The Revelation of the Mysterious Canon

Wu Liang had been a Daoist for seventeen years when her master's wife told her, "Xuan Jing, your immortal fate has run its course. Your Dao is not on this mountain. My child, go down the mountain."

Go down the mountain.

Wu Liang led Chengfeng along the road that stretched in every direction. She faced the snow and wind of the outside world, but for the first time, she felt lost.

Where, exactly, was her Dao?

"One snowy morning, I left Zidao Mountain with my sword on my back. As I walked away, I could still hear my master's wife chopping wood. A young monk from the temple at the foot of the mountain gave me a water gourd. He told me to come back and visit whenever I had time. I wanted to climb the mountain again, but one year, while I was in the capital, people seeking revenge caught up with me. This water gourd took a blade in my place and shattered on the ground. Zidao Mountain seemed to be like those fragments: it vanished without a trace."

"The old keepsake is broken. I've been away from the mountain for so many years, and I can never go back."

She could never go back, not only to her home, but to the people she had known there.

Seven years had passed, and Wu Liang still did not know where her Dao lay.

With her sword in her arms and her horse at her side, she crossed rivers and arrived in the great northwest, abandoned by the imperial court.

The winds and sands of the great northwest could not grow the pines of Zidao Mountain. They could only bury countless trampled corpses and the ruins of cities.

A dynasty's decline is like leaves falling in autumn. The first leaf to fall is so inconspicuous, yet in the blink of an eye, the whole tree withers.

Wu Liang gazed at that tree for a long time. She did not hope it would sprout anew. Instead, she chose to plant a new one with her own hands.

P.S.:

(1) There is a love interest. The love interest is not a blacksmith.

(2) Half wuxia, half travelogue, with plenty of descriptions of traditional martial arts techniques.

(3) Serious in tone, about the hardships of pursuing righteousness in the human world.

(4) Slow-burn and long-form.

(5) A rebellion and infrastructure-building story set at the end of a decaying dynasty.

I've rewritten the synopsis countless times. There's too much I want to write, and I can't sum it all up right now, so this will have to do. [Lies down]

Note, October 13, 2026: Countdown to starting the story.

Theme: Bring peace to all generations.