Fang Yuan stands encircled on a mountainside in torn green robes, blood pooling under his feet, while the major factions of justice demand the Spring Autumn Cicada and his head. They name his crimes: thousands killed over the cultivation of one Gu, and a grudge three hundred years old. He answers the setting sun with a poem, laughs that he will be a demon in his next life too if the newly cultivated Spring Autumn Cicada works, and a surge of energy engulfs him as the warriors charge. ch. 1
Spring rain falls on Qing Mao Mountain, five hundred years earlier. In Gu Yue Village the clan head closes the ancestral ceremony on the eve of the annual opening ceremony, and the elders weigh the year’s candidates in the corridor outside. Two names carry the talk. Bai Ning Bing of the Bai clan reached rank three within two years of training, and the pressure of it reaches the older generation. Gu Yue Fang Yuan, orphaned and raised by his uncle and aunt, spoke after three months and recited poetry at five, and the clan head privately rates his chance of A grade aptitude as high. The head orders the elders to compete for the young geniuses fairly, with no tricks and no damage to the clan’s unity. ch. 1
At a window over the same village lights, Fang Yuan clenches an unfamiliar young hand. The Spring Autumn Cicada, ranked seventh among the Ten Big Mystical Gu, has reversed time and carried his five hundred years of memory back into his own youth. He knows this is not a dream. ch. 1
