On Mount Kunlun stood ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine jade steps. The Chanjiao Sect only turned two pages when accepting new disciples.
Wang Wen clutched his one-hundred-thousand-character Dao manuscript as he was kicked down seventeen times. On the seventeenth, blood blurred half his vision. The first thing he reached for wasn't his forehead, but the scroll in his arms. He shouted up the steps, "You can't kick me to death. I'll just come back again."
He still couldn't make it up on his eighteenth try. But at a ruined temple, he met an old beggar and received a rotten tomato.
The old beggar said, "A good tomato can only be eaten. A rotten tomato can be planted. When it's rotten enough, the seed is about to emerge."
And so he became the only person in the world to use a rotten tomato as his Dao seed. He didn't meditate or seize opportunities. He made deductions, read people's qi, and expounded the Dao. Every time he gave a lecture, a thread of resonance appeared on his vine for everyone who truly understood. Three people, three hundred people, three thousand people. The stronger others became, the stronger he became, not because he stole from them, but because they believed in him.
A sweet-natured saintess set a hot meal on his table. A cold and aloof true disciple kept watch at his door all night.
The immortal sects taught that one's path depended on one's innate talent. He taught that the first line you write is your Dao seed.
Long Aotian, the Chanjiao Sect's senior disciple and number one on the Heaven Ranking, had never lost in three hundred years. He sent Wang Wen a letter with three words at the end: Three moves.
Wang Wen replied with three words: How about ten?
He wasn't the one agreeing to withstand ten moves. He was telling Long Aotian to get ready to withstand ten of his.
There was also an old beggar who gave him a name, a Daoist title, and a rotten tomato, then never appeared again. Only at the end did Wang Wen discover who this man was...
