His Daoist title is Taoyao. His blood burns hot, and with a single sword he can break ten thousand techniques.
“Peach trees are the essence of the Five Woods and ward off every evil. ‘Yao’ means to flourish to the utmost and then break, but also to be reborn from the brink of destruction.”
Jie Sect, Servants' Peak.
“Taoyao! Go fetch the footbath water! If you're late, you won't eat today!”
A gaunt youth silently picks up a wooden bucket and walks with his head bowed through a sea of mocking stares. His Daoist title is Taoyao. After a hundred years in the sect, he is still at the first level of Qi Refining. Everyone in the Jie Sect agrees he is “Honghuang's number one good-for-nothing.”
No one notices that every night he sneaks to the edge of the forbidden zone around the Immortal-Slaying Sword Formation. He kneels three yards away and closes his eyes, “polishing” the four peerless swords that even the Sages fear, with his divine sense, his soul, and a hundred years of unbroken nightly devotion.
Until, on this very night, one of them, the Immortal-Slaying Sword, suddenly gives a soft chime.
Taoyao opens his eyes. A golden sword mark flashes through his pupils.
“First tribulation: Severing the Mortal.”
His meridians begin to snap one by one, and his cultivation falls from the first level of Qi Refining to that of an ordinary mortal. Everyone who has mocked him is waiting to laugh at his downfall.
Seven days later, the outer sect tournament begins.
The inner sect senior brother who has bullied him for a hundred years holds a high-grade spirit treasure and mocks him in front of everyone. “Good-for-nothing, if you can take one of my moves, I'll call you Grandpa right here.”
Taoyao doesn't draw his sword. He simply picks up the broom he has used for a hundred years to clean up manure and gives it a light swing.
Sword energy stretches three thousand yards.
The senior brother falls to his knees.
The whole arena falls silent.
Taoyao turns away, leaving behind a proud, solitary figure. “From now on, my Daoist title is Taoyao. ‘Yao’ means to flourish and then decline, but it also means new life at the brink of destruction.”
Far away, in Biyou Palace, Sect Master Tongtian suddenly opens his eyes and murmurs, “He... has awakened?”
