The biting wind whipped around Xiao Chen, a solitary figure silhouetted against the dying embers of a Cloud City sunset. Sixteen years he’d walked this earth, and sixteen years he’d been a ghost in his own skin, a 'loser' in a family of martial artists.

Today, the camellia-strewn cliff edge, known ominously as Rainbow Bridge, beckoned. He'd stood here before, seeking an end, only to be inexplicably returned from death's embrace, his broken body whole again within a week. The memory of that failed suicide attempt, a mocking testament to his cursed existence, lingered.

“Chen’er…” A voice, weary and filled with unspoken sorrow, drifted from behind. His father, Xiao Yifan, stood in the distant pavilion, his hair streaked with grey, a mirror of the unspoken burdens they both carried.

“Father, have you implored them again…?” Xiao Chen’s voice was soft, laced with a familiar resignation.

Xiao Yifan sighed, the sound heavy with defeat. “Chen’er, I’m sorry. I’m too weak to protect you…” His words hung in the air, unfinished, as the setting sun cast their long, lonely shadows across the ancient stone. The family rule was absolute: failure to cultivate by sixteen meant banishment. And Xiao Chen, the peerless genius of a forgotten age, could not even muster a single meridian.