A frail-looking boy was walking along a rugged mountain path.
His name was Xing Xiang. Few in the world were as ill-fated as he was.
Sickly since childhood, he had spent his life burdened by medicine. He was skin and bones, and his coughing and wheezing never let up. His father died when he was five, his mother when he was six. From then on, he had no family or friends in the world, alone and barely surviving at the very bottom of mortal society.
The autumn wind howled, sweeping dead leaves along the mountain path and pelting his thin clothes.
Xing Xiang clutched his chest and coughed violently twice. A faint bluish pallor appeared at the corner of his mouth.
He looked up at the towering mountains stretching into a sea of clouds in the distance, his gaze calm and free of bitterness.
Behind him lay the teeming mortal world, with its birth, aging, sickness, and death, a worldly cage where people could neither obtain what they sought, escape their troubles, nor even live freely.
Ahead lay an ancient forbidden land, the Qingfeng Immortal Mountain, whose very name made people tremble.
Just then, the sound of hoofbeats and a commotion rose behind him. A group of richly dressed cultivators rode up and blocked the middle of the path.
At their head was a white-robed young man with an arrogant face and unfathomable cultivation. A jade token from the Daoist sect hung at his waist. He was Su Xuanchen, an elite inner disciple of the Qingyun Daoist Sect, the greatest sect in the world today.
Looking down at the frail Xing Xiang from atop his horse, Su Xuanchen asked with a mocking sneer:
“Little brat, are you going to Qingfeng Mountain too?”
Xing Xiang slowly straightened up. His voice was soft but steady:
“Yes.”
A Daoist disciple beside him burst out laughing:
“Hahaha! Senior Brother, look at this little runt. A gust of wind could knock him over. He’s got a sickly mortal’s body and no foundation in martial arts, yet he actually dares to covet the immortal opportunity in the Ascension Cave?”
