Everyone calls Chen Le crazy.
Because he can always see what others cannot: the flaw in a street magician's trick, the sinister intent hidden in a kind auntie's eyes, and the taut, unmistakable air around ordinary people who are somehow unlike everyone else.
In his seventeen years of life, all he has ever wanted is to grow up peacefully in an orphanage and be an ordinary person whom nobody points fingers at.
Until he digs up a mysterious black token engraved with the character for “Boundary” beneath the old maple tree at the orphanage.
That day, the Heavenly Net, dormant for a century, is suddenly shaken, and the eyes of the entire jianghu turn toward a boy from an orphanage in Jiangcheng.
Only then does he learn that an unseen jianghu exists in this world.
The successor to the Taiji Sect runs a martial arts school. A master of the Xingyi Sect grills skewers at the night market. The young master of a gang that controls the southern intelligence network hides in a sweet soup shop. Even Shi Lei, the caregiver who looks after him every day, is a direct disciple of the Taiji Sect whose mastery of hard skills is unmatched in the jianghu.
And the Boundary Token in his hands is the sole emblem of supreme authority over the Heavenly Net formation, which has protected the Dragon Kingdom for a hundred years.
Foreign powers watch hungrily from beyond the border. The hidden factions of Dongying are sharpening their blades. Evil cults and sorcery wreak havoc, while traitors lurk in the shadows.
The boy who once wanted nothing more than to hide behind others is forced to embark on a journey to inherit the legacy of those who came before him, traveling across the Nine Provinces.
The snow and wind along the border at Kan Palace, the churning waters of secret routes in the South China Sea, the miasma of the Hundred Thousand Mountains in Miao territory, and the deadly betrayal of the person he trusts most.
From a helpless orphan, he gradually takes up the mantle of those who laid down their lives to protect the world.
Someone asks him what it feels like to command the world's greatest formation.
Chen Le glances back at the countless lights glowing across the city and smiles.
