Inside the quiet Residence of the Han Clan, the air hung heavy, still, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
Pale smoke from the bronze incense burners curled upward, weaving through the high ceiling like drifting spirits.
Each breath carried a faint medicinal fragrance, mingling with the natural spiritual energy of the residence, meant to steady the mind.
Deep within the inner grounds, the Hall of Ancestral Life Tablets stood in solemn shadow.
Black-gold pillars rose like sentinels, engraved with ancient runes, and faint spiritual formations hummed beneath the floor, drawing in heaven and earth qi to stabilize the life flames within.
At the center of the hall, an elder sat cross-legged on a jade mat, eyes closed, breathing slow and steady. Hundreds of years had passed, a
