The temple is on the verge of ruin, its statue stained with blood, and an ancient Taoist tradition awakens in the face of extinction.
Lin Ye, a poor orphan raised by an old Taoist priest, struggles to get by while keeping watch over the dilapidated Three Pure Ones Temple. Then one day, a developer shows up to force him out. Lin Ye shields the statues of the Three Pure Ones with his own body, and the moment his blood splashes onto them, the Pure Yang Dao Embryo, dormant for years, awakens.
The Purification Mantra, Palm Thunder, and the Celestial Master's Insight: the legacy of the Three Pure Ones, formed from the old priest's lifelong cultivation, pours into his mind.
When a red-clad evil spirit raids the temple at night, Lin Ye gets his first chance to test his skills, slaying it and obtaining a fragment of a black jade hairpin. Beneath an imperial mausoleum, he joins forces with Su Qinghan, a descendant of its guardians, to enter a sealed realm that has lain undisturbed for a thousand years. Yin soldiers, an ancient formation to suppress evil, and a deposed Han dynasty emperor opening his eyes inside a coffin: starting from a ruined temple, Lin Ye steps into a world of mystic arts hidden in the shadows of the city.
Seven fragments of a black jade hairpin are scattered across the land, each one a key leading to the City of the Wrongfully Dead. The Seven Lantern Envoys watch from the shadows, something sealed deep within the imperial mausoleum is awakening, and the clues left behind by the old priest before his disappearance point to an even greater mystery.
From the old streets of Yuncheng to Kunlun's sheer cliffs, from a sunken city beneath the sea to the secret realm of the Wrongfully Dead, the legend of a young Celestial Master begins with protecting a broken-down temple.
