General Lin came storming into Lin Mei's courtyard and yelled loudly, "Bring my useless daughter out here at once!"

Two servants dragged her out of her room and tossed her on the ground at the feet of the General. She kowtowed before him and softly said, "Daughter greets father."

The General looked down at her and asked, "Can you show me that your cultivation has improved since last month?"

Lin Mei broke out into tears and begged, "Father, please, I have no dantian, it is impossible for me to cultivate, you heard the doctor himself say as much! I try, I follow the cultivation technique of our family, but it is impossible for me to gather qi!"

The General pulled out a wooden rod and tossed it to the servants, "Help her cultivate a thick skin and bones."

Over the next several hours the servants took turns beating their poor mistress until she finally passed away.

As Lin Mei drifted off into a black void, she saw memories of her life and how hard it had been. Always treated poorly because she was unable to cultivate.  At that point she passed by another girl who looked identical to her, the two of their eyes met as they passed by each other. The other girl seemed to mouthing something to her but she couldn't make out the words.

There was a period of soundlessness and then a wall of unusual and too loud sounds poured into her ears. She screamed as loud as she could to try and drown out the sounds but they wouldn't stop. Strange looking people surrounded her and were speaking to her in a foreign language. She could tell they were trying to help her but she couldn't make any sense of it she cried out, "My body hurts and the noise, you must stop the noise!"

The people treating her all talked to each other and then a man said to her, "It be ok, just to relax. We get you help." They strapped her to a strange looking device that raised her up into the air and then they pushed her into a strange wagon that had bright lights flashing and was making a horrible screeching noise. Once inside the Wagon the man that spoke to her and another man climbed in with her and he said to her, "Not long, we get you Doctor. Make better. You plenty luck." He smiled and then other man put a needle into her arm attached to a tube. A strange arm band around her bicep that squeezed her arm until it was almost painful. He said to her, "He take blood pressure. You just to relax."

Lin Mei sighed and laid back trying to relax, she thought about her family cultivation technique and tried once again to feel the movement of qi in her body. A surge of power rushed through her body. She felt her body start to heal at an accelerated pace. She realized that her dantian was there and it was working! She quickly ran through her cultivation feeling the power surge around her body, meridians lit up all over her body as she made break throughs. A miracle had finally occurred and she was cultivating at last! She wasn't exactly sure how far she had gone in her cultivation, but she knew that she was at least to the Houtian stage, the first level where a cultivator dispels the toxins in their body. She looked down and saw black spots start to appear all over her exposed skin. The men in the wagon began to worry. One of the men wiped the spots and found it to be a black oily sludge that smeared off.

The Wagon was brought to a large building with bright lights. They lowered her off the wagon and then brought her inside. It was night outside, but inside the building it was even brighter than the sky at noon. Again she was surrounded by horrible noises that came from all directions. She saw people strapped to beds with tubes coming out of them attached to bright flashing lights. Once the man who could speak with her left, she felt completely isolated and alone.