The Numbed Man

Ever since he had memories, the world had been colorful.

Father wore coarse brown hemp. Mother wore blue clothes. His little sister loved red dresses.

Golden rapeseed fields. Yellow mud. Black dogs. White cooking smoke. Green leaves. Rice with a faint yellow tint.

Good days. Very good days.

Actually, he did not care. Truly. Ever since he had been born, there had been a block of ice hidden in his heart. He could laugh, cry, feel happy, and feel upset. But those emotions had never truly "sunk deep."

They seemed like disguises, never once coming from the heart.

Yet even if it was only a warm little stream flowing over the ice, he still liked it very much.

Though this "liking" could not be considered heartfelt either. Still, it was a little deeper than "nothing."

And then...

And then...

And then there were those dried bones shielding him with their bodies. They seemed to be Father and Mother.

That round little head rolling and rolling across the ground. It seemed to be his little sister.

—It seemed...

—It seemed...

—It seemed it should have been like this.

—Then I seemed to... seemed to have to...

"Revenge?"

An unfamiliar word, an unfamiliar emotion.

But for the first time... it came from the bottom of his heart!

At that moment, the flowing "little stream" was boiled by fury, corroding through the solid ice at the bottom of his heart!

This was the origin of Gou Dabao, the Immortal Alliance's most unusual "empirically verified living being," a banished immortal.

Gou Dabao was a rustic, dirt-common name. Yet he had never considered changing it to a Daoist title. For many cultivators dissatisfied with their given names, changing to a Daoist title was perfectly normal. But not him.

This name was his resistance. His resistance