The protagonist, Lu Chen, is an orphan and a displaced wanderer in a world in chaos. He has no clan, no surname, no teacher, and no patron. Born in a mass grave and raised in a slum, he survives by scavenging, begging, and taking on jobs where he might die in someone else's place. He has seen corpses strewn across the land, the powerful treating human lives as worthless, good people meeting untimely ends, and evil men living in splendor. From a young age, he saw through the world's false warmth. His heart for the Way, forged as he crawled out from a mire of bones, is cold, pure, ruthless, and trusting of no one.
