No Curtain Call

When Zhou Qi first entered the martial world, he was merely a rogue cultivator at the third level of martial mastery. He had no astonishing bloodline or peerless martial arts. His most valuable possessions were an old sword that often needed costly repairs and a few pages of tattered books left behind by his late master. He took jobs escorting travelers, calculated his wages, and sheltered from mountain storms. He saw people risk everything for twelve taels of silver, people who defended their sect but refused to cover up its mistakes, and people who never advanced beyond martial mastery yet still lived their lives with purpose. Later, he met Jian Wang, and more and more people who ought to have had lives of their own. It began with a mineral chest everyone wanted, then a missing Sword Pavilion steward. From sects, imperial dynasties, and foreign races to events buried for centuries and a crisis sweeping across the land. Zhou Qi gradually understood that the hardest thing was never becoming stronger than everyone else. It was when the strong began deciding who could be sacrificed would you still be willing to say, “No.”