Canvas tore as I slammed into the villager’s stall, wooden poles snapped, and cabbages bounced along the dirt.

  “My cabbages!” an old man screamed.

  I lay under a pile of vegetables, hoping I was hidden, but someone grabbed my ankle and dragged me out into the sunshine. A crowd of onlookers formed as people left their market stalls and shopping to gaze at the spectacle before them.

  Ren Feilong tossed me into the center of the village’s unpaved market square. He glanced in disdain at the dust on his hand.

  “You have sullied my morning,” he said with so much venom I thought he might choke. “If you kowtow and apologize ten times, I might forgive you enough to give you a quick death.”

  I stared up at his livid expression and the absolute sadistic drooling of his two sycophantic followers.

  “What did I even do to you?” I asked.

  Apparently, that wasn’t the correct response, since his flunky darted forward with the advanced speed of a cultivator.

  “How dare you ignore our young master’s magnanimous offer! Kowtow, you cur!”

  He kicked me in the shin hard enough for the bone to crack.

  I let out a surprised yelp.

  Those bastards! Didn’t they know how long it took for bones to heal?

  “That’s right,” said Ren Feilong. “Show some proper respect, lest we drag this out.”

  “Oh, please, Ren Feilong,” begged his ugly follower. “Let us drag it out. We haven’t been able to hurt someone properly for far too long.”

  I glanced around at the crowd.

  They were all normal people, mortal, and drawn back in fear, not daring to interfere, and not even wanting to run away lest their movement singled them out. I remembered the one time a sect passed through my farming village — they’d ruled the village like roosters in a hen house for an entire week before they moved on.

  Like iron through glass.

  What was the play here? Should I just apologise and get this over with? I doubted they could even kill me, though if they put qi into their actions, it might disrupt my healing…

  Better to play it safe.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Ren Feilong marched forward. He glanced down at me, his eyes shining.

  “Why don’t I believe you?” he said.

  “I’m sorry for ruining your morning?” I tried.

  He sneered at me.

  “You don’t even know what you did, do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Such ignorance can only be treated by death!” he shouted at the cloudless morning sky. “Let everyone bear witness to how the Shining Mountain sect deals with such insolent, ignorant dogs!”

  He kicked me hard and sent me flying. I tumbled along the ground before landing at the feet of his subordinate.

  “Kick him, He Shunfeng!”

  The cultivator obliged and kicked me back in the other direction.

  “Let him have it, Gao Wenqi!”

  Another boot collided with me.

  They passed me around like children kicking a ball, leaving me battered and bloodied. The crowd watched in horrified silence.

  I waited for them to get their kicks off.

  Heh…

  Making a joke, even inside my head, might have also been the wrong move, because a tiny chuckle escaped my lips, and I was suddenly yanked into the air.

  “You find something funny?” Ren Feilong shrieked into my face. “You find your death amusing?”

  The pretty young master was all but gone now, and I just shrugged at the seething psychopath before me.

  “Just kill me,” I said. “If you can.”

  “Aaaah!”

  Ren Feilong grabbed a hold of my arms and leaped into the air, his movement graceful as he lifted us higher than the houses in the village, before he spun and threw me hard into the ground. My neck snapped on the impact.

  I lay there limp for a moment with my head resting beside a bright green cabbage.

  It would probably take all day for my bones to fix themselves, but at least I looked believably dead.

  “Let that be a lesson to you all,” Ren Feilong said as he regained his composure. “Now, which one of you mortals has rice wine? Dealing out such instruction has parched my throat.”

  I heard people hurrying to obey as I lay in the dirt.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Everyone was ignoring me. Maybe later they would give me some kind of pauper’s burial, or simply toss me in the river to float downstream. In any case, the villagers would quickly forget me, and I could go on seeking my past —

  “You just going to lie there and take it like a little bitch?”

  What?

  “Don’t play dead, I know you can hear me.”

  I opened a swollen eye to see who spoke.

  A bright green cabbage glared back at me.

  “Wha…?” I choked out.

  “Did I stutter?” the cabbage said with disdain. “Do you think any secret is worth enduring humiliation at the hands of such trash? If you don’t fight back, you don’t deserve to call yourself a man!”

  I frowned.

  The cabbage… he was right!

  None of the other vegetables said anything, too ashamed to even meet my eye, but this cabbage spoke directly into my soul.

  I’d been reborn with this… gift. I’d already fought monsters straight out of nightmares. Why was I acting like a terrified mortal? These raging buffoons couldn’t kill me, so why should I let them act as though all was right in the world when they were exactly what was wrong with it?

  Blood pumped through my body, keeping me together as I flexed my fingers.

  “What’s your name, kind sir?” I whispered as footsteps crunched toward me.

  “Cabbagy,” said the cabbage with a snort. “And I’m no kind sir.”

  “Thank you, Cabbagy,” I said as I pressed my fist into the dirt. “For reminding me what it means to be a man.”

  I lifted myself off the ground. My blood was still dripping onto the ground from where they’d bloodied me, but with an effort of willpower, I kept it inside my body. Holding myself together despite my broken bones, I faced the grinning cultivators.

  “Oh, ho, ho!” He Shunfeng shouted. “Looks like the dog hasn’t learned his lesson?”

  I wiped blood from my lip and gave a grin of my own.

  “What lesson?” I said. “All I see is a couple of mosquitoes who weren’t spanked enough as children.”

  He Shunfeng frowned.

  “What does that even —”

  He broke off as I charged him with my fist pulled back.

  My fighting experience was uneven, to say the least. My life as a merchant’s son led to a love of food and a loathing of exercise, and all those memories did was provide fuel to the anger that I hadn’t even been able to sip a single cup of tea before the cultivators chased me from the restaurant — nudity be damned!

  My life as a farmer’s son had given me muscles like a mule and a tenacity to match, but the few times we fought in the village, it was more like friendly wrestling, with heat but no anger, and no desire for blood — after all, fewer hands meant a harder harvest.

  But as an orphaned street rat, I had more than my fair share of back alley brawls, and when it came to fighting dirty, I was king.

  The three cultivators saw a broken and bloody mortal who was somehow still on his feet. Maybe my being able to walk shocked them, or maybe they just had no fear of a mortal’s blows.

  I couldn’t blame them.

  Except I wasn’t a mortal anymore; I was undying.

  I threw my fist at the short one’s face, and he stood there with a shit-eating grin, but I opened my hand at the last moment and released the sand I’d grabbed from the ground. It struck his eyes and, cultivator or not, he was blinded.

  “Aaah!” he shouted.

  He flailed at me, but I was already out of reach.

  I went for the tall, ugly one next. He’d moved to strike me when he saw me blind his companion. Blood surged through my muscles, boosting my strength and speed, and I moved past his punch. His eyes widened right before my forehead met his nose.

  The crunch might be the single most satisfying sound I’d ever heard.

  He stumbled back.

  The two cultivators weren’t down, not even close, but they were distracted enough that I could charge the prick who’d chased me down the road.

  The young master in question glared at me.

  “You dare hurt my companions?” he said as he entered a combat-ready stance.

  “I didn’t think a mortal could hurt someone like you? Maybe you’re also mortal?”

  I’ll admit, my trash talk wasn’t the best — three lives of memories kind of jumbled my insults — but it had the effect of annoying him enough to strike first.

  He lashed out with a punch, and I blocked it with my arms. The force was enough to send me sliding back through the dirt. His eyes widened when he realised I wasn’t dead.

  “What kind of trickery is this?” he muttered.

  “The same kind your mother pulled on your father,” I said.

  Anger overtook his logic as he charged me again. With my blood-boosted muscles, I dodged the first kick, but the second knee took me in the ribs and lifted me off the ground. He threw a couple of swift punches and knocked me back, but I was on my feet before he could stomp on my neck.

  The other two cultivators dared not intervene as their young master pursued me around the village square.

  I’d seen cultivators fight before. They moved with grace like the wind through the willows. There was none of this in Ren Feilong’s movements; it was like watching a child stomping at cockroaches.

  Gleefully violent and sloppy.

  He came at me with an overhead punch, and I got there first. My fist connected with his chin and sent him staggering. My knuckles cracked from the blow — the iron doors in the facility were tougher by far, but his qi-enhanced body was no joke.

  My punch seemed to shake something loose in his head. He glared at me.

  “I went easy on you before! But now you shall face the wrath of the heavens!”

  He charged forward, shining light bulging in his knuckles.

  “Shining Mountain Fist!”

  Dust billowed away as he charged forward, the brilliant qi in his fist shooting him forward like a runaway horse dragging a cart.

  Even with my blood-boosted muscles, I doubted I could block such a blow. So I didn’t even try.

  I opened my arms wide, and his knuckles shattered through my sternum.

  Bone, blood, and meat sprayed out as his fist struck through my chest and out the other side. Something pulsed through my body — qi, like a stone casting ripples in a pond — and my blood control faltered for a moment.

  I sagged, my shattered spine not letting me stand. He held me up with the strength of his arm and pulled me close to his face. The light in his eyes was pure, entitled insanity.

  “This is what happens when you forget your place,” he whispered loud enough for all to hear.

  Blood spilled down my chin as I tried to speak, but then I realised I had nothing witty to say, so I forced my body to move with blood control. I grabbed his wrist and pulled myself closer.

  “Futile,” he said. “You cannot hope to —”

  I extended my teeth and bit his nose. My bulging fangs bit down hard on skin and cartilage and ripped it free from his beautiful face. He screamed as his qi-infused blood flowed down my throat.

  It might be the best thing I’d ever tasted.

  He tried to throw me away, but his arm was still deep in my chest, and he struggled. I wove gloves of blood and grabbed a hold of his neck. His eyes widened as I pulled him close. My jaw gaped, and my teeth protruded like grasping fingers.

  All his facade of the young master, of the righteous warrior, vanished as he screamed.

  I chomped at his face until he went limp, and we fell together. I pulled myself off his arm and held myself upright.

  The two cultivator lackeys stared at me.

  One with blood flowing from his broken nose, the other with puffy red eyes. The horror in their faces was absolute. We all knew they were weaker and less skilled than Ren Feilong, and after I'd taken care of him so handily...

  They cowered under my gaze like children faced with a monster.