When mountain rain carrying peach blossom fragrance seeped through the firewood gate in late spring, Ethan Chen was sharpening his notched firewood knife under the eaves. Water droplets on the blade reflected his gaunt features, lending this twenty-year-old woodcutter an unexpected scholarly demeanor. In the distance, the Ox-Resting Mountain lay shrouded in milky mist, resembling the "dragon's breath" old Chief Harold often muttered about.
"Brother Ethan!" Neighbor Amelia Xing stumbled into the yard, her skirt stained with crimson mud. "Derek Zhang's boy at the village entrance... he's coughing blood!"
The firewood knife clattered against bluestone. Ethan grabbed the herb basket and sprinted out. Passing the ancestral hall, he heard stifled sobs within. The strange illness spreading from town three days prior had already claimed seven strong men—feverish comatose bodies marred by bronze-hued patterns beneath their skin.
"The Mountain Deity is angered..." Old Chief Harold knelt muttering before the square bronze cauldron by the ancestral hall. This relic, allegedly left when King Xiong of Chu inquired about the Central Plains' cauldrons, bore accumulated incense ash in its taotie patterns that now emitted an eerie cyan glow.
When Ethan reached Eagle's Beak Cliff on Ox-Resting Mountain's shadowed side, the sun hung low. The fifty-year-old Blood Crimson Ganoderma glowed faintly on the precipice. Last winter, he'd seen rice-bowl thick pale serpents coiling around it during herb gathering. Gritting his cloth-wrapped knife, he climbed the slippery moss.
As his fingertips grazed the mushroom's canopy, century-old vines snapped. Plummeting, Ethan glimpsed the mist below splitting—revealing a tile-roofed courtyard thirty zhang below. His knife suddenly vibrated with dragon-song resonance, rust flaking to expose hidden cloud-thunder patterns.
"Young friend shares destiny with this humble Daoist."
A cool touch at his nape. Ethan found himself suspended mid-air. Turning, he met laughing eyes beneath crane-white hair and youthful complexion—a grey-robed Master Yun pinching his "firewood knife" between two fingers. The blade now flowed with cloud motifs, unmistakably an ancient bronze sword.
"This blade 'Twilight Revelation' has suppressed Xiangliu's remnants here since King Ji Fa's conquest." The elder flicked the sword, nine chi-dragon patterns igniting from the hilt. "Since you've awakened its spirit..." He froze, staring at Ethan's scraped palm—blood droplets shimmering with golden light.
Thunderous tremors shook the cliff. Bronze chains erupted from earth, each ending in massive cauldron silhouettes. Master Yun's expression darkened as a yellow talisman flew from his sleeve onto Ethan's brow: "Seek the ancient scholar tree at the mountain's foot! If moonlight turns jade-green before midnight..."
The cliff tilted violently. Encased in talisman-gold light, Ethan plunged into mist. His final sight: the Seven Stars of the Big Dipper detaching from the elder's robe, transforming into light streams diving southeastward.
At midnight beneath the scholar tree, Ethan rubbed his re-rusted knife. Mountain springs had washed away bloodstains, leaving only cinnabar-burn pain between his brows. When jade-green moonlight filtered through leaves, crystalline chimes sounded from his chest—the Blood Crimson Ganoderma had transformed into a cyan jade tablet. Its front bore "Serenity" characters, the reverse a constellation of connected stars.
As mountain wind stirred branches, distant chains snapped. The jade tablet seared his hand with Taiji Yin-Yang symbol. Simultaneously, black blood-like liquid oozed from the ancestral hall cauldron's taotie eyes, seeping into earth through cauldron legs.