In Jiangnan, night rain drifted through the bitter wind.
Inside a dim tavern.
Two men drank together.
One wore a silvery-white mask and a robe patterned with a hundred birds.
The other had a face covered in wrinkles and looked a hundred years old, with a lotus tattooed on his rough palm.
"From this day forward, farewell to it."
The man removed the Silver Mask, gathered strength in his fingers, and shattered it.
Candlelight flickered, illuminating a gloomy face, lean and gaunt, with ink-dark brows, deep-set eyes, and white hair hanging at his temples.
Had the people of the world seen that face, they would surely have cried out-
Lord Jiang, how could you still be alive?!
He was Jiang Wuji, the White Lotus Cult Leader.
"Why wasn't I beside my brother?" Jiang Wuji's voice was hoarse, his eyes bloodshot and filled with endless regret.
Poor since childhood, he and his elder brother had depended on each other for survival. His brother was his everything.
If I had been in the Divine Capital that day, my brother would never have been ruined and disgraced!
"Why did I go into seclusion to cultivate?!"
Jiang Wuji's hatred towered to the heavens, and chilling tears of blood actually streamed from his eyes.
"Wuji!" the White Lotus Elder snapped.
Jiang Wuji emerged from his daze and said, each word bitten off separately:
"I want that little bastard to fall from the heights into hell. I want to destroy everything he has. I want him reviled by everyone!"
With that, he leaped out of the window.
The White Lotus Elder followed him.
Jiang Wuji stared at the brightly lit government office in the distance and walked toward it, step by step.
He arrived at the Jiangnan Imperial Textile Bureau, the Great Qian Jiang Family's mighty