As the day's duties dwindled to a close, Xue Xinyu eagerly anticipated the sweet release of slumber. With a sense of accomplishment, he methodically peeled away the layers of responsibility, shedding his daytime attire in favour of the comforting embrace of his nightgown.

In this world devoid of smartphones and social media, poor Xue Xinyu faced a dilemma of epic proportions: how to survive the night without the soothing glow of his beloved feeds? The absence of digital distractions loomed large, casting a shadow over his peaceful bedtime routine. Yet fear not, for amidst the digital deprivation, there was a glimmer of hope—Xue Xinyu's sleep schedule had miraculously improved since his arrival! No longer did he succumb to the siren call of late-night scrolling sessions that stretched into the wee hours of the morning. Instead, he embraced the sanctity of slumber with open arms (and droopy eyelids).

Thus far, despite his newfound mastery over the art of sleep, there were still nights when Xue Xinyu found himself tossing and turning like a caffeinated squirrel in a hammock. Tonight was one of those nights, much to his chagrin.

As Xue Xinyu tossed and turned in bed, sleep remained elusive, slipping through his fingers like a greased pig at a country fair. Frustrated and famished, he embarked on a midnight pilgrimage to the kitchen, his stomach rumbling like a discontented dragon. The prospect of a snack—perhaps a leftover mooncake or a stealthily procured steamed bun—beckoned to him like a beacon in the darkness.

With the grace of a sleep-deprived ninja, Xue Xinyu tiptoed through the halls, his quest for sustenance driven by a primal hunger that bordered on desperation. Every creak of the floorboards beneath his feet threatened to wake the entire household, adding an extra layer of thrill to his clandestine mission. The kitchen, bathed in faint moonlight filtering through the windows, greeted him like an old friend.

Alas, even the promise of a late-night snack failed to quell the restless whirlwind of his mind. Thoughts of the day's encounters with Feng Mingzhu and the peculiarities of the phantom bell still danced in his head like mischievous fireflies. Perhaps a cup of herbal tea would soothe his troubled thoughts, he mused, reaching for the kettle with a sigh.

Yet, just as he was about to indulge in a sip of chamomile tranquillity, a sudden rustling sound shattered the silence. Xue Xinyu froze, eyes wide with alarm, his heart pounding louder than a drumroll at a carnival. Could it be an intruder? A nocturnal creature on the prowl for crumbs? Or worse—had Feng Mingzhu followed him on this midnight escapade, determined to catch him in the act of raiding the pantry?

Summoning every ounce of courage, Xue Xinyu crept towards the source of the noise, his nightgown billowing behind him like a ghostly spectre. To his relief (and mild disappointment at the lack of dramatic intrigue), it turned out to be nothing more than a mischievous housecat, embroiled in a late-night skirmish with an unsuspecting moth. With a soft chuckle, he shooed the feline troublemaker away, pondering the cosmic irony of being outsmarted by a cat in the dead of night.

Resigned to the fact that sleep remained elusive, Xue Xinyu returned to his room, herbal tea in hand. Sitting by the window, he gazed out at the tranquil night sky, dotted with stars like scattered pearls on velvet. The nocturnal symphony of crickets and the distant hoot of an owl provided a soothing backdrop to his contemplations.

As he nibbled on crackers and contemplated the cosmic absurdity of his insomnia, with a sigh, he dismissed the notion of disturbing his slumbering comrades, Liang Zhiguan and Li Tao, opting instead to wage his battle against sleep alone. The crunch of each cracker echoed in the silence of the night, a testament to his restless mind and restless stomach.

Returning to his bed with a belly full of carbs and a heart heavy with exhaustion, Xue Xinyu braced himself for another round in the ring of insomnia. Yet, as he closed his eyes and surrendered to the embrace of the night, a sense of calm washed over him, like a warm blanket on a chilly winter's eve.

And so, with the gentle rhythm of his own breath as his lullaby, Xue Xinyu drifted off into the dream-filled abyss.

Oddly enough, Xue Xinyu awoke to the sound of groaning emanating from a neighbouring room. Rising to investigate, he found himself not in his own chamber, but in a foreign one. This discovery prompted him to venture out into the corridor, where he recognized the distinctive decor of Lingyun Peak. How had he ended up here, in the domain of another peak entirely? The mysteries of the night continued to unfold.

Navigating through the labyrinthine hallways, Xue Xinyu eventually emerged into an outdoor training area, where the fading light of day illuminated a scene of relentless discipline. Despite the setting sun, a young disciple persisted in his training, under the watchful eye of an elderly mentor.

As Xue Xinyu observed from a distance, he witnessed the elder's harsh methods of motivation: every time the young disciple faltered, the elder would administer a sharp slap with a rope, urging him to press on. Though Xue Xinyu felt compelled to intervene, he remained powerless to alter the course of events.

The scene then shifted abruptly, transporting Xue Xinyu to a sombre chamber adorned with names etched into stone—a place of mourning. To his horror, he witnessed the elder subjecting the young disciple to a merciless beating within this sacred space, an act deemed sacrilegious by ancestral tradition.

Regardless of cultural taboos, the elder's actions were a blatant violation of decency and humanity. With each blow, Xue Xinyu's indignation swelled, until he could no longer bear to witness the young disciple's suffering.

Summoning all his resolve, Xue Xinyu reached out to intervene, but before he could act, the scene shifted once more. Now, he beheld the young disciple receiving the traditional mark of Lingyun Peak. The solemnity of the moment struck him—a crimson dot delicately placed upon the disciple's forehead, marking a rite of passage that echoed through centuries of tradition.

As the final brushstroke completed the crimson dot on the disciple's forehead, Xue Xinyu felt a pang of recognition—this boy bore a striking resemblance to Li Tao.

It didn't take long for Xue Xinyu to piece together the significance of the moment. The grandeur of the scene, the hushed anticipation of the spectators—it could only mean one thing: they were in the illustrious Coronation Hall of Lingyun Peak.

Indeed, this was no ordinary occasion. To receive the red dot marking in this revered hall signified not just accomplishment, but elevated status among the disciples.

With each passing moment, Xue Xinyu's suspicion grew. Could it be? Was this boy before him truly Li Tao?

The scene shifted abruptly, disorienting Xue Xinyu as the grandeur of the hall gave way to a shadowy, oppressive room. Here, the air was thick with unspoken dread, and the flickering light cast sinister shapes on the walls.

A voice, like a tempest unleashed, shattered the silence. The elder's words were not mere reprimands; they were thunderbolts of fury. "This is all your fault! How dare you speak up after what you've done? You killed your mother, for crying out loud!"

The accusation hung in the air, a poisonous miasma that made the young boy's heart feel as though it might implode under the weight of guilt. His eyes, wide and filled with a despair that belied his age, brimmed with tears. His voice, barely more than a whisper, trembled with fear and confusion. "B-but Father, it wasn't my fault..."

What was this? Xue Xinyu's mind reeled. Was this elder truly the boy's father, or was there some cruel trickery at play?

The elder's slap came swift and merciless, the sound of it like a thunderclap in the confined space. The boy's face snapped to the side, his cheek ablaze with pain. The red dot on his forehead, the very symbol of his potential, seemed to smear and blur with the force of the blow, as if mocking his aspirations.

The boy staggered, his tears now flowing freely, carving tracks down his dirty cheeks. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, but the room seemed to swim before him, a murky haze of sorrow and fear.

"Father, please," he begged, his voice quivering, each word a desperate plea for understanding. "I didn't mean to kill her."

The elder's face contorted into a grotesque mask of hatred, his eyes ablaze with a fury that seemed to scorch the air between them. "You killed your mother, just like your father killed his," he spat, the words laced with venom.

Xue Xinyu's mind spun in confusion. Was this elder the boy's father or just another ghost from a tormented past? The narrative twisted around him like a serpent, coiling tighter with each passing moment.

The elder's words pierced the boy's heart like daggers. "But Father, I didn't mean to—"

The elder's hand flew out once more, a blur of movement that ended with another brutal slap, cutting off the boy's protest. "You're just like your father," he snarled, each syllable dripping with disdain. "You're a monster."

With that final condemnation, the elder turned and stormed out, the sound of his footsteps fading into the oppressive silence of the room. He didn't look back, leaving the boy crumpled and broken, a lone figure in the darkness.

The scene morphed yet again, plunging Xue Xinyu into a deeper, more stifling darkness. This room had no windows, The boy's eyes felt gritty as he stared blankly at the stone wall in front of him, the coarse surface as unyielding as his fate. How long had he been entombed in this dismal dungeon? Days, weeks, perhaps even months had dissolved into a foggy blur of endless darkness and dampness that clung to his skin like a second, mouldy, skin.

As the designated Peak Prince, Li Tao was ostensibly the most exalted and venerated scion of the royal lineage. Yet here he was, stripped of dignity, nothing more than a forgotten prisoner in the bowels of his own family's citadel. The irony would have been delicious, had it not been so bitter.

His father, the illustrious Emperor, had decreed that Li Tao's existence would be a relentless cycle of gruelling training and rigorous study. "We'll make you the most powerful warrior-scholar the realms have ever seen!" they said. "You'll be a legend!" they said. Well, he was certainly a legend in his own right – the legend of the Boy Who Lived in a Cell.

Day and night, they drilled him with the fervour of a sadistic drill sergeant hopped up on too much black tea. They pushed him to the brink of exhaustion and then shoved him right off the edge into a freefall of pain and fatigue. Physical training was brutal, his muscles screaming in agony as he performed endless repetitions of drills. But that was the easy part. His true torment lay in the intellectual grind – hours spent hunched over ancient texts that might as well have been written in the hieroglyphics of a forgotten tongue, and mind-numbing calligraphy practice that turned his fingers into gnarled claws.

With each passing second, the scenes around him seemed to sink deeper into an abyss of darkness, a descent that mirrored the hopelessness clawing at his soul.

The young boy crouched in the corner of his cell, his heart hammering a wild, frantic beat against his ribcage. He could hear his father's footsteps – heavy, methodical, and filled with the promise of impending doom – echoing down the stone corridor. Each step reverberated through the dank air, sending a shiver of terror up his spine.

"Son!" his father bellowed, his voice slicing through the air like a jagged blade. The sound of it was as harsh and commanding as a thunderstorm demanding the heavens to open. "Where are you hiding, boy? Come out this instant!"

The boy squeezed his eyes shut, his breath coming in shallow, panicked gasps. He curled in on himself, trying to make his small, trembling frame disappear into the shadows. He knew the drill all too well – if his father found him, there would be a fresh litany of harsh reprimands, perhaps accompanied by a liberal application of the back of his hand.

The footsteps grew louder, each one a hammerblow to his fragile sense of security. Panic surged through him, an electric current that made his fingers and toes tingle with a desperate urge to flee, to vanish, to escape into some hidden recess where his father's fury couldn't reach him.

But it was no use. The door to his hiding spot creaked open with an ominous groan, and his father loomed in the doorway like a dark spectre, his face a mask of twisted rage and disdain.

"There you are, you little rat," his father sneered, his eyes gleaming with a predatory glint as he reached out to seize the boy's arm. His grip was iron-clad, squeezing the boy's flesh with a cruel, unyielding force. "You thought you could hide from me, didn't you?"

The young boy whimpered, his eyes wide and shimmering with unshed tears as his father yanked him to his feet. He tried to recoil, to shrink back into the safety of his dark corner, but his father's hold was as firm and unforgiving as a vice.

"You will learn to obey me, boy," his father growled, his breath hot and acrid against the boy's tear-streaked face. The words dripped with a menace that sent icy tendrils of fear curling around the boy's heart. "You will learn to respect your elders and do as you're told."

The boy felt the tears spill over, a warm cascade of despair that streaked his dirty cheeks and mingled with the cold, damp air of the cell. Helplessness washed over him like a tidal wave, threatening to drown him in a sea of hopelessness. No matter how hard he tried to make himself invisible, no matter how fervently he wished to escape, there was no fleeing the wrath of his father, no sanctuary from the relentless storm of his rage.