In the waning days of the Dayan Empire's thirteen-century reign, the Emperor lies gravely ill while the Crown Prince assumes regency over a fractured court consumed by political intrigue and power struggles among immortal sects. Xu Yuan awakens in a crumbling mountaintop temple, rain hammering against ancient walls, where a one-armed stone Buddha looms in the darkness and a veiled woman tends a dying fire. He discovers a shocking truth: he inhabits the body of a villain's third son—legitimate heir to a prestigious bloodline, yet destined to play a false villain dressed in silk and excess, feasting while awaiting inevitable humiliation. The true villain, meanwhile, is hunted relentlessly by a ruthless ice-wielding hunter across treacherous lands. Rejecting the crutch of a golden finger that lesser villains exploit for wealth, Xu Yuan embraces the villain's path with unwavering resolve, declaring his defiance against the heavens themselves. "If Heaven had not birthed me, Xu Changtian, villains would be as eternal as the never-ending night." Yet as his carefully constructed schemes unravel, desperation breaks through—"Father, save me!"