To save his gravely ill grandfather, Shen Yan, a boy from a mountain village, risked climbing a cliff to gather herbs, but slipped and fell into the abyss. On the brink of death, the ancestral bronze mirror he carried unexpectedly awakened, opening up a mysterious golden medicinal garden inside his mind. It contained a spirit spring and could accelerate the growth of spiritual plants! After a century-old Scarlet Blood Vine saved his grandfather, its astonishing medicinal effects instead aroused the villagers' suspicions that he was possessed by an evil spirit. Forced to flee for his life, Shen Yan escaped to the chaotic town of Yellow Tiger.
He carried a shocking secret, yet had no money and was worth less than a blade of grass. Shen Yan struggled to survive in the mire of the lowest rungs of society. The bronze mirror's power to accelerate growth attracted the attention of a strange figure known as Old Cripple, who pushed him into the cruel initiation trials of the Flying Dragon Sect: the deadly path through Blackwind Gorge and the impossibly steep Body Tempering Cliff. With no way out, Shen Yan risked his life to force Ironwire Vine to grow, using it to climb to the cliff's summit, but in doing so, he exposed his unusual abilities.
At the top of the cliff, he was met by the Flying Dragon Sect's Iron Eagle, whose gaze was cold and appraising, and an even more terrifying figure: Physician Yan, whose aura reeked of decay and who cultivated sinister herbs. At a glance, Physician Yan saw the
