Chapter 1: A Failed Attempt at Suicide

Drip, drip…

Raindrops, fat as beans, began to fall—at first scattered, then growing steadily denser, pelting Du Long's face and body, until streams of water poured into his nostrils.

Coughing violently, he was wrenched awake from the border of death by the choking rain. His eyes blinked open in panic, sweeping his surroundings in confusion. His mind was a tangled mess, but as he lay still, fragments of memory began to surface…

The Haotian Empire revered martial cultivation, and within its lands, the ancient art of refining energy was handed down. Practitioners would absorb and refine the mighty Haotian Force from heaven and earth, and those who reached mastery could soar through the skies or vanish into the earth with ease.

Du Long was born into a super-family with strong military ties in the Haotian Empire—an identity that granted him access to cultivation resources beyond the reach of ordinary men. Yet, fate played a cruel trick: his constitution was fatally flawed, making it impossible for him to absorb the Haotian Force.

For this reason, the Zhao family broke off their betrothal with him. He could never forget how Zhao Lin’er, that woman, had announced the annulment in front of his family elders, causing his grandfather such fury that he coughed blood and was left with a lingering illness.

Matters spiraled further out of control when Zhao Lin’er, colluding with Li Xiaojun and other scions of the capital’s military families, framed him. The Du family was seized, his grandfather died of rage, and his parents and all clan members were exiled in disgrace.

He remembered, atop the wind-lashed cliffs of Lingyun Mountain, how regret, grief, and despair had wracked his young heart until, with a desperate leap, he hurled himself into the abyss beyond the precipice…

“How… How am I still alive after throwing myself off a thousand-zhang cliff?” Now, having survived even this, Du Long felt only bitterness—no joy at cheating death.

As he lay dazed on the ground, a tickling sensation crept up his arm. Glancing sideways, he saw a tiny golden snake crawling slowly toward his head.

“Ah!” Like anyone faced with such a sight, Du Long instinctively tried to jerk away and scramble up in terror. But his voice was hoarse and weak; only his fingers and head twitched a little before his battered body fell still, powerless.

Pain racked him from head to toe; he could feel his bones were almost all broken—he was little more than a pile of flesh, his limbs utterly unresponsive.

“Damn it! Haven’t the heavens tormented me enough? Am I to be eaten alive by a snake, even at death’s door?” Helpless to evade, Du Long could only curse furiously in his heart.

The little golden snake, seeing his body tremble, suddenly opened its jaws—lined with two pairs of sharp fangs—and bit down hard on his nose.

A surge of excruciating pain shot through him. Though he had chosen to leap to his death, Du Long’s face turned ashen; for all his bravado, no one could remain unmoved by the bite of such a cold-blooded creature—especially when it struck him squarely on the nose. The terror was magnified tenfold.

With a strangled cry, he rolled his eyes and fainted on the spot.

Time slipped by—how long, he could not tell. Lying in the mud, Du Long was once more roused by the icy downpour. In a daze, he recalled everything that had happened. He suddenly sprang up and saw, to his dismay, that the hateful golden snake still clung tightly to his left arm.

He shook his arm violently, trying to fling the little snake away. After several attempts, he found, to his frustration, that the creature was wound too tightly to dislodge.

“Damn it! Even in death I’m not allowed peace, and now I have to be tormented by this wretched snake?!” Realizing he couldn’t shake it off, Du Long threw his head back and vented years of pent-up misery in a furious outburst at the sky.

Just as his tirade reached its peak, a crisp yet slightly awkward voice suddenly rang out: “I… I didn’t mean to torment you!”

Startled, Du Long instinctively glanced around. Though it was daytime, the base of the cliff was shadowed and gloomy due to the weather. Aside from the pattering rain, there was not a soul in sight.

In this eerie setting, the unexpected voice of some unknown creature made even this death-defying youth’s skin crawl and his scalp prickle.

“Who… who are you? Are you a person or a ghost?!” Du Long scanned the gloom, stammering anxiously when he found no one.

“A ghost? I’m not a ghost. My name is Jin Jing!” The awkward voice replied, introducing itself.

“Jin Jing?” Du Long muttered inwardly, then asked, puzzled, “You’re called Jin Jing? Where are you? Can I see you?”

“You can’t see me? I’m right here on your arm!” the voice responded, full of confusion.

“On my arm?” Du Long reflexively lifted his arms and stared at the little golden snake he had momentarily forgotten. Looking at the golden snake and recalling the name “Jin Jing,” realization dawned in an instant.

“Damn! You’re Jin Jing?!” He rolled his eyes and roared in exasperation—nearly frightened to death, only to discover he’d been scaring himself.

At the base of the Lingyun Mountain cliff, man and snake exchanged words for some time before clarifying the situation. Du Long pressed for more about the cliff’s secrets, but the little golden snake knew very little—since it could remember, it had lived at the foot of the cliff, guided only by a voice in its mind that called it Jin Jing and warned it never to leave.

“Wait! Little Jin Jing, I remember when you bit me, my bones were all shattered. Yet in just a few hours, my terrible injuries have almost completely healed?” After a long conversation, Du Long finally noticed the extraordinary changes in his body and voiced his doubts.

He well knew the severity of his earlier wounds: every bone broken, survival itself a miracle—let alone such rapid recovery. In fact, he felt his body was now far stronger than before.

“Deep in my memory, there’s a special method for forming a close bond with a human. When I bit you, I used that method—otherwise I couldn’t speak to you. It also seems to have changed your constitution!” As Du Long grappled with the strange transformation, the little golden snake’s voice echoed in his mind.

Only then did Du Long understand: so that’s why the snake could send its voice directly into his mind, and had even improved his constitution in the process!

Wait—could his inability to absorb the Haotian Force have changed as well? A spark of hope flashed through his mind, recalling the flaw that had plagued him all his life.

“Little Jin Jing, I’m going to try cultivating—let’s talk later!” Unable to resist, Du Long called out, then sat cross-legged and began practicing the Du family’s secret Haotian Force technique.

He methodically cleared his mind of distractions, entering a state of emptiness. Soon, he sensed the golden energy that pervaded the world—the Haotian Force.

With practiced skill, he followed the Du family’s secret method, drawing the Haotian Force in through the Baihui point atop his head, guiding it through the Ren and Du meridians down his body, circulating it through all limbs, bones, and the eight extraordinary meridians.

Finally, he led the energy into his dantian—a vital step. In the past, his cultivation always failed at this point: the energy would vanish inexplicably, earning him his reputation as the capital’s most hopeless cripple.

This time, under his focused gaze, the Haotian Force gathered in his dantian and formed a stable mass of energy.

“It really worked?” As the energy coalesced, Du Long felt a thrill of excitement—and a wave of sorrow.

He had always been stuck at this step; every time, the energy would dissipate as soon as it entered the dantian—his strange affliction. Now, the golden energy flowed endlessly into him, part of it being refined by his cells, the rest swelling the mass in his dantian.

Because the little golden snake had changed his constitution—and because the Haotian Force was so much richer in this valley than elsewhere—Du Long was absorbing energy many times faster than an ordinary person, though he didn’t realize it.

After about three hours, the mass of energy in his dantian reached a limit. As naturally as water flowing downhill, he broke through to the first level of Qi Accumulation.

Most people would need two or three months to reach this stage—he had done it in just a few hours.

A marvelous feeling swept through him; he could sense his body growing stronger, his dantian able to hold much more energy than before.

Leaping to his feet, his bones crackling and popping, Du Long threw back his head and howled in grief and release—like a wolf.

“Owooo…”

Letting the cold rain lash his face, he poured all his sorrow and frustration into that one wild cry. He knew he had been reborn. Since the heavens had not let him die, and had even repaired his fatal flaw, he could not squander this second chance at life.

In truth, an even greater surprise awaited him—but for now, Du Long was blissfully unaware.