The Great Jing has only just been unified, and the fires of war have barely died down.
With nowhere else to turn, the young Li Hanzhou enters the Imperial City's Sutra Repository and becomes an unremarkable servant.
No spiritual roots, no immortal bones, no miraculous encounter from the heavens. He only wants to stay alive.
While sorting charred scraps of ancient texts, he comes across a fragment of an ancient cultivation manual.
There are no strange signs, no shortcuts. He can only quietly temper his body and cultivate his state of mind, day after day.
Hidden deep in the attic, he sweeps the floors and organizes scrolls, never showing the slightest hint of his abilities.
The years drift by.
Decades pass. The servants who work alongside him grow old, their hair turning white, and one by one they are laid to rest.
A hundred years pass in the blink of an eye. The Great Jing Empire trembles, and its founding emperor, Xiao Jian, passes away.
Dynasties rise and fall, immortal sects flourish and decline, and heroes of the martial world come and go.
Others seek longevity, the Great Dao, and power.
Li Hanzhou only ever wanted to live in peace, but by chance he steps onto the Path of Time. His body never ages, and his lifespan has no end.
He has witnessed the songs and dances of golden ages and the bones left behind by times of chaos.
One generation after another, his friends' dark hair turns white, and they return to the earth.
The insignificant nobody of the Imperial City has quietly become a being whom emperors of later ages revere as a deity and the ancestors of immortal sects bow to in greeting.
He stands unrivaled across the Nine Provinces and sees through the illusions of life and death.
Yet across countless ages, what holds him most dear has never been supreme power.
It is every chance encounter and every old friend who has walked a stretch of the road beside him.
In the midst of eternity, he is a mortal traveler who does not wish to leave.
