Snow fell, blanketing the road and growing thicker by the moment. The trees lining the road had shed all their leaves, and occasionally, strong gusts of wind scattered snow everywhere. This year saw heavier snowfall than previous years; everyone and everything sought shelter from the harsh cold of this winter.
The roads were deserted, desolate, and forlorn. Suddenly, a figure appeared in the distance, approaching. It was truly strange; in such freezing weather, he wore only tattered clothes, a straw hat on his head, and carried a gourd of wine as he walked through the snowy landscape. No one knew who he was or where he came from. He had been in this place for over three months, and the locals often called him the 'mad scholar,' but he paid no mind to it.
The scholar's house was located at the end of the village. His house, much like himself, was tattered and dilapidated on all sides. Yet, the items inside were neatly arranged and in their proper places.
As night fell, everything around grew quiet. The scholar sat on the porch, his hand tightly clutching a qilin jade pendant, his gaze fixed on a distant point. Suddenly, a tear fell from the corner of his eye; he was weeping. Then he ran out, looked up at the sky, and screamed: "Why? Why has it come to this? Whyyyyy?"
A million *li* to the west of the scholar's village, in the state of Yan, there was a buzz of discussion about the assassination of Yun Qing Wang four months prior. On the upper floor of the Huangyan Tower, a young voice rang out:
"You all know that Yun Qing Wang was a renowned Blade King of the Yan state. His martial arts prowess was comparable to sect masters, yet he met such a tragic end, utterly destroyed in both body and spirit."
A middle-aged man spoke up: "Sigh, it was because the Blade King possessed a peerless Treasure Blade that this massacre occurred. It truly is a case of 'An innocent man commits no crime, but possessing a treasure makes him guilty.' I heard that the Demonic Sect dispatched twenty Nascent Soul stage experts, along with a low-tier Earth-grade formation, to attack the Blade King's residence at midnight. The result, as you know, was that the Blade King slew them all, but paid a heavy price; his wife and children all perished. In the end, the Demonic Sect Master appeared, killed the Blade King, and took the Treasure Blade."
The young voice rang out again: "How do you know it was the Demonic Master, when you weren't even at the battle? If the Demonic Master had truly come, he wouldn't have needed the help of the Demonic Sect's people; he alone would have been enough to slaughter two or three Blade Kings. You should remember that Yun Qing was a Blade King, not a Blade Emperor. Figures like the Demonic Master, Blade Emperors, and Sword Sovereigns are like divine dragons – you see their head but not their tail. Why would they need to contend with juniors over a few treasures and tarnish their reputation? Besides, would the Demonic Master really lack magical artifacts?"
"So, you're implying there's something fishy about this massacre?" the middle-aged man said, frowning.
The person opposite the middle-aged man smiled and continued, "This is just my personal speculation, but this matter isn't as simple as it seems. The people you mentioned might not necessarily be from the Demonic Sect. I suspect someone is throwing stones and hiding their hand. Ah, well, this matter will become clear later. I'm leaving now."
A young figure flew out the window, disappearing into the distant horizon.
Everyone in the state of Yan mourned the Blade King, a magnanimous and noble gentleman who had met such a tragic end. The more they remembered the Blade King, the more the martial artists in the *jianghu* hated the Demonic Sect. What was even stranger was that all traces of the battlefield had been inexplicably erased overnight.
No one knew that the Blade King's son, Yun Xi, who was presumed dead, was actually alive in another place and was preparing to embark on the path of cultivation, so that one day he could expose the truth behind his family's massacre.