After failing to overcome his tribulation, cultivator Ye Shi’s soul transmigrates into the modern city. He becomes the disowned son of the Ye family in Jiangzhou. Barely awake, he is publicly dumped by the Zhang family and denounced by his fiancée as a “poor, useless loser,” cast out of high society. Bearing the inheritance of the Nine Suns Immortal Venerable, he has no interest in getting entangled with them. Instead, he saves the Cheng Group’s grandfather and granddaughter from a criminal gang, uses his cultivation to cow the local thugs, and is welcomed as an honored guest by the Cheng family, gaining his first foothold in the city.
In chapters 1–50, “Ye Shi Rises with the Tide,” Ye Shi discovers that the Cheng family is being extorted by a local gang called the Brotherhood, which is backed by the powerful Pan family. He storms the gang’s headquarters alone, takes down twenty killers and withstands a shotgun blast before subduing the boss, Wang Hu. He reorganizes the gang as the United Hearts Society, wins people over by returning ill-gotten gains and making the books public, and more. Armed with evidence that the Pan and Zhang families are colluding, he both reforms his forces to support local businesses and investigates the old case of his parents’ “accidental deaths.” At the Zhang family’s birthday banquet, he also breaks the two families’ joint suppression campaign. Gradually taking control of Jiangzhou’s underworld and business scene, he secures his place once and for all.
