Prequel to Jiumen Ci: Treading Through Snow to Yaoshan

[A somewhat harem-like story; the timeline may be a little confusing]

The story follows Zhang Haiyao of the overseas Zhang family, the family’s most rebellious member, and Zhang Haike, a shrewd and reserved man.

At fourteen, Zhang Haiyao faced her first Zhang family wilderness trial. She ventured deep into the hidden Yaoshan Mountains to seize a family heirloom, the Changmen Token. It was said that possessing the token would reveal the secret of the Zhang family’s unusual bloodline. Zhang Haiyao had no idea what that meant. Her wilderness trial failed, and she was trapped for half a year in a sealed chamber in the Yaoshan Mountains. She survived on coffin water and the flesh of her own clan members. As the price for taking the Changmen Token, she was cursed by the mountain god of Yaoshan and blinded.

Zhang Haike met Zhang Haiyao when he was eight. When he was fourteen, he smuggled her out of the Zhang family, hoping to help her escape disaster. Instead, he became trapped in a cycle of calamity, life, and death. He had no family left. Only when Zhang Haiyao escaped the Zhang family and came to find him was he willing to gradually reveal the protectiveness he had kept hidden and unspoken, baring his softest, most private side to her. When Zhang Haiyao saw it, he suddenly felt that everything he had done meant something. As an individual in his own right, he had found an unmistakable trace of his existence…