Lotus Falls Three Thousand Times

In the mortal realm, the Northern Yan cavalry trampled through the autumn sun at Qingluo Village. Sixteen-year-old Yiping knelt in a pool of blood. Of the village's three hundred people, he alone survived. He sat by the withered lotus pond, waiting for the flowers to fall, but instead a fallen supreme being from the upper realm came to him: the Lotus Venerable. A green lotus entered his sea of consciousness, carrying a ten-layer inheritance, each step leading to a higher heaven. He crossed the snowfield barrier into the Xuanling Continent. From a hired hand chopping firewood at an inn to the coldest sword among Huayang Sect's outer disciples; from a lone wolf who created "Lotus Shadow in Motion" to the sharpest blade on the Storm Rankings. The Blood Demon cultivation manual whispered through his meridians, and the last evil cultivator from three hundred years ago slept deep within his sea of consciousness. The Lotus Venerable's voice, gentle as a spring breeze, taught him how to take root in the mud. The Xuanling Continent was vast. The northern snowfields, the desolate Demon Abyss, the First Mystic Beast Forest, the Blackwind Region, the Sacred Steed Imperial Capital... In the places he traveled, someone gave him malt candy, someone offered him osmanthus cake, and someone straightened the collar of his black robe. There were also those who put a bounty of a hundred thousand spirit coins on the head of the "Black Lotus Ghost." From boyhood to young adulthood, from one who waited for flowers to fall to one who made the flowers fall across an entire city. "The lotus falling isn't withering," the old man said before fading away. "It's sinking down, then coming back to life." Yiping tightened his grip on his sword. In this life, he would make three thousand falling lotuses bloom for him alone. Blood and fire rise in the mortal realm; a green lotus blooms in Xuanling. Only when the ten-layer inheritance is complete can one see the true heart of the lotus.