The Way of the Cautious: A Broken Mirror from the Start

Chen Yuan huddled at the bottom of a dry well, trembling all over.

Not from the cold. From fear.

Above the mouth of the well, firelight turned the night sky red. Screams, pleas for mercy, and the dull thuds of blades striking bone echoed down into the well, one after another. Chen Yuan bit his lips until they bled, not daring to make a sound.

He was fourteen years old.

Three days ago, he had been the young master of the Chen household, with books to read, clothes to wear, and a maid named Liu Yunqing to bring him tea and water. Three days ago, his father had still been in the study, telling him, "Cultivating immortality and seeking the Dao are not things ordinary people should dream of."

Three days later, the entire Chen household had been slaughtered.

All because of a tattered book.

They said it was an ancient cultivation manual. His father had bought it from a down-and-out rogue cultivator for three hundred taels of silver. Thinking it was a treasure, his father hid it in the cellar without even reading it. But word got out, and the Blood Demon Sect came.

The Blood Demon Sect.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.