An Ordinary Beginning: At thirty, Chen Sanshi is an unremarkable wage earner who has achieved nothing, yet harbors dreams of being a hero and loves helping others. After helping an elderly scavenger, he receives a mysterious talisman pouch, and his luck begins to change.
The Mysterious Old Man: His real name is Zhou Xuande, a locally renowned feng shui master. In his youth, he studied the Book of Changes in Beijing. Though he never learned its true teachings, he picked up a few superficial tricks. He often reads the feng shui of wealthy merchants and powerful officials. The good-luck charms are a little trick he learned from ancient texts, which he gives to clients as freebies.
The Special Talisman Pouch: The pouch Zhou Xuande gave Chen Sanshi contained the 999th good-luck charm he had drawn. By chance, it aligned with the heavenly principle of "nine returning to one," making it the only truly effective good-luck charm he ever made. He himself, however, had no idea of this secret.
The Spirit-Gathering Ancient Jade: Guided by the good-luck charm, Chen Sanshi discovers a piece of ancient jade at a secondhand market, naturally patterned with spirit-gathering sigils. It was once worn by an ancient cultivator, but was scattered among the common folk during wartime. After changing hands countless times, it ended up being sold cheaply by a street-stall owner who didn't know its worth.
Fates Entwined: The meeting of the good-luck charm and the Spirit-Gathering Ancient Jade is no coincidence, but a fated encounter. It plants a crucial seed for Chen Sanshi's future journey into cultivation.
