The Sick Child

"Doctor, what happened to Little Shuang, he was fine yesterday why is he suddenly so sick?"

There was a small child on the bed, his temperature was changing instantly from hot to cold, his name was Shen Wushuang. The person talking had an extremely worried face, she was Shen Wushuang's mom, Li Qiu and the man standing next to her with an equally worried face was his dad, Shen Guo.

The doctor stood up and solemnly said "I have no idea, I have never seen a person whose temperature changed so sporadically, this is a very peculiar case. He is only 6 years old now and with his weak constitution I doubt he is going to live longer than a year or two, and even if he did survive he will probably be crippled in some way."

Li Qiu started crying and on the other hand, Shen Guo's face was furious and without giving himself a second to calm down he shouted "GET OUT! My son will survive and he will be a great cultivator, a cultivator with talent greater than anything our clan has ever seen!"

The Doctor had seen many parents react like this so he took no offense, after all, it was natural for a parent to not accept losing their child. He simply picked up his stuff and left the two parents consoling themselves that their child would survive.

For the next 7 years, Shen Wushuang seemed to only do 3 things eat, read, and sleep. They taught Shen Wushuang how to read when he was 5 years old so since he couldn't cultivate due to his condition he spent his time reading about the world, geography, math, and cultivation. He read many books including some cultivation techniques, martial arts, and spells. Although he had no ability to use any of these they still gave it to Shen Wushuang to make him happy.

It has been 7 years since his illness started and he was shockingly still alive. Shen Wushuang's parents had spent most of their time taking care of him meaning they weren't present at most of the clan meetings.

In this clan, cultivation is all that matter and so when they saw Li Qiu and Shen Guo waste all their time on a child that was considered dead and even if he survived he would be useless, it gained quite a lot of disdain from the rest of the clan.

Shen Guo was one of the sons of the current clan patriarch and as the son and had quite a bit of talent, his job was to take care of the businesses of the Shen Clan. With him suddenly disappearing the businesses fell out of sync and the clan lost quite a lot of money. This already gathered quite a bit of hatred against the family, another source of hatred was from Li Qiu who is the daughter to an Outer Sect Elder of the Verdant Flames Sect. The time she spent with Shen Wushuang was supposed to be spent getting the sect to send resources to the clan but she never fulfilled her duties. Eventually, they were kicked out from the center of the clan to the lower class outskirts of the clan were the common people of the Shen Clan lived.

Even though most parents would have given up a sick child like Shen Wushuang, his parents didn't. They sacrificed everything and spent all their time taking care of Shen Wushuang and they did it with their heads up high. The couple got famous even among the normal clansmen, most of the main clansmen disdained and treated the lower class with contempt but when Shen Wushuang's family went around they showed no bias whatsoever.

These events all happened within the 7 year time period, today is Shen Wushuang's 13th birthday and the 7th year anniversary of the sickness. Everyone was surprised that Shen Wushuang survived this long with such a terrible illness but that didn't matter since they had no expectations for him. Most of Shen Wushuang's generation reached past the 4th Stage of the Inner Essense Realm and everyone knows that if one doesn't reach the 3rd stage of the Inner Essense realm by the time they turn 14 years old, there was no chance of going beyond the Inner Essense Realm in their lifetime since the innate Qi from being born would wither away not allowing for a stable foundation.

Shen Wushuang was a peculiar character and most of the people who met him would say the same thing. Although he has been sick since he turned 6 years old, is disdained for having no chance in cultivation, and is said to be the reason the clan lost 2 geniuses he simply smiled and said that everything would change one day.

Everyone knew that Shen Wushuang was just a child but when they stared into his eyes they saw a mysterious flash and for a quick second most would actually believe this. Although Shen Wushuang seemed to have some secrets beyond what he showed it wasn't a reason his parents still stood by his side, it didn't matter to them if this was just false hope or an illusion they put for themselves to cope from their distress, they loved him even if he would never make it to adulthood they would stay with him till his final seconds.

But that moment never came because year after year for the last 7 years he survived and not only has he survived he was incredibly smart being able to pass the scholarly tests of those who studied for most of their lives. His medicinal although not at the level of a cultivator, was shocking to the normal people who were treated by him.

He has studied many wars and pointed out the flaws of their formations and how both armies could have gotten a better outcome shocking his dad, even he couldn't find the flaws of such battles even with his years of experience. Although he was knowledgable in almost all subjects it was useless before the status of a powerful cultivator.

In the eyes of everyone, Shen Wushuang overall is just a nice and smart child who met with misfortune and lost his chance at greatness. But they had no idea that this small sick child from the start of his 13th birthday and onwards would become a figure beyond even the highest peaks of the heavens.