RYAN ZHOU

Ryan sat on the balcony just outside the guest suites, the wood still warm from the sun. A soft breeze stirred the wind chimes overhead—quiet and precise, like someone had tuned them with a fork instead of fingers. Moonlight filtered through the garden trees in silver threads.

He leaned back against the post and exhaled slowly.

Everything was still. Everything, except his pulse.

He kept replaying the scene in his head.

Vivian Li—coldest woman in the capital, daughter of House Li, heir to a bloodline that could crack mountains—had stood up.

Not just for Ethan.

For him.

He hadn’t even meant to talk about Lily. He’d just wanted help with the scroll. That was it. A quiet conversation. A bit of advice. Something to ease the swirl of frustration he’d been carrying since the punch landed square across Jinhai’s smug face.

But when it came out—when the words slipped past his mouth and hit the air—everything had changed.

Vivian had moved like a drawn blade. She didn't shout. She just moved.

She’d summoned Mei, eyes sharp as frost, and ordered a full background report on the Wei family patriarch and holdings. She told him Jinhai would never get near him again. That Lily would be protected.

And she meant it.

He hadn’t believed it. Not entirely. Not until now.

The message crystal in his hand buzzed—three short pulses. It glowed faintly with muted golden light, the signal weak but steady. The older interface clicked as it warmed, mana threads humming softly. He still remembered the day he’d been gifted it—his fifth birthday. One of his father’s cheaper, practical tokens. Functional. Durable.

Not like Ethan’s sleek, imperial-tier crystal. Then again, Ryan wasn’t married to the heir of a Tier One family.

So small. Don’t sweat the small things.

Still, his crystal—though older—had never let him down.

He tapped it once and pressed it to his ear.

Lily’s voice came through.

Soft. Disbelieving. A little breathless.

“Ryan. Um. What did you do?”

He blinked.

The message kept playing.

“I mean—thank you. But also… what did you do? My grandfather just got a call. He was totally bewildered. He got a direct message from Jinhai’s grandfather. The Patriarch of the Wei.”

Ryan’s stomach dropped. A what?

“Can you believe that? A direct call. He apologized for Jinhai’s ‘lack of discipline’ and offered to send a gift. I don’t know what kind, but it involved spirit-grade rice wine and apology coins with formal seals.”

Ryan’s mouth opened—but nothing came out.

She kept going. “They’re pulling Jinhai out of school.”

A stunned silence.

“Not just suspended. Gone. Immediate leave. They said it’s for ‘reputation recalibration and spiritual realignment.’ Apparently he’s being shipped off to a remote regional campus.”

Ryan still didn't know what to say.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“He’s being carted off by sunrise. He’s not even allowed to say goodbye.”

Ryan stared at the crystal.

The message wasn’t done.

“Ryan… what happened? Did your family always have that much influence? You didn’t do anything illegal, did you? Because I’m not worth all that.”

There was a pause.

Then her voice softened.

“Whatever it was… thank you.”

The message ended.

Ryan just sat there.

He looked down at the charm in his hand. The weight of it felt different now—heavier. Not because the news was bad, but because he’d never seen things move like this. Not for someone like him. He was a nobody.

When people like Jinhai crossed lines, there were meetings. Complaints. Slow, grinding bureaucracy that eventually forgot you existed.

This was different. This was decisive use of power that he could barely understand. Power had moved for him. Or rather... someone had made it move.

Ryan sat at the edge of the low balcony rail, the night air cool against his skin, his fingers still curled around the old charm crystal. The faint glow had faded minutes ago, but the weight of Lily’s voice lingered like a chord still vibrating through his chest.

She’d thanked him. She cared. He should’ve been ecstatic and he was...

But instead of thinking about Lily, he found himself staring at the soft-lit curtain of the guest suite behind him… and considering.

About Ethan.

He was different now.

Less cold. More smiles. More present.

Like something had sharpened behind his eyes. Like the quiet brother Ryan used to tiptoe around had suddenly decided to stop waiting for permission to speak.

He still didn’t take up space the way Caleb did—didn’t charm, didn’t push, didn’t brag.

But now, when Ethan walked into a room, people noticed even without him trying. He spoke more now, with a dry sort of humor, and everything he said landed. His words had weight. His posture had steel. And the calm, odd brother Ryan remembered from childhood—the one always lost in theories and strange constructs—now moved through the world like he’d started seeing it from above.

It used to be Caleb who mattered.

Caleb was loud, flashy and charismatic. He walked into rooms like parties had been waiting for him. And more often than not, they had. He made people laugh. He made people nervous. He had presence.

He was also pretty good with a sword—at least for their little part of the world.

And yeah—Ryan had admired that.

But Caleb was also selfish. Arrogant. Obsessed with being right, even when he was obviously wrong. If you weren’t useful to Caleb, you were invisible. If you got in his way, you were a problem.

Ethan had been the opposite.

Quiet. Awkward. Distant, sometimes. But brilliant in a way that didn’t show itself at first. He would sit for hours at a table, sketching theory diagrams or scribbling strange mana scripts that looked like nothing... until they changed everything.

Ryan remembered one night clearly—he must’ve been nine, maybe ten—when he’d snuck into Ethan’s room after a storm had knocked out the estate’s external wards. Ethan had been at his desk, half-asleep and surrounded by notes and diagrams.

Instead of sending Ryan away, he let him stay. Handed him a snack and kept working—on what Ryan thought was some kind of magical math problem.

It wasn’t.

It was a prototype for the medicine that would later save the Li family matriarch’s life.

The same medicine that restored her cultivation foundation and reversed the degeneration in her spiritual core.

Their parents hadn’t even known Ethan was working on it. No one had.

He didn’t tell anyone. Not until it was done.

And even then, he didn’t brag. Didn’t market it. Didn’t monetize it.

He just moved on. Like it had been the obvious thing to do.

Ryan had watched the world scramble around rumors. The most powerful family in the Empire owed Ethan a life-debt. It was never confirmed. The Li family didn’t speak. Ethan didn’t speak.

It didn’t matter.

Their entire political standing shifted.

And Ethan?

He just asked for more paper.,,,and a turtle.

Why a turtle? Ryan still had no idea.

Back then, he hadn’t really understood the implications—just that there were more servants. More clout.

The turtle mattered.

Back then, he hadn’t seen it for what it was.

But now?

Now he did.

That had been the turning point in Ethan’s narrative. The moment he shifted from forgotten son to something else. Something important.

Ryan had always assumed Caleb was the one who made the family proud. Caleb was the one who acted. Ethan was just... there.

But now?

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Ryan looked up at the sky, the stars laced with moonlight and possibility.

It was time to stop looking at Ethan like he was the quiet one in the corner.

Maybe it was time to start seeing him for what he was.

The storm that had been sitting still this whole time—waiting.

Ryan turned his head back toward the suite.

Vivian Li—his sister-in-law, which still felt surreal—was probably in there with Ethan. Maybe they were reading in silence. Maybe they were arguing in low, knife-sharp whispers like they did at dinner.

Or maybe Ethan was in there inventing something no one had ever imagined.

A spell. A medicine. A breakthrough in mana pattern theory that would shift cultivation itself for generations.

He didn’t know.

But he knew this:

The world he thought he lived in—the one where power meant intimidation, where bullies always won, where boys like him were supposed to swallow their anger while girls like Lily cried behind garden walls—

That world was gone.

Because someone had decided to fight with him.

And that someone was his second brother.

And his unbelievably terrifying, unbelievably beautiful wife.