Atop Qinglan Peak, a sea of clouds surged.
Gao Yichen stood with his hands behind his back on the Dao-Seeking Platform, nine suns of true fire circling him like dragons. At seventeen, he had formed his golden core, mastered the Xuantian Sword Art, and already defeated the sect's third Holy Son. The mountain breeze billowed his Daoist robe, trimmed with dark patterns, and stirred the thunderous cheers of the three thousand disciples below.
"The Daoist prodigy is peerless!"
"Senior Brother Gao is unmatched in our generation!"
On the high platform, a white-haired elder stroked his beard and laughed heartily. "Yichen will surely become the greatest talent Qinglan Sect has seen in a thousand years." Before he had even finished speaking, auspicious clouds gathered in the sky, revealing the phantoms of a dragon and phoenix. It was a heavenly sign, born in response to peerless talent.
Yet before the wine at the victory banquet had even cooled, disaster struck.
The "longevity wine" personally presented by Eldest Brother Zhao Wuji turned into a bone-chilling poison that felt like ten thousand ants gnawing at his heart. Gao Yichen watched helplessly as the radiant golden core in his dantian cracked apart, and his Nine Suns Dao Body shattered like a glass ornament dropped to the ground. As his cultivation ebbed away like the tide, he saw the fleeting cold smile at Zhao Wuji's lips, heard the elders around him cry out in sudden alarm, and felt the teeth-grating crack of his bones breaking from within.
Three months later, on the back slopes of the menial servants' peak.
Torrential rain poured down. The figure curled up in the mud had long since lost all trace of his former splendor. Gao Yichen dug through the rubble with ten bloodied fingers, searching for a blood-staunching herb worth half a bowl of spirit rice. The hands that had once wielded a sword through the nine skies now trembled at the mere effort of gripping a stone.
"Well, if it isn't our former Daoist prodigy?" Several outer-sect disciples gathered around him, laughing. The one in front planted a foot on the back of his hand. "I heard you stole something yesterday..."
