He pushed a knobby finger into the boy's chest, not hard—but as if he was testing to see if it was there.
"But you? You're it again."
The boy didn't budge.
The old man smiled like a bastard who just found his old knife.
"That heart in your chest? The Thrice-Cursed?" His voice turned wicked. "It's not a treasure. It's a karmic abomination. Every other poor bastard who touched it got turned into spiritual soup. Some got vaporized. Some reincarnated as fungus."
He leaned forward. His voice fell, intimate now.
"Alright, listen up, kid. You got three divine curses stitched into your sorry hide. First one? You're a heretic. That's right—Heaven's enemy number one. They hate your guts so much, they'll choke on your name like a bad meal. You're the cosmic screw-up, the black sheep in the holy flock. No fancy robes or prayers will save you. They want you dead or erased.
Second curse—this one's a kicker. Your soul? It's gonna itch and burn like a damn wildfire that never quits. You'll crave pain, power, and some twisted version of truth that's sharp enough to cut your own heart to pieces. Not the sweet, feel-good truth either. Nah, the kind that breaks your brain and spits in the face of every fairytale you ever believed. It's a hunger that gnaws at you, and no matter what you do, it won't go away. Sucks, right?
Last curse—and the real kicker—your fate's dead. Not lost, not stolen. Flat-out dead. No prophecy's gonna tell you where to go, no gods gonna judge your sorry ass. You're walking blind, no safety net, no big plan. Sounds scary? Maybe. But it's also freedom—the nasty kind. No chains from fate, no strings to pull you back. You get to decide what the hell you want, but here's the catch: no one's coming to help. You're on your own, kid. Completely alone in the dark.
So what do you crave with these curses? Power to burn the gods' rules to ash. Pain that teaches you what nothing else can. Truth so brutal it shatters your soul. And freedom from every damn chain you ever had—even if that freedom feels like a noose.
The cave became quiet.
The lips of the boy parted—dry and cracked. His voice was a gravel scraping over stone.
"Then.....what the hell are you?"
The old man low-laughed. His lips curled into the sort of grin that would be seen in an opium den the night before a stabbing.
"I am the real Xie Wuming's demonic will given breath," he said. "The whisper in his head that told him to spit in a monk's eye and piss on his master's bones. The part that drank madness raw, spread its legs, and carved its name into Heaven's ribcage with a rusted demon-tooth."
He floated downwards, as languid as smoke, until he faced the boy. Something old and wickedly cheerful glared out of the yellow spark.
"Before that son of a bitch died, he tore himself in two. Half of him he took with him—perhaps to hell, perhaps to Nirvana, perhaps to a worm's anus for all I know. The other…"
He tapped on his chest. Hollow reverberation. Like knocking on a coffin.
"Me. The piece he was unable to destroy. The desire he was unable to purge. Bound into this rat-shit ring. Coerced to wait. Witnessed all the bright-eyed fools attempt to don the Thrice-Cursed and die shitting their soul out through their ears."
And then he smiled. Slow. Filthy.
"Congratulations, shit-spawn. You just woke up the worst mentor this fucked-up world ever buried."
The boy swallowed.
"What now?"
The old man spun in midair like a ghost at a circus.
"What now, brat? Now we embark on the Path of the Rootless Soil. The filthiest, most disgusting, most honest fuck-you to Heaven ever scraped off the Dao's behind.
The boy flinched at the name.
"Don't stare at me like that," the old man snarled. "I didn't name the damn thing. Some corpse-fucking son of a bitch did. But it fits. 'Rootless Soil'—soil that never nurtured life. Full of decay and regret."
"I discovered it buried under the Corpse Earth. Under plague-bones and dead cities no scroll recalls. This path? It doesn't belong to clans. Don't answer to sects. It spits on bloodlines and divine favor."
He nudged the boy once more.
"Just someone like you can do it. Because it's for the ones the world forgot. Stillborns. Freaks. Errors."
He floated closer. His robe fluttered like a fungus-eaten flag.
"No golden core. No sacred sea. No meridians shining with light." He spat on the stone. "The Rootless Soil doesn't need that neat horseshit. It takes what you've got—your hate, your hunger, your shame—and makes it bloom."
"You," he continued in awe, "are a walking blasphemy. And it's fucking glorious."
The boy's fists clenched. He didn't speak.
The old man stood up once more, his grin stretching wider into a lopsided crescent moon. His tone grew harsher. "This road ain't about purity, or peace, or whatever happy horsedick the cults are teaching these days. It's about violation. It's about spiritual heresy. It's about sin, boy. Big, beautiful, screaming sins that piss on the rules."
He saw the expression of puzzlement on the boy and emitted a sour bark of laughter. "Okay, okay—lemme break it down in pig-fucker language, somethin' even a half-dead street rat can chew on."
He now hung upside-down, a corpse swaying in the breeze from the gallows, voice as sleazy as a back-street priest.
"Assume cultivation is a bedroom, okay?"
The boy blinked. "A… what?
"Listen, you virgin paper cut." The old man's finger pierced like an accusation.
"Cultivation's a bedroom. A silk-sheeted, Heaven-blessed fuck-chamber. The sects? They burn incense, recite poetry, and humbly petition the Dao to strip."
He bowed in derision. "Please, great laws of existence, let us stick a finger under your veil and taste enlightenment?"
Then he spat.
"But the Rootless Soil?" His grin turned wicked. "We break in. We crawl through the floorboards, bare-assed and uninvited, and we defile the bed. We fuck the Dao sideways with our trauma, and then we laugh while Heaven tries to scrub the stains off its silk sheets."
The boy's face twisted—between disgust and disbelief. "And that, my little plague-baby," the old man sang, "is sin. Not some dusty moral failure. Not some grandma's warning about killing pigs on Ghost Day. I'm talking about Existential Sin. The kind that makes stars tremble. The kind that breaks prophecy."
The boy's voice was low but firm, the words etched with increasing distinctness. "So, just what in the world are these 'Existential Sins' you keep frothing at the mouth over?"
The old man grinned like a famished wolf who'd found a disabled lamb. "Oho! Finally, a question with some teeth."
"Listen, kid. Normal evil? That is bad manners with a bloody ribbon. Murder someone, stab a friend in the back, poison a well—yeah, it's cruel. But the world doesn't bat an eye. The heavens expect that kind of crap. It's just a Tuesday in the cultivation world."
He ceased his pacing and leaned forward, his eyes burning like fireflies in a cemetery. "But Existential Sins? That's where the atmosphere thickens. That's where the world suffocates. Do one of those, and for a moment, the fucking universe forgets how to spin. It does not know what you are anymore."
The boy's eyes narrowed. "You keep saying that. What the hell does it mean?"
The old man jabbed a knotted finger at his own chest. "It means you break a rule the heavens never thought could be broken. Not a law. Not a commandment. I'm talking about a sacred assumption. One of those truths wired into karma's bones."
"Think about this—like the idea that a mother will always love her child. That's not sentiment, kid. That's a divine parable, something the stars themselves say. Now, imagine you make a mother kill her baby—and she enjoys it. No madness, no guilt. She smiles. She thanks you."
"That's an Existential Sin. A betrayal of the story the world wishes to tell. And when you succeed in getting away with it, Heaven takes notice. Karma strikes out. Threads tangle. Reality claws at your spirit, tries to unmake you."
"But I've got Nullbirth Spiral."
The old man all but howled with delight. "Right! The Nullbirth Spiral. Your ticket of gold. Karma takes a bite—and its teeth simply glide off. No mark. No penalty. The Heavens can't label what was never born."
Confusion crossed the boy's face. "So what do you do about the punishment?
The voice of the old man dropped, eyes wild. "It festers. The judgment is a failure, but the scar remains. A paradox that clings to your soul like mold to a tomb. That contradiction? That is your first Sin Brand."
The boy blinked. "So… a Sin Brand is karma's attempt to punish me that didn't work?"
The old man snapped his fingers like a man calling a winning hand. "Bingo! A divine tantrum turned to power. You didn't dodge it—you ate it."
He picked up pacing again, this time as a drunken poet ranting to the wind. "And don't get it twisted. You don't get a Sin Brand by being edgy or sadistic. You get it by taking a truth the world grasps like a pearl—and smashing it beneath your heel. And you live. And you laugh."
The boy hesitated, a moment's silence between them. "Then, what types are there?"
The old man froze, his stance serious now, like a priest officiating at a crime scene. "Each one's a mutation of the spirit. A freak-baby born from paradox. Let me break it down for your little gray-sponge brain."
He raised each of his fingers singly.
"First, there's Fleshbrands. They constrict around you. Claws rather than fingers. Bones sculpted into knives. Skin secreting venom."
"Then there are Cursebrands. Corruption of the spirit. You spread shame, despair, hunger, and hate—your presence alone makes monks piss themselves and cry for their masters."
He smirked. "Now Lawbrands—oh, these are fun. You rewrite a piece of the world. Make lies true. Reverse gravity. Turn 'fire' into 'forgiveness.' Scary, sexy stuff."
His smile turned darker. "And the last one? Cataclysmic Brands. As uncommon as divine mercy and a hundred times more lethal. You get those by desecrating something massive. Wreck a sacred land with a song. Twisting a prophecy until the stars shatter. Be the opposite of what Heaven penned."
The boy's voice sounded hesitant now. "How many…can I hold?
The old man laughed cruelly. "As many as your balls can contain, boy! Technically? No fuckin' limit. Stack 'em up like bodies on a funeral pyre. But each and every one of them distorts you. Your mind frays. Your body forgets it used to be human. Keep stacking, and you'll be more sin than skin."
The boy tightened his fists. "That's… dangerous."
The voice of the old man was filled with happiness. "That's the idea. Safe roads are for piss-drinkers and lotus-eaters. You want to feel power? You let it consume you."
The boy's voice dropped to a serious mutter. "Then how do I start?
The old man's reply came in near-reverent deference. "Stage One. The Rootless Seed. Your first heresy. You have to achieve a Sin Brand."
"Tell me. What sin should I commit to get a Sin Brand?
The old man's form shook, settling firm again, his face stretching wide with a filth-glory grin. "Heh. Look at you now, little war ghost. Not crying. Not begging. Just hungry. I like that. Fine. Here's a menu for a fallen prince."
"'The Hope-Killer.' Find a person who still hopes. Let them know joy. Then crush it under your heel. Heaven loves hope. To kill it is to push glass into its eye."
"'The Inversion of Mercy.' Feed the famished. Mend the shattered. For days. Then slaughter them, laughing. Turn salvation into a mockery. The twist is what makes it divine."
"'The Devourer's Rite.' Hunt down a spirit beast. Slay it. Roast it. Feed it to its master without him knowing. When he thanks you, whisper the truth. Watch him break. Then finish him."
"'The Soul-Wife Brand'. Marry the ghost of a dead woman. Enslave her in yin chains. Use her. Pretend to love her. Never meant to. Make love into bondage."