On the edge of the Hengyue Mountains lies a barren hill, with a shrine whose roof has caved in on one side. Inside rests a jade plaque engraved with the words "Guard the Mountain."
For three generations, the Ji family has watched over the plaque. His grandfather left with another jade plaque, engraved "Return to the Mountain," and was never heard from again. His father kept watch until he died, carving the first half of the character for "wait" beneath the offering table. By Ji Chuan's generation, nothing remained but an empty shrine and two jade plaques of unknown origin.
He thought this was simply his fate.
Then a rusted iron sword, a boy bearing a spiritual mark, and a border town full of people who were waiting dragged his fate into another course.
A swordsman with no spiritual roots drives every strike with his own blood. An innkeeper who has waited twelve years for her son has forged her waiting into a red thread. A Nascent Soul monster who has lived for five hundred years is hiding from a tribulation of humanity more terrifying than a heavenly one.
And Ji Chuan gradually discovers that the two jade plaques conceal far more than the obsessions of three generations of the Ji family.
