The Heavenly Dao’s Ashes: Scavengers of the Forbidden Zone

[One-sentence summary] In the three thousandth year after the Heavenly Dao collapsed, a lowly scavenger who wants nothing but to stay alive finds a boy with not a trace of miasma in his body deep in a dead city. [Synopsis] Three thousand years ago, the Heavenly Dao collapsed, and miasma swept across the mortal world. Immortal cities fell, sects dwindled, and the once-great age of cultivation became a wasteland. Chen Mo is a lowly scavenger scraping by on the outskirts of a dead city. Cold and pragmatic, he never makes a deal at a loss, and never saves anyone he shouldn't. Then one day, he makes an exception and rescues a boy from deep within a forbidden zone: Su Nian. The boy has no past and no cultivation, yet there is not a trace of miasma in his body. From that moment on, remnants of ancient sects, wasteland hunters, and ancient beings lurking in forbidden zones all set their sights on them. A nameless broken sword picked up from the ruins also begins to pry open secrets buried for three thousand years. Why did the Heavenly Dao collapse? Where did the miasma come from? And why did Su Nian appear in the dead city? At first, Chen Mo only wanted to stay alive. Later, all he wanted was for the boy at his side to survive too. “Anyone who tries to use my little brother’s life as a sacrifice to Heaven, I’ll split the sky apart again.” One broken sword. Two people. They seek neither immortality nor ascension. They just want to live as human beings on this wasteland where even the immortals have all perished.