STIGMA

It was a late autumn morning. As the dawn chased the dark shadows, the sun added some warmth to the chilly air.

An oil lamp in the cellar of Luo's House lit up. A young man named Zen Luo sat upright in front of a table, shading most of the light of the oil lamp. Quietly he pulled out a battered thread-bound book.

Zen Luo was a lean, average-looking young man who had just turned 17. However, there was something mellow about him. In contrast, his eyes were so radiant that even in the dim light projected by the oil lamp, they glowed with charm.

"It has taken me a month to finish Heavenly Principles. Its arguments are all very well, but, what I find most revolting are those four words, repaying cruelty with kindness," Zen Luo whispered as he stared at the bean-sized flame of the oil lamp. Melancholy was written all over his face. "Had my father not been so kind-hearted as to believe those four words, I, the direct descendant of my Clan, would not have ended up like this, and father would still be alive…"

The sudden noise of the cellar door being unlocked interrupted his flow of thoughts. Zen Luo replaced the melancholy he was feeling with a solemn expression. He promptly blew out the oil lamp and covered himself with the shabby cotton quilt.

The door of the cellar flew open and footsteps began drawing close. The man in charge stepped forward and stomped his foot on Zen Luo's bed before shrieking at him, "Still in bed? Dreaming about being the young master of the Luo Clan? Get the fuck up!"

The man was a steward in the Luo Clan. He looked rather wretched. He had a wart on his forehead that often invoked disgust from people.

Zen Luo sat up and rubbed his eyes. He pushed off the quilt, before turning and planting his feet on the ground. Silently, he slid on his clothing, socks, and shoes. Although his clothes were old, Zen Luo kept them neatly. He was very meticulous by nature.

The steward rolled his eyes, criticized Zen, and then waved his hand. Several men surrounded Zen and forcibly put a thick leather armor and shackles on him.

After they were done, Zen Luo followed the servants as they walked out of the cellar and toward Luo's Martial Arts Hall.

The Luo Clan owned hundreds of mines and millions of acres of fertile land. As a big and powerful Clan, they were well-known in C County.

However, the entire Eastern Region had thousands of county cities, including countless wealthy families and the Luo Clan was almost insignificant in the Eastern Region.

Zen Luo was escorted by some men as he climbed out of the gloomy cellar. This was a daily ritual with which Zen was quite familiar. The walk to the Martial Arts Hall meant navigating through numerous pavilions, bridges, and galleries.

The Martial Arts Hall was an open area. It was a place where the children of the Luo Clan would come for practice. The entrance was decorated with white marble sculptures of a male lion and a female lion. The ground was one large, black basalt slab. Standing at the entrance of the building, one could feel the power emanating from the Hall.

In the middle of the Martial Arts Hall, dozens of children from the Luo Clan practiced martial arts under the guidance of a teacher. They were all dressed alike, in gray robes.

They bawled and their boxes whirred again and again.

In order to win a position in the family, every child needed to study diligently and practice hard. These children looked like they were more than 10 years of age.

On this late autumn day, the wind began to howl around the training children. Nevertheless, sweat beaded on their foreheads. The contrasting heat and cold filled the Hall with steaming white mist.

On the other side of the Martial Arts Hall stood over a dozen men who were dressed like Zen Luo, in leather armor and shackles. These men were dejected, bleeding, and wounded all over their bodies.

Zen Luo was escorted into the Martial Arts Hall. The guard placed him amongst the injured men.

Since most of these men had been bought by the Luo Clan from local prisons, they were now the slaves of the Luo Clan. These slaves played the roles of live targets for the Luo Clan children for the purpose of training and testing their own strength. These children could assault these slaves arbitrarily. Several live targets were killed or disabled during such assaults. Over time, the number added up and it was difficult to gauge how many had lost their lives in the Hall.

Zen Luo was not a death row inmate and thus, was not bought by the family. He was the eldest child in the eldest branch of the Luo Clan. The rest of the Clan used to call him the young master. He was once noble, and his peers would bow and salute him with respect. Even the family elders were polite to him.

However, something disastrous happened in C County two years ago. Zen Luo's father, the head of the Luo Clan, had been poisoned by his brother. He died on the spot.