The return of the Kirin Heir

Thunder rumbled through the heavens like an ancient beast stirring from slumber.

Black clouds rolled over Qing Village, casting long shadows over rice fields and crooked rooftops. Rain fell hard, battering the earth as if the sky itself sought to cleanse the land of its sins.

At the village’s edge stood a hut that was more ruin than shelter—half its roof caved in, one wall propped up with bundled straw. No one ever knocked on its door. No one ever visited. They said the one who lived there was cursed. Worthless. A cripple with no future.

Inside, on a straw mat soaked through with rainwater and blood, a boy stirred.

Thin. Dirty. Bones visible beneath skin stretched too tight. He looked like he hadn’t eaten in days.

Suddenly, his eyes opened.

Golden. Fierce. Alive.

They burned with a clarity that did not belong to a dying beggar.

“So this is the body I’ve returned to…”

He sat up slowly, each movement scraping agony through his ruined muscles. His joints cracked as he moved, and a sharp breath left his lips—part pain, part disbelief. He touched his chest and winced.

“Weak. Starving. My meridians are shattered… no spiritual energy, no cultivation base...”

But inside his mind, a storm brewed fiercer than the one raging outside. Memory after memory slammed into him—temples bowed at his feet, heavenly treasures lined in vaults, battles waged with a flick of his hand. He had been Jin Longwei, once called the Martial Sovereign, a divine healer capable of restoring life to the dying, and a trillionaire whose name shook the Celestial Markets.

And then…

Betrayal.

Poison.

Death.

He had trusted them—his sworn brothers, his closest disciples. He had lifted them from nothing, and they had torn him down.

“I was a god in a world of mortals,” he whispered. “And they dared cut me down.”

A spark kindled within his chest. Not anger. Not grief. Something older. Deeper.

Power.

“You sealed my soul. But you didn’t destroy it.”

“That was your mistake.”

He struggled to his feet, swaying like a broken tree in a storm, but he stood tall. Taller than he had in this body before. Because this was no longer just the crippled village boy named Jin. This was the return of something long buried. Something sacred.

A low, golden hum resonated deep in his core. It was faint, barely perceptible—but unmistakable.

The Kirin Flame still burned.

Its warmth coiled around his dantian like a serpent awakening after centuries of slumber. Ancient. Patient. Divine.

He placed his hand over his chest and exhaled.

“You thought I would die. You thought you had buried me. But the Kirin… always returns.”

Lightning cracked just outside the hut, illuminating his silhouette in blinding white. In that instant, his shadow stretched long across the broken wall—no longer that of a starving boy, but of something far greater.

Something… celestial.

From beyond the village fields, an old farmer paused mid-step, a shiver running down his spine.

He looked toward the hut with narrowed eyes.

“Strange,” he muttered. “For a moment… I could’ve sworn…”

But the moment passed. The storm howled louder, drowning his thoughts.

Back inside the hut, Jin Longwei raised his gaze to the sky through the broken roof.

“The world forgot me,” he said softly. “That was their first mistake.”

“Now it’s my turn to remember who I am.”

“I am the Kirin Heir.”

And this time, he would not fall.