Du Yanze was quiet for a long moment, when he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper.

"My parents died when I was twelve," he said. "It wasn't some heroic sacrifice or tragic accident that marked me as special. It was a plague. A simple, mundane plague that swept through the lower districts of the city. They were visiting the sick, trying to provide aid with their limited cultivation abilities, when they were infected."

He paused, his hands clenching into fists. "For three weeks, I watched them waste away. Grandfather tried everything – the finest healers, the most expensive medicines, even forbidden techniques that nearly killed him to perform. But nothing worked. They just... faded away, becoming weaker and smaller every day until they were gone."

Du Jinhuang closed his eyes, the pain of that memory still fresh even after eight years. His son and daughter-in-law had been good people, genuinely caring individuals who had used their modest cultivation to help others. Their deaths had been senseless, random, the kind of tragedy that struck without regard for noble bloodlines or destined greatness.

"After they died," Du Yanze continued, "Grandfather told me it was all part of a greater plan. That their sacrifice had marked me as special, that I would grow stronger because of the adversity. He created stories about phoenix sightings and spirit herbs, about mysterious mentors and prophetic dreams. But they were just stories, weren't they?"

Li Qiang shifted uncomfortably, his loyalty to the family warring with his dedication to honesty. "Young Master, your grandfather truly believes—"

"He believes because he needs to," Du Yanze interrupted. "Because accepting that his son died pointlessly, that his grandson is ordinary, that the Du Clan's greatest legacy is an overpriced estate and delusions of grandeur... that would destroy him."

The young man looked around the magnificent throne room with new eyes, seeing not divine splendor but desperate performance. "All of this – the palace, the servants, the stories about my destiny – it's all just an elaborate way of avoiding the truth."

Du Jinhuang felt something cold and sharp pierce his chest as his grandson's words struck at the very foundation of everything he had built. In the Realm of the Chosen, belief was reality, but doubt was entropy. When someone stopped believing, when they truly stopped believing, the consequences could be catastrophic.

"Grandson," he said urgently, "you must not think such things. You must not—"

"We're both just unlucky, aren't we, Grandfather?" Du Yanze said with a bitter smile. "You lost your son, I lost my parents, and neither of us can accept that sometimes bad things happen for no reason at all. So, we created this fantasy where I'm special, where you're the Gold Emperor, where any day now the universe will recognize our importance and reward us accordingly."

As the words left his mouth, the golden palace began to shimmer and waver, like a mirage seen through heat distortion. For just a moment, the truth became visible beneath the cultivated illusion – cracked walls, faded tapestries, empty wine cups that had been replaced with golden chalices through sheer force of belief.

"There is no Gold Emperor," Du Yanze whispered, and the shimmer intensified. "There is no chosen grandson. There's just a broken old man and his delusional heir, living in a crumbling mansion and pretending to be more than they are."

Du Jinhuang suddenly doubled over, blood spraying from his mouth as the attack on his fundamental beliefs sent shockwaves through his cultivation base.

"No!" the old man gasped, struggling to maintain his composure as the palace continued to flicker between golden splendor and shabby reality. "You cannot... you must not think such things! You are close to becoming a Disbeliever!"

The term hung in the air like a curse.

Disbelievers were perhaps the most tragic figures in the entire Realm of the Chosen – former cultivators who had lost faith not just in their own destiny, but in the very concept of destiny itself. They became hollow, bitter creatures who actively sought to destroy the beliefs that sustained others, spreading doubt like a spiritual plague wherever they went.

Unlike those who suffered a simple Crisis of Doubt and could potentially recover their faith, Disbelievers were considered permanently corrupted. They served as a constant reminder of what happened when the foundation of belief cracked completely, when someone decided that chosenness itself was an illusion.

"I am the Gold Emperor!" Du Jinhuang declared, forcing conviction into his voice despite the blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth. "My grandson is marked by destiny! The signs were real, the prophecies true! I will not allow doubt to poison what we have built!"

The sheer force of his renewed belief crashed through the throne room like a wave, solidifying the golden walls and restoring the streams of liquid precious metal to their former glory. The illusion snapped back into place with almost audible finality, the palace once again radiating imperial magnificence.

Du Yanze watched this display with a mixture of awe and sadness. His grandfather's ability to reshape reality through belief was genuinely impressive, a testament to decades of unwavering conviction. But it was also heartbreaking, this desperate clinging to a fantasy that became more elaborate with each passing year.

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"I'm sorry, Grandfather," he said softly. "I…I didn't mean to hurt you. I know how much these stories mean to you; how much you need them to be true."

He straightened his shoulders, and something in his posture shifted. Not confidence, exactly, but a kind of resigned determination.

"You're right that I was close to becoming a Disbeliever," he continued. "But I won't do that to you. I won't destroy the world you've built with your belief. So let me try one more time. One final attempt before I accept that cultivation isn't my path."

Li Qiang looked up hopefully. "Young Master?"

"The only thing that could truly change my destiny," Du Yanze said, his voice growing stronger, "would be if I were chosen as a vessel during this Descent you mentioned. If higher beings actually selected me, if they saw something in me that I can't see in myself, then maybe... maybe all the stories could still be true."

He closed his eyes and began to draw on every fragment of hope and ambition he had left. The process was painful, like trying to light a fire with wet kindling, but slowly his spiritual pressure began to build.

"I am Du Yanze," he declared, his voice carrying across the throne room. "Heir to the Du Clan, grandson of the Gold Emperor, marked by destiny from birth. I have faced trials and tribulations that would break lesser men, but I have endured. I have survived."

His cultivation base responded to the surge of renewed belief, spiritual energy flowing through his meridians. He felt the familiar sensation of approaching breakthrough, the moment when years of accumulated effort might finally crystallize into advancement.

"I call upon the heavens themselves to witness my determination!" Du Yanze continued, his voice rising to a shout. "If I am chosen, if I am worthy, if my grandfather's faith in me has any foundation in reality, then let the signs be unmistakable!"

The words echoed through the palace with unusual resonance, as if the building itself was amplifying his declaration. His spiritual pressure continued to build, approaching levels that hadn't touched since his last failed attempt at the Crowned Heart Realm.

"I stake everything on this moment!" he declared. "My pride, my future, my very identity as a cultivator! Either I am what we have always believed, or I am nothing!"

Lightning crashed down from the clear sky above.

The bolt struck the palace with such force that the entire building shook, and for a moment the golden walls flickered again, revealing the truth beneath the illusion. Cracked stone, faded paintings, furniture held together with cheap repairs – all of it visible for one terrible instant before the lightning reached its true target.

Du Yanze screamed as the electrical discharge coursed through his body, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying across the throne room. He crashed into one of the pillars hard enough to crack it, then slumped to the marble floor in a motionless heap.

"Young Master!" Li Qiang cried, rushing to where the young man had fallen. "Young Master, are you—"

He stopped mid-sentence, his eyes widening in shock.

Floating just above Du Yanze's head, translucent but unmistakably real, was a phantom crown. It appeared to be made of silver light woven through with golden threads, its design both elegant and unmistakably imperial. The artifact pulsed with spiritual energy that far exceeded anything Du Yanze had ever been able to generate on his own.

Du Jinhuang staggered forward, his face pale but his eyes bright with wonder. "The Crown Sigil," he whispered. "The mark of the Crowned Heart Realm. He... he actually broke through."

The phantom crown was the signature achievement of the fourth cultivation stage in the Realm of the Chosen. Only those who had transcended mere belief and achieved true certainty in their own destiny could manifest such a construct. It was visible proof that the cultivator had moved beyond doubt, beyond the possibility of a Crisis of Doubt affecting them.

But as the two older men watched in amazement, something strange began to happen. Du Yanze's body stirred, but when he opened his eyes, there was something different about them. Instead of the familiar mix of hope and desperation that usually filled his gaze, there was a calm, analytical awareness that seemed to take in every detail of his surroundings.

Du Yanze, or the entity wearing his form, sat up slowly. He raised one hand to touch the phantom crown floating above his head, his expression one of mild curiosity rather than triumph or relief.

"Fascinating," he murmured, his voice carrying the same tone but with subtle differences in cadence and inflection. "What an interesting cultivation system. Belief as the foundation of power, conviction as the source of advancement, and doubt as the ultimate enemy. Quite different from anything I've cultivated before."

Li Qiang and Du Jinhuang exchanged glances, uncertainty beginning to cloud their initial joy. Something was wrong. This wasn't how Du Yanze normally spoke, wasn't how he normally moved. There was a confidence here that seemed foreign, as if someone else was looking out through familiar eyes.

The entity wearing Du Yanze's face turned his attention to his hands, flexing his fingers experimentally as if testing the limitations of his new form. The phantom crown pulsed brighter in response, and he nodded with what appeared to be satisfaction.

"Yes," he said quietly, "this will do quite nicely."

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