling at her stomach. “Roger… I think I’m pregnant.”

The words gutted him. “That can’t be. Are you sure?”

Tears slid down her cheeks, perfectly timed. “I don’t want to force you into anything. If you don’t want this, I’ll raise the baby on my own.”

It was manipulation at its finest, sharpened by the sympathy of a grieving man. The board of directors, desperate to repair Roger’s shattered public image, leaned into it. “Embrace new beginnings,” they told him. The press painted her as his anchor, the woman who helped him crawl out of mourning.

Two months later, he married her. The ceremony was cold, quiet, without warmth. And when their daughter was born, he named her Olivia after his own mother, clinging to a memory that didn’t fit the face of the child in his arms. Her smile felt foreign. Her eyes didn’t hold the same blood. He never said it out loud, but deep down, Roger knew.

While his father drowned in mistakes, Andrew grew sharper than steel.

By eleven, he no longer stumbled during training. Yuan began gifting him scrolls each year, ancient writings filled with secrets of forgotten martial arts. Andrew promised to master every one.

By thirteen, his speed outran arrows.

By fourteen, he danced across bamboo branches without bending them.

By fifteen, he fought blindfolded, trusting only sound and instinct.

But every night ended the same way, kneeling beside Richard. He mashed roots into bitter pastes, begged the herbs to work. He read aloud histories of kingdoms, of men who defied fate, willing words to stir his brother awake. His hands stayed locked around Richard’s, steady and sure. “You’re not just my brother. You’re my purpose and my responsibility. And I’ll bring you back.”

At seventeen, Andrew’s transformation was complete. His body was honed, his mind sharp, his heart tempered by years of loss and fury. Yuan placed the final scroll in his hands, gold stitched in red, and said, “You have surpassed every warrior I’ve trained. But there is something I have hidden from you.”

Andrew’s pulse surged. “What is it, master?”

“The man who killed your mother was not just a stranger. He was hired.”

Blood thundered in Andrew’s ears. “By who?”

“Not yet,” Yuan said. His gaze was impenetrable. “You must walk the path before you know the enemy.”

Andrew clenched his fists. “Then I’m ready to leave.”

Yuan’s face was grave. “Take your brother. Return to your world. It waits with open jaws.”

The morning he left, the mountain wrapped itself in mist like a secret it didn’t want to surrender. Andrew stood in worn robes at the edge of the courtyard, Richard strapped to his back in a wooden frame. He was twenty-one now, taller, eyes hardened by fire.

Master Yuan faced him, robes brushing against stone, silver hair tied beneath a hood. His eyes carried the weight of both pride and farewell. “You’ve prepared for this day,” he said, “but are you ready?”

Andrew’s reply was calm, measured. “I don’t know what waits down there, but I know I can’t hide here forever.”

“No,” Yuan said, voice low. “You were born for fire.”

Andrew hesitated, then asked the question that had haunted him. “Why did you save us that night? Why were you even there?”

The old man walked to the edge of the overlook where the valley stretched below. “Because your father was once my closest friend. We studied together as young men, before he chose business and I chose seclusion. Once, I made a mistake that should have ended me. Roger saved me, not because he had to, but because he believed in me. I swore I would return that debt. When whispers reached me of the plot against your family, I was too late. By the time I arrived, you were already covered in blood, clutching your brother. That night, I could have killed for revenge. But I looked at you and saw that the world didn’t need another killer. It needed a guardian.”

Andrew’s throat tightened as the memories rose. His mother’s face. Her cry. The blood on the cake.

“For fifteen years, I trained you to hold back your fury, not feed it,” Yuan continued. “I gave you the seventy-four martial scrolls so you would carry knowledge, not just strength. Remember this when the world tempts you to forget who you are.”

Andrew bowed low, forehead to stone. “I’ll remember.”

Yuan’s hand rested on his shoulder, lingered, then fell away. “My path ends here. Yours begins down the mountain. When the winds carry your name back to me, let it be with pride.”

The rising sun broke through the fog, casting gold across the courtyard. Andrew stepped through the gate, Richard breathing steady against his back. The boy who once blew out birthday candles by a lake no longer existed. In his place walked a man forged by grief, sharpened by discipline, and driven by a vow that would not break.