In the Great Qian Dynasty, Zhao Qian, the second legitimate son of the Duke of Zhenguo, awakens his martial potential at the age of eighteen and is found to have a useless, blank bone.
Everyone in the empire knows that the Duke of Zhenguo's household has produced a useless son.
His father publicly disowns him, removes his name from the family register, and casts him out of Chang'an. His family orders his fiancee, Shen Qingwan, to break off their engagement. Her carriage waits outside the gates of the estate. She clutches his hand, crying until her eyes are red, but in the end she is dragged into the carriage.
Zhao Qian stands in the wind and snow with nothing.
Everyone thinks he's finished.
But no one knows that his martial bone isn't useless; it has been sealed. The one who sealed it sits upon the dragon throne. And the key to unsealing it is hidden in the broken iron scroll his grandfather pressed into his hands on his deathbed.
The day the iron scroll explodes, a violet-gold true dragon soars into the sky, and five dragon shadows circle above Chang'an. The people of the entire city look up. The teacup in Duke Zhao Tianyang's hand falls to the ground and shatters.
Zhao Qian stands at the center of the five true dragons, the dragon mark in his palm burning hot, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.
"Old man, your son isn't useless."
From a useless-boned young master abandoned by his family to a violet-gold true dragon commanding the northern frontier and sweeping across the world, Zhao Qian took only three years.
And it all began the day he was driven from his home.
