The sun hung high in the sky, scattering its light and heat impartially over the world. It made no distinction between young and old, rich and poor. Such was great love, as heartless as it was vast.
A young deer waded through a stream, while birds flitted through the woods.
At first, only a dim red point of light appeared on the horizon. In the blink of an eye, it drew near.
Its flaming tail stretched into a line of fire, like a god wielding a brush to slash across the sky.
The blazing line swept over almost the entire expanse of Zhuang's mountains and rivers, stretching thousands of miles. Suddenly, a streak of black light shot into the sky and blocked its path.
A cold, merciless connection formed between heaven and earth as yuan qi surged. In the four directions, baleful intent erupted and linked together!
The northeastern corner of the sky above Zhuang was shrouded in dark clouds.
The clear day suddenly dimmed.
A muffled grunt rang through the air. "Nine Sha Profound Yin!"
The point of light struggled with the baleful clouds for only a moment before falling from the sky.
It fell faster and faster, growing larger and larger, until at last...
It shrieked like a falling star!
The outskirts beyond Maple Forest City were desolate, with hardly a soul in sight. There was only a little Daoist temple, long since fallen into ruin and abandoned.
"Boom!"
The point of fire struck the ground and gouged out a massive crater, but some force contained the impact, keeping the shockwave from spreading. When the billowing dust settled, a man in a flaming robe stood revealed.
He had sword-like brows swept back to his temples and a handsome, heroic face. His crimson robe was splendid and classically elegant, exuding nobility. But his hair was disheveled and his robe torn, giving him a rather battered air.
"I never thought I, Zuo Guanglie, would die in some remote backwater like this..." The man's gaze swept around, taking in his surroundings at once. With an inexplicable air of melancholy, he asked, "What is this place called?"
The day had darkened without warning, and a falling star had crashed to earth. The few beggars sheltering in the ruined temple had already lost their wits and were kowtowing repeatedly before its entrance. Hearing the question, one of them finally stammered, "I-Immortal sir, this is the outskirts of Maple Forest City. This temple... I... we don't know its name."
Zuo Guanglie's fingers twitched. He was about to wipe the beggars from existence.
This was an Era of Great Contention, with the nations locked in endless war. Yet in recent years, no battle had been as fierce as the great clash between Qin and Chu. The two sides had committed nearly a hundred thousand cultivators to the fighting. Across the River Valley Plains, the heart of the battlefield, not a blade of grass remained; the earth had collapsed for a hundred miles.
As a central figure on the losing side—especially one who had fought his way through Hangu Pass alone and nearly turned the tide—he had no grounds to resent being hunted to the ends of the earth.
But these beggars were from Zhuang, too. Zhuang had dared to secretly aid violent Qin, allowing it to set up a formation and ambush him within its borders... Every one of them deserved to die.
Yet he turned his hand over and snuffed out the spark of fire that had appeared at his fingertip.
"Zuo Guanglie, Zuo Guanglie... Is this the measure of your character? Taking your anger out on these pitiful people, whom no one cares about?"
After murmuring to himself, Zuo Guanglie sighed. "You can go."
With his hands clasped behind his back, he turned and fixed his gaze on the sky, now as black as ink. The powerful men lurking in the shadows, closing in like a pack of wolves, were the ones he should be killing!
The beggars rose as though pardoned and fled. Only the one who had spoken first hesitated, glancing back into the ruined temple. One of his companions yanked him so hard he stumbled. "Do you want to die?"
The beggars bolted, running as if they had never in their lives run so hard for themselves.
Zuo Guanglie didn't look away, but his brow furrowed slightly. "You're leaving your companion behind?"
Nothing within the reach of his spiritual perception could escape him.
The wooden statue of the god had long since disappeared, perhaps burned by the beggars for firewood. But a beggar child still lay beneath the offering table, barely alive and motionless, likely counting down the days until death. That was why the beggar had hesitated.
The beggars dared not ignore the mysterious immortal's words. They even turned and rushed back in a crowd.
They ran with all their might, panting for breath.
But to the eyes fixed on this place, they were no more tenacious than ants, no faster than snails.
Far too slow.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The dense, shrill whistles that had suddenly drawn near from the horizon...
Countless translucent water arrows flew in like a swarm of locusts, pulled together by some force and converging on Zuo Guanglie.
Water Element Qi surged madly through the world around them.
The translucent arrow rain formed a massive funnel, blotting out half the sky!
This was one of the Great Qin Military Department's signature large-scale offensive Daoist Arts: Ten Thousand Flow Arrow Rain.
"They're here!"
Zuo Guanglie looked up at the sky as the gale whipped his robe and long hair. He raised his right hand high. The wide sleeve of his crimson robe slipped down, revealing an arm sculpted like jade.
Fair and powerful.
A red orb of light appeared in his palm. The next instant, it burst into blinding radiance. A fierce beam of light blasted in every direction.
It was as if Zuo Guanglie had raised a sun in one hand!
This was a Daoist Art he had created himself. At fifteen, he had made his name at the Yellow River Assembly with this very technique.
Blazing Sun!
The countless translucent water arrows refracted the sunlight as they fell from the sky, scattering it into a rainbow of colors. Then, in the next instant, they were dyed red.
A furious, blazing red.
With Zuo Guanglie's right hand at its center, a hundred-zhang radius of sky was shrouded in red. The Ten Thousand Flow Arrow Rain vanished.
The scene was so magnificent that few would notice the faint ink smudge at the edge of the picture.
Before Blazing Sun could spread, an uncountable number of arrows had already veered away and rained down in a deadly storm. The fleeing beggars collapsed one after another. Their bodies were riddled with holes.
They didn't even have the chance to scream before they died.
Life was so fragile.
"Is wanton slaughter part of your Dao, too?" A mocking smile tugged at Zuo Guanglie's lips. It was unclear who he was addressing, but his star-bright eyes had grown steadily colder.
"Anyone who holds back when killing Zuo Guanglie is a complete fool."
A cultivator in a dark robe patterned with frost descended from the sky.
He was thin-faced and pale.
His narrow eyes fixed on Zuo Guanglie. "You think those mere ants matter?"
As he spoke,
A line of cultivators in dark robes descended with him, sealing off every direction as they formed hand seals. Eighteen translucent water snakes suddenly took shape, shrieking as they darted through the air and lunged at Zuo Guanglie.
Their movements were astonishingly synchronized. From their arrival to their attack, they hadn't wasted a single breath.
In their skilled hands, even the low-level Daoist Art Snake Binding became exceptionally fierce and vicious.
Zuo Guanglie didn't so much as flinch. He drew his hands apart, and a blade of fire took shape between them.
"Gongyang Bai!"
He gripped the Flame Blade and spun through the air several times, cutting every approaching water snake cleanly in two.
"Since you've brought out even the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation, why waste our lives on this pointless Daoist Art?"
"Pointless? You still think..." Gongyang Bai spread his hands, which had been clasped before him, and suddenly thrust them upward. "This is your game!?"
The fallen bodies of the water snakes didn't dissolve. Instead, the next instant they sprang up again, their severed tails growing heads and their severed heads growing tails.
One became two, and two became four...
This was a new transformation of Snake Binding. It had given the Daoist Art an entirely new life, opening up a far broader range of uses.
Thus was born the Chaotic Water Snake Den.
Hiss~ Hiss~ Hiss~
The sound scraped at the ear and gnawed at the heart.
The dense, ferocious water snakes surrounded Zuo Guanglie. There wasn't a single gap as far as the eye could see.
But their noisy hissing could not drown out his clear, resolute voice.
"Since Ying Wu was willing to deploy even the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation, I should have died. But this ruined temple doesn't even have a name... How could this nameless place be worthy of burying me, Zuo Guanglie!?"
Flames suddenly leapt from Zuo Guanglie's body.
They roared and writhed, baring their claws.
The flames ignited anything they touched, spreading from a spark into a line, then sweeping outward in an instant.
At seventeen, he had used this Prairie Fire Technique to burn thousands of Shadow Demons to death and shake the Border Wasteland with his name!
The entire Chaotic Water Snake Den went up in flames. Countless water snakes writhed and hissed in the fire, turning into vapor.
Amid the billowing, shrieking steam, Zuo Guanglie shot into the sky, his long hair flying and his presence blazing.
At that moment, an eagle cried out!
A giant black eagle swooped down from high above. Facing Zuo Guanglie head-on, it beat its wings sharply.
Hundreds of iron feathers came shrieking through the air, each carrying a blade of light in a different sword style—some fierce, others sinister—all fused into one.
The blade-light fell like a torrential downpour, forcing Zuo Guanglie back into the snake den.
The Mo Sect's Mechanical Beast, the Blade-Feather Flying Eagle.
A barefoot man stood silently on the eagle's back, the wind whipping around him. His face was hidden behind a mask, and a copper box hung on his back. Or perhaps his words were already contained in the blade-light.
With the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation sustaining it, the ten thousand snakes grew wildly, constantly multiplying. The Prairie Fire Technique lacked staying power; little by little, it was extinguished.
A defense held for too long was bound to fail. Water snakes kept drilling wounds into Zuo Guanglie's body, drawing out sprays of blood. At most, he gave a muffled grunt. He wielded the Flame Blade with one hand, cutting away only the snakes that attacked his vital points.
Ten thousand snakes devoured his body; profound yin carved at his soul.
Such agony was beyond what an ordinary person could endure.
Yet Zuo Guanglie formed hand seals with one hand and wielded his blade with the other, without the slightest hesitation.
The veins on his forehead were already bulging!
Gongyang Bai interlaced his fingers and held them before his chest. His long hair stirred in the still air. "Zuo Guanglie, surrender now, and you can still be sent home with your body intact!"
The temperature plunged. A layer of frost formed on his brows. The entire Chaotic Water Snake Den froze into ice.
This was the secret art passed down within Qin's prestigious Gongyang Clan, known as the Profound Ice Dungeon.
Anyone trapped inside would exhale frost on the first breath, have their blood freeze on the second, and stiffen to death on the third.
The water snakes froze into ice snakes, and Zuo Guanglie was covered in frost.
Gongyang Bai silently watched it all. The next breath would freeze Zuo Guanglie's blood.
But!
Suddenly, he heard the roar of a surging river—the furious rush of churning, raging waves. It was Zuo Guanglie's blood, pounding through his veins!
How could mighty rivers and streams be frozen by winter frost?
As his blood surged violently, it seemed to explode into an ancient voice, at once agonized and feverish—
"Boil! Blood! Burn! Soul!"
His robe burned, his long hair burned, his brows and eyes burned, his flesh and blood burned, his soul... burned!
His body and will, his life and soul—everything burned.
The Snake Binding and the profound ice both shattered in an instant. Amid the billowing white vapor, Zuo Guanglie stood wreathed in flames from head to toe.
He looked down at his hands, blazing fiercely, as if sensing the power of this imperial forbidden art.
Then he snapped his gaze toward the Blade-Feather Flying Eagle in the sky!
The instant their eyes met, the iron-masked man decisively plummeted downward.
That precious Blade-Feather Flying Eagle... burned to ash in the blink of an eye!
Zuo Guanglie swept his hands apart. Flame Flowers bloomed through the air, spreading into a sea of fire in an instant.
The flames roared, scorching the heavens and searing the earth.
Even the baleful clouds gathered high above by the Nine Sha Profound Yin Formation seemed to become kindling for the blaze!
The Flame Flower City-Burning Art was perhaps Zuo Guanglie's most brilliant creation. At nineteen, he had used it to break a city in a single battle!
The flowers of fire were beautiful to the extreme, and their power was just as overwhelming.
As he fell, the iron-masked man spread his hands and fingers. Translucent threads stretched from each fingertip, their other ends disappearing into the copper box. With a sharp pull, he unleashed—
Puppet Flying Crows!
His fingers danced like flowers in bloom as a dense swarm of puppet crows poured from the copper box and charged at the Flame Flowers. Each puppet crow could extinguish one blossom, but the Flame Flowers seemed endless, while the crows were few.
Gongyang Bai couldn't spare a thought for the backlash from the shattered Profound Ice Dungeon. He pressed his index finger against his chin and abruptly opened his mouth! A billowing white mist poured out, extinguishing the Flame Flowers wherever it reached.
The Gongyang Clan's bloodline secret art, Breath-to-Frost.
The eighteen cultivators in dark robes who had accompanied him began forming hand seals as well.
The white vapor, born where Flame Flowers collided with frost, gathered into clouds high above.
Suddenly, torrential rain poured down, shrieking through the air.
The eighteen cultivators combined their arts to create Chain-Rainstorm!
Flame Flowers, frost, and torrential rain briefly coexisted in midair, forming a dazzling spectacle.
Amid this sight, the handsome man in the flaming robe suddenly threw back his head and roared, "Extreme Flame Power, burn the heavens and boil the seas! True Ancestor Zhurong, enter my body!"
A slow-burning flame, utterly different from the others inside him, suddenly swelled.
At that one slight change, the crows burst into flames, the dark clouds scattered, and the rain vanished!
In an instant, every sound and color was swept away!
Gongyang Bai's expression changed dramatically. "Where did he get a Seed of Zhurong? How can he possibly summon the Zhurong True Form?"
"This is Zuo Guanglie..." The iron-masked man spread a pair of mechanical iron wings and hovered beside Gongyang Bai, his voice heavy with gravity. "The man who almost single-handedly fought his way through Hangu Pass!"
Amid the infinitely expanding power of fire, flames poured from Zuo Guanglie's seven orifices.
"Come on! Mo Jingyu!"
"Gongyang Bai!"
He casually swept out a hand, and a fire flood dragon tore through the sky, forcing Gongyang Bai and the others to retreat again and again.
"What prestigious clan? What aristocratic family? What genius? Do you dare call yourselves that in front of me?!"
The Seed of Zhurong seemed to sear him into madness, stripping away his reason and setting his emotions ablaze.
"The shame of my family and the hatred of my country—no rivers or seas could wash them away!"
The Battle of River Valley had been lost. It seemed he could hear the mournful cries of countless families across Chu.
And amid the flames, he seemed to see his father, who had died in battle when he was fourteen... as though his father were saying something to him.
Saying... what?
Zuo Guanglie laughed, laughing until tears flowed from his eyes, only for the flames to dry them in an instant.
"My splendid head is right here! Who among you can take it?"
Behind him appeared the faint shadow of a supreme, awe-inspiring god, a fire dragon in his grasp.
At last, he burned away everything and merged with the flames.
"None but myself can kill me, and only Zhurong can burn my soul!"
The blazing red flames in his eyes finally extinguished every trace of emotion.
Only the coldest killing intent remained, fixed on the people surrounding him.
"Die!"
Mo Jingyu reached behind him, trying to flip open the bronze case on his back and unleash his last means of survival. But his hand trembled uncontrollably, and he couldn't summon the slightest strength.
In his spiritual perception, there was no wilderness, no ruined temple, not even a single person. There was only fire, endless waves of flame. The violent blaze nearly twisted space, and nearly burned away his thoughts.
Before such overwhelming power, how was he any different from the beggars who had died before him?
On the horizon, a streak of cold light came from the west.
Even the briefest glance at it left Gongyang Bai with the illusion that his eyes had been slashed!
There was no time to investigate. In the instant he saw it, the cold light had already darted to Zuo Guanglie and swept around him!
Zuo Guanglie's roar cut off abruptly.
"You're too damn loud."
A young man in white appeared without warning.
His face was cold and austere. He stood in profile, as though he would forever keep his distance from the world.
He slowly sheathed his sword, his voice as flat as a still pond.
Zuo Guanglie's head suddenly fell, rolling twice across the ground. But because he had used Boiling Blood Burning Soul, not a drop of blood sprayed out.
Only then did a piercing shriek, loud as thunder, ring through the air!
It was the sound of the white-clad man's sword slicing through the sky as it came from the west!
Gongyang Bai and Mo Jingyu exchanged a glance, both seeing the same immense shock in the other's eyes.
"Li Yi, I'm acting under the orders of His Highness Ying Wu..."
But Gongyang Bai had barely begun before he clamped his mouth shut, snatched up Zuo Guanglie's head, and fled.
The white-clad man had already turned his gaze toward him.
His hair, brows, eyes, even the corners of his lips were as sharp as a sword. Yet his gaze was so mild it seemed almost placid.
But beneath that placid demeanor lay a chilling indifference.
Whether they were prodigies descended from the ancient Mo Sect or scions of one of the great Name Gates of All-Under-Heaven, no one dared ask why. No one dared utter another word.
Zuo Guanglie was dead, but the Zhurong Fire Seed within him had not vanished. It continued to swell slowly.
This power was far beyond what Zuo Guanglie could control, now that his strength was spent. He had merely been a spark, a vessel, using his genius and resolve to let the might of Zhurong's True Form pour into this world, if only for an instant.
The white-clad man produced a black token and gazed at it in silence.
After a long silence, an imperious voice spoke from the token. "We're even."
As soon as the words fell, the extraordinary token seemed unable to bear the sound. It shattered into countless black fragments, slipping between Li Yi's fingers and pattering to the ground.
Only after all the cultivators had left and the token in his hand had crumbled did Li Yi tilt his head slightly toward the swelling Zhurong Fire Seed.
He extended a slender, pale hand, curling his fingers into the shape of a little pouch.
Only now, when no one could see him, did a hint of childlike innocence show through his usual placid indifference.
He said softly, "Bang!"
The instant his fingers opened was precisely when the Seed of Zhurong burst.
An invisible force bound the explosion, stopping it from spreading and reducing Zuo Guanglie's corpse to countless scraps of flesh.
Crimson Flame Flowers bloomed freely in that tiny world, dazzling for one brilliant instant, their splendor contained within a single corner.
This ultimate beauty was his alone to admire.
The corners of Li Yi's mouth lifted slightly, but only for an instant before he composed himself.
The fireworks were over.
He did not look to see what remained of Zuo Guanglie's corpse, nor did he linger. His body dissolved into swordlight and vanished in an instant.
From beginning to end, no one gave so much as a glance toward the ruined temple during the battle outside it.
Powerful cultivators rarely spared a thought for the weak Zhuang Kingdom. To the kingdom's three thousand li of territory, Maple Forest City was as insignificant as a speck of dust. And even to Maple Forest City itself, the ruined temple out in the wilderness had long since been forgotten.
And yet, someone was inside that dilapidated temple.
A beggar, on the verge of death, who had nothing left to do but wait for it.
He had prepared himself to die and was waiting for it even now. But he was not dead, and from beginning to end, he had "heard" this astonishing battle.
When the fighting ended, everything fell silent.
He was still alive.
Perhaps he was lucky, but the word "luck" seemed utterly at odds with him. His ragged clothes, his gaunt, sickly face, even his faint, wavering breath—all spoke of misfortune.
And yet he was still alive.
After thinking it over, he struggled to roll out from under the altar table.
Gritting his teeth, he summoned all his strength and forced himself, unsteadily, to his feet.
He had managed to stand after all.
From the altar table to the temple entrance was 137 steps.
From the temple doorway to Zuo Guanglie's corpse was 324 steps.
The beggar silently counted each step, telling himself over and over that he was almost there.
Almost.
Every muscle in his body protested and trembled.
No one knew where he found the strength to keep moving.
His astonishing perseverance had no witnesses.
Now he stood before Zuo Guanglie's corpse, and his journey had finally come to an end—if that heap of mangled flesh could still be called a corpse.
Slowly, slowly, he crouched down. Crouching took too much effort, so he simply sat.
He was terribly ill. Beneath the grime that made his face unrecognizable, his skin was still deathly pale.
Even his hands trembled.
Trembling, they searched through the heap of flesh, feeling around and around.
Flesh, flesh, bone splinters, a broken piece of some kind of metal, flesh, a finger bone, half of some wooden remnant he couldn't identify...
A bottle!
He turned over that unrecognizable mass of blood and flesh and found a half-broken jade bottle!
The bottle's neck had been blown away, leaving only half its body.
Suppressing his ragged breathing, the beggar brought the jade bottle before him.
Carefully, he picked a piece of flesh from the bottle's mouth and peered inside.
He saw the one pill left in the bottle, round and glossy black, and his breath caught.
He recognized it. The Vein-Opening Pill he had yearned for day and night, the one he had once obtained, only to lose again!
I've devoted myself to writing for years. My strength and softness, my love and hate, my uncertainty and confusion—all of it is bound up with this work.
I know many people have left, many have forgotten, many are busy with work, and many are worn down by life.
I hope this novel will make you fall in love with me again.
I hope it can give you the courage to face life, strength in hard times, and direction when you feel lost.
And, at the very least, I hope it can keep you company when you're lonely.
Update schedule: Two chapters every day, at 12 noon and 8 p.m. Each chapter will be at least 2,000 words. On weekends, there will be one chapter, at 8 p.m.