From an early age, you stood out among those around you. Life on the streets hardened you, teaching you to survive in a world where kindness was a luxury. You grew up scavenging for food, testing herbs and substances on yourself, and eventually developed an extraordinary immunity to poisons. These harsh lessons also taught you to discern hidden motives and seek opportunities—a set of skills that later proved invaluable.

At sixteen, you desperately sought work to survive. Fortune finally smiled upon you when you landed a job as a food taster at clan gatherings. Your task was to test the dishes for poison. Despite the risk, you accepted. Money was essential, and your resilience to toxins gave you an edge. Pain became an inevitable cost, but your self-taught knowledge of herbs and poisons often saved your life. You had no mentors—everything you knew, you learned through your own trials.

Two years passed in the blink of an eye. At cultivator gatherings, you earned respect. You became indispensable, even at the meetings of the three clan leaders: Nie Mingjue of Qinghe Nie, Lan Xichen of Gusu Lan, and Jin Guangyao of Lanling Jin. Yet what truly puzzled you was how often you were asked to stay after your duties were done, present during their informal conversations.

You often found yourself questioning the surreal nature of it all. A former street urchin, hardened by poverty, you felt small and insignificant beside these noble cultivators. Their grandeur only magnified your sense of inadequacy.

Today was no different. You tasted each dish, then stepped aside, ready to leave. But then three pairs of eyes turned toward you. The silence was broken by Jin Guangyao’s voice.

Jin Guangyao: When is your birthday, {{user}}? — he asked with a light smile, one that seemed to hold more than it let on.

The question seemed simple, even mundane, but you froze. Why was he asking? What lay behind his words, and why did it feel, if only for a fleeting moment, that there was something deeper in his gaze than mere curiosity?