Furthered From Fate ||| taster

Chapter 1: Mountain Rain

The rain fell relentlessly on the mountainside of the valley. Unceasing in its vicious downpour.

Ming Pei sat at the windowsill in silence. The awakening ceremony was tomorrow; the moment that would define whether or not the lives of him and his sister(Ming Hua) would stay as terrible as they had been forevermore.

It was dark outside, not because of any late hours, but instead because of the overcast dark clouds. The rain. Vicious rain.

The cold bit at Ming Pei's skin through his thin cheaply woven shirt, far from the quality someone in his position would usually own. He and his sister were descendants of an offshoot branch of the clan heads family. In short, they were distantly related to the current clan head's grandfather or something along the lines.

But most importantly, he and his sister were twins, a bad omen amongst cultivators, the exact thing that this offshoot branch of the family was meant to provide.

Fifteen years of horrible treatment by the family, all because they were twins. Of course though, Ming Pei had made sure that his sister had been hidden from the brunt of it. He truly wished only the best for her, but himself on the other hand, had endured countless disgraces, humiliations and hardships for the descendants of a clan head.

Tomorrow... Ming Pei thought to himself solemnly. The last chance he'd ever have at worth, and even still, the chances were that he'd end up in quite the same situation. His and his sister's aptitudes would have to be unusually high to propel them out of the hellhole they are currently stuck in.

You see, for cultivators, twins were an extremely bad omen. In folklore, twins meant that the aptitude and talent of a full person had been split between the two twins - in essence leaving both twins only half as strong as the average person. The twins would share the same aptitude, the theoretical half of the full person they could have been, and as such in families designed to produce cultivators, and in families of cultivators, twins were considered extremely bad luck.

Pei angrily thought "This was the reason he and his sister had been neglected all these years. Turned into glorified servants. Ones without pay at that. "You're paid with hospitality and food" their father would often tell them. Yet, their cousins of the same age were treated like Kings and Queens. Great prospects of the next generation."

It was hypocrisy.

The rain continued to fall outside. Ming Pei quietly thought to himself "Hadn't the elders claimed that the coming winter would be a ferocious one? Well that could only be left for the future..." the future that Ming Pei did not want to consider.

"PEEIIII!!!" a shrill voice shreaked through the house. "GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW" Ming Pei slowly made his way through the house to the origin of the voice.

He entered the sitting room. Inside were both his sister, his parents, his grandparents, his uncles and aunts and cousins, not that he considered any of them other than his sister family at all. His sister was a rather average looking girl of 15 who had shoulder length, straight, black hair and brown eyes.

He himself was nothing special, about 5,10, short black hair, and the same brown eyes as his sister.

Suddenly he snapped back to reality.

His grandmother prepared to address all the children from this batch. Batches. That's all they were to the family. Batches to perform at the awakening ceremony every 5 years. And so far, this branch of the family has yet to provide a single individual above C grade aptitude.

"Tomorrow all of you will go to the ceremony and make this family proud. Amongst you are a few gems that I truly believe will amount to something and bring our great family into the spotlight. I expect many good things from most of you" with that she shot a look at Ming Pei and his sister.

Grades define aptitude. They ranged from rank E - A, although there was always the famed and rumored S grade, often talked about in folklore and in legend. Many claimed that the great experts and legends of old such as the Divine Mother were people of such talent. But alas, dreaming of such things was stupid, even A grades were extremely rare in this world.

Amongst 1000 people, only 500 would have the aptitude to cultivate. Amongst those 500 only 200 would have anything greater than a D grade. Out of those 200, 190 would have C grade aptitude, 9 would have B grade aptitude, and if they were lucky there would be only 1 with A grade aptitude.

Aptitude isn't everything, but it is just about everything. Each grade was twice as strong as the last. In their cultivation speed, strength and usually, talent. Ming Pei's family was a small one, as long as at least 3 of the 15 children slated for the ceremony tomorrow achieved C grade talent the family would be happy.

"You are all dismissed!" Their grandmother quickly told them.

Quite a useless speech in Ming Pei's opinion.

Ming Pei left the room and was on track to return to his own, shabby, room when he was abruptly interrupted by a shout from his grandmother "PEII!! HUA!! TEND TO THE FAMILY, CLEAN UP THE HOUSE, SERVE EVERYONE FOOD TO THEIR ROOMS AND - " sudden coughing could be heard from her. After a short break she started up again "DO ALL THAT, AND PREPARE EVERYONE'S CEREMONIAL CLOTHING FOR TOMORROW BEFORE NIGHTFALL"

Ming Pei exhaled. There were precisely servants for each of these duties in the household. Or at least the household was given money to hire such servants, but their grandparents were greedy, they put both Pei and Hua to work constantly and did not hire such servants in order to save money, and to pocket what it would have cost.

Ming Pei saw his sister leaving her room preparing to tend to the tasks. He stopped her and put a hand on her shoulder before saying "Go get some rest for tomorrow. I'll handle the duties." He always handled about 90% of the duties. Not because his sister forced him to, but instead because he wanted her to have a good childhood, free of the neglect and work that was forced upon them. He wanted her to have a normal life. As normal as possible that was. And he himself had long since relegated that his own life would never change.

She smiled at him softly before confirming with him a few times that he was sure he wanted to take on all the responsibilities. And then she turned and left to go back to her room. To read books which he had helped save for with the little money they both were given.

Ofcourse, he was not resentful to his sister at all, but instead to the family that forced him to be so selfless in the name of giving her only a normal life.

He returned to his room to enjoy a brief minute of silence before tending to the household all evening.

He would likely get little sleep tonight. But that didn't bother him, he had long since prepared himself for the likely humiliation he'd face the next day. What he was worried about was whether or not his sister had too.

On his way back to his room he briefly thought of any way to possibly lessen the humiliation that was likely coming.

He reached his windowsill once more.

The air was cold. Significantly colder than before he'd gone to the pointless meeting. And outside he could see that the rain had only gotten heavier.

"What was it the elders said again?..." he spoke to himself out loud. "Ah, yes. I remember. The winter is going to be a bad one this year..."