At 83, Le Jian was one of the lowest-ranking “causal debt recorders” in the Qingxuan Realm, making a living by recording cultivators’ debts. Though born with the Nine Luminaries Heavenly Dipper Physique, his mortal body could not absorb spiritual energy. Worse, causal debts turned on him, leaving him with only three years to live. By chance, he rescued Yun Ni, an elder of the Biluo Palace who had been gravely wounded, and received half of a damaged copy of the Record of Returning Ruins and Creation, a forbidden art that used causality as fuel and business acumen as cultivation.
With his knack for numbers and insight into human nature, Le Jian founded the Causal Pawnshop in the Mortal Realm. By using methods such as “repaying debts with collateral” and “installment plans,” he revived bad debts and quickly amassed wealth. He unexpectedly discovered that his Nine Luminaries Heavenly Dipper Physique could sense temporal rifts in the Abyss of Causality, allowing him to glimpse fragments of the future. This made him a thorn in the side of the Causal Merchant Alliance, which sent an “ideal projection”: Le Jian as a passionate, righteous young man, who repeatedly condemned the greed of his present self.
As he fought the Alliance, Le Jian met Yi Han, a traitor to the Netherworld Pavilion, and Liu Qingci, an expelled disciple of the Heavenly Sword Sect. The three joined forces. Le Jian gradually realized that the true power behind the Causal Merchant Alliance was the “Guardians of Time.” They sought to control every cultivator’s fate through causal debts and prevent anyone from changing history. In the end, Le Jian sacrificed his entire remaining lifespan to detonate the Abyss of Causality and shatter the Guardians of Time’s chains, restoring the natural order of causality to the cultivation world. Though his body perished and his Dao vanished, he endured in the cosmic mind as a “Sacred Spirit of Causality,” guiding cultivators in generations to come.
