1 - Lin Hai

The bright morning sun was creeping past the horizon, shining over the world, bringing warmth to the land.

As the sunlight pierced through the windows of an old run-down orphanage, the children within it slowly began to wake up.

Among these children was a young boy, about thirteen years old, and his face was covered in bruises while his arm was held in place with a splint; it was clear that his arm was broken and he had been badly beaten up.

This boy's name was Lin Hai, and he was the weakest kid here, barely even being considered to be a cultivator.

Cultivation was the process of absorbing the energy of heaven and earth, Qi, into your body in order to strengthen it and allow you to get stronger almost infinitely.

He was at the very beginning of the first stage of the martial arts path, which was the path of cultivation, and he was considered to be extremely weak and untalented, with those his age being at the peak of the first stage or even the second stage.

For example, a lot of the kids in this room were at the second stage of the martial arts path despite being untalented orphans, and they were only slightly older than him.

Suddenly, the door to the room swung open, sending a plume of dust through the room, and a cranky old woman's voice could be heard, "Get up, rats!"

Her voice boomed through the room, and it woke up any of the children who hadn't already woken up.

All of them seemed to be extremely groggy, and all of them had slightly sad expressions as they got out of the comfort of their beds.

The beds weren't comfortable at all, being just a pad they'd lay on with a thin sheet, but it was their only rest that they got in this life, as they were all slaves.

Every single kid in this orphanage, from the age of ten to eighteen, was a slave or a laborer, and they were paid next to nothing while having to work grueling hours to keep up.

On top of the already horrible conditions that they lived in and the bad hours, any one of them that performed below expectations was beaten by the people who employed them, with the beatings varying from getting slapped to getting beaten half to death.

It wasn't particularly uncommon to see broken bones, hence why Lin Hai's arm was broken, and his face was covered in bruises.

He had it much worse than the majority of the kids here, having to serve the king's twisted and evil son, who would beat him every day regardless of his performance.

But as Lin Hai got out of his bed, his expression didn't match the expression of those around him.

He had a blank expression as he got up, and this was because of his way of thinking. He just didn't care about anything, or how the world worked, and no matter what happened, that expression would almost never leave his face.

His emotions were always under his control, and no matter what happened to him, he wouldn't mind it even if he was beaten every day.

For this reason, he was always mocked by the other orphans, and even the prince himself mocked him and beat him for this way of thinking, which was actually part of the reason that he was serving the prince in the first place.

A lot of the people who had served the prince in the past couldn't deal with the constant beatings and the mockery, and they ended up killing themselves, but because of Lin Hai's emotional resilience, he was the perfect person to counteract this and be able to put up with it.

But because he was so weak, putting up with the constant beatings was still extremely hard on his body, and he constantly had internal injuries and broken bones, with him being lucky that only his arm was broken currently.

The prince was at the fourth stage of the martial arts path, being much much stronger than Lin Hai, and being able to knock him out with a single punch if he so desired.

With Lin Hai's talent, he would be lucky to ever reach the third stage of the martial arts path in his life, let alone the fourth, while the prince had reached it at fourteen years old, only a year older than Lin Hai.

As Lin Hai got up, he had a blank expression on his face as he ignored the pain from his arm and his bruises.

"Hey Lin Hai, ready for another day's beatings?" A voice rang out from nearby, and Lin Hai felt pain as a strong hand slammed into his back, sending him stumbling forward from the force.

But Lin Hai ignored the pain as he regained his balance and spoke, "Who cares?"

Hearing this, all the kids around him just laughed, but said nothing else. It was clear that they were extremely disdainful of him, because he just didn't care about anything, no matter what happened.

As he walked out of the room, he went to the kitchen of the orphanage and got some food, which was just a terrible soup with minimal nutrition and was made of just wood pulp and a little meat.

The food was horrible, but nobody seemed to care as they all ate it without complaining. They had all gotten used to how terrible it was by now.

"PFFTT!!! When are we gonna get better food? This tastes like shit!" One of the kids yelled out in frustration as he couldn't contain himself, fed up with the consistently terrible food.

But everyone stayed silent and continued to eat as the old woman who had woken them up marched over and slapped the back of his head. She didn't even need to say anything to get her point across.

The boy then accepted his fate and ate the terrible food, cringing at the terrible taste and texture.

The only one who didn't cringe when eating the food was Lin Hai.

After eating, they all started to head out to their respective tasks, with more than ninety-five percent of them being slaves and the other ten percent being responsible for maintaining the area around the orphanage under no direct employer.

They weren't paid to do so, but everyone who was a slave was extremely jealous towards those who only had to maintain the area since they wouldn't get beaten constantly.

But those who got to maintain the area were usually the ones with at least decent talent, and they would get more personal time to cultivate in order to get stronger, so the future of the orphanage depended on them, making them more important than the ones who were slaves.

The one who had slapped Lin Hai's back earlier was one who got to maintain the area, and they were at the second stage of the martial arts path while being at the same age as Lin Hai, perhaps even a little younger.

The reason that they didn't know exactly how old they were was because they were orphans, and they had all come here too young to know their birthday, so their age was based off of how many years it had been since they came here plus their general age when they came.

Lin Hai had been abandoned here as a baby, but he knew how old he was because there had been a note left behind with all his information, including his name, birthday, and a few other things.

The only thing he didn't know was who his parents were, but he didn't care at all.

As he was heading towards the palace where he worked, he was looked at with pity by almost everyone who saw him.

They all knew who he was and what he had to do, and they didn't mock him for it as the other kids did.

As he made his way there, a few people gave him a bit of pity money, because they knew that the prince never paid him.

Lin Hai was one of the very few slaves who wasn't paid, but nobody else could fill his position with the prince, so he was forced to go there every day and work even though he didn't get paid, so this pity money was his main source of income.

He was lucky that it was the prince that he worked for, because a lot of people hated the king and the prince, so they would pay the person who had to deal with the prince's beatings every day just as a thank you for his 'service'.

In this way, he had people who would give him a bit of money every day, and although it was shameful to take pity money, it was his only way to get income, so he obviously wouldn't turn it down.

Eventually, he made his way all the way to the palace where he worked.

Heading inside, he got looks of pity from everyone who saw him. There wasn't a single person in the castle who didn't know him.

The castle was a magnificent palace made of only jade and quartz, all of the highest quality.

It was a dream compared to anything Lin Hai had ever lived in. He couldn't help but think about how privileged the prince and princess were. Their courtyards were second only to the king.

The prince's courtyard was on the western end of the palace and had everything you could dream of; a garden, pools, fountains, game rooms, a spa, and many other things that he didn't even use.

There was even a place that was full of women with only one purpose: to pleasure the prince. Lin Hai was disgusted when he thought about the prince; he was a horrible person addicted to seeing others suffer.

His personal favorite was beating Lin Hai to the point where he could barely walk.

However, he never used to go too far for the fear that Lin Hai wouldn't be able to show up the next day to get beaten.

But no matter how much he beat Lin Hai, he would always come back the next day, so he had eventually gotten worse in his beatings.

His ultimate goal was to break Lin Hai so completely that he would never recover. Only at that point would he be satisfied.

The princess's courtyard was exactly the same as the prince's with the exception of the building of women; in its place was instead a makeup salon where she went to pretty herself up.

Her name was Yan Daiyu, and she was the exact opposite of the prince; she hated seeing people get hurt and she hated her brother for all the people he hurt.

She was benevolent and kind, proving to be the exact opposite of the rest of the people in her family. When she could, she would even try to help the slaves and try to heal them up.

She generally didn't go out much on account of the fact that she was very beautiful and was afraid of people trying to kidnap and defile her, which had already happened many times.

Each time so far had ended in failure but she knew that there was a possibility that someone could one day succeed.

As Lin Hai was approaching the prince's courtyard, he walked past the princess. He found it odd that she was out as she was almost never on this side of the castle.

However, he paid it no mind as it was common for people to go to areas where they normally wouldn't go if they had business there

While she was walking, she happened to look over and see Lin Hai - who was battered and bruised all over his body, with some cuts as well - walking towards the prince's courtyard.

Seeing this she couldn't help but sigh, disappointed in those who would beat someone so defenseless.

But she didn't say anything. She knew that he was putting up with it in his own way, and that she could do nothing but make his situation worse.

She couldn't even help him to heal, because her brother would find out and just beat him even worse and almost kill him as a result.

He had done this with past slaves, and he would do it with Lin Hai.

In short, there was no escaping from her brother in any way, and she couldn't even help his slaves as she did the others.