A silver crescent moon hung like a hook. All was silent across the Sand Sea, yet beneath several long-dead Poplar Trees, the unusual sounds of a three-stringed instrument rang out, accompanied by a storyteller's world-weary voice:
"Dang~ dang-dang..."
"...Flowers flew and leaves fell as the wanderer arrived; his fan stirred the wind to strike the golden plume! Thus did Hua Ling, a peerless prodigy of his generation, leave the stage. Barely a month later, Ye Jingtang returned to Jiangzhou, where he ran straight into the Southern Dynasty’s Number One Wanderer, Long Zhengqing.
"This Long Zhengqing was no ordinary man. As a poem in the jianghu goes-ten thousand folds of green mountains bow before the Dragon Terrace; righteous spirit pierces the heavens as a single sword descends..."
More than a dozen weapons stood planted in the sand near the Poplar Trees—sabers, spears, swords, halberds, axes, battle-axes, hooks, and forks—forming a semicircle.
Bian Yuanlie, his white hair already tied up, wore black martial garb. An aged waist token hung at his belt, inscribed with the character for "constable"-a standard Great Yan design no longer seen in the world.
Having been imprisoned for over fifty years, Bian Yuanlie, once known as the Nine-Revolution Heavenly Net, had learned everything he knew about the current jianghu from fellow prisoners brought into captivity.
Even the most recently imprisoned experts capable of holding a conversation with Bian Yuanlie had arrived over a decade ago, so his understanding of the jianghu remained stuck more than ten years in the past.
Back then, the Spear Chief had been the Red God of Wealth, and Duansheng Ji had yet to make a name for himself; Jiang Zhawu had only just risen, and Liu Qiansheng had recently left the stage; the Sky-Pacifying Sect Master had not emerged from seclusion, and