Raising Poison

In the 710th year of the Longwu calendar, the current ruler of the Longwu Kingdom suffered a great calamity. Taking advantage of the crisis, the neighboring Tianfeng Dynasty ignited a war. To preserve the kingdom, the new emperor, Long Yuan, ascended the throne at just eighteen years old.

In the 711th year of the Longwu calendar, the Tianfeng Dynasty’s army advanced to the border. Long Yuan summoned the top fighters from the capital’s five great families to defend it. Lu Feng, eldest son of the Lu family, was ordered to war. His wife, Ye Shuyun, could not bear to see her husband forced into it by his family, so she resolutely followed him on the western campaign. When they set out, Ye Shuyun was already seven months pregnant.

Less than three months after the war began, the gap in top-level combat strength caused the entire front to collapse. Lu Feng protected the new emperor, Long Yuan, during his escape, but his wife, Ye Shuyun, was left stranded on the battlefield. She was gravely wounded while on horseback. Though the loyal and courageous members of the Lu family helped her escape with her life, the war left no supplies to spare. Ye Shuyun could not get enough nourishment, and by the time they reunited, she was on the brink of death.

To save his wife, Lu Feng had no choice but to administer a potent medicine through tears. Its poison seeped into their unborn child, Lu Ye, leaving him with severed meridians from birth and a constitution weaker than an ordinary person’s.

The tide of battle later turned, and the Longwu Kingdom launched a counterattack, finally driving the Tianfeng Dynasty out of its territory. But Lu Ye’s condition was irreversible. Though Long Yuan later offered compensation through a marriage alliance, the imperial physician declared that Lu Ye was destined to lead an ordinary life. His engagement to a princess of the imperial family, rather than a blessing, would become a shackle and a burden.

But Lu Ye refused to accept his fate. He trained with all his might, determined to break the curse that bound him. Unfortunately, those born with severed meridians could not cultivate. No matter how hard he tried, he could not develop even the so-called sense of qi, and all his efforts became a laughingstock.

In the 728th year of the Longwu calendar, Lu Feng disappeared while searching for medicine. Ye Shuyun was summoned back under threats from the Ye family, and Lu Ye, having lost his protection, was cast out!