Chapter 506 – The Twin Calamities of Yin and Yang, Prologue to an Epic - Part 1

In the golden autumn of October, warm snow fluttered through the sky, a soft white blanket settling over the sea of ripened wheat.

The people cheered. The furrows in an old man’s brow finally smoothed. A mother, who had once planned to sell her child just to survive the winter, now clutched her baby and wept, not in grief but in joy. For the first time, her tears didn’t mean farewell but reunion.

Far away, men who had left home in desperation, ready to trade dignity and conscience for a bite of food, suddenly found themselves with new choices. They saw the bountiful fields, held long-lost letters from family in their hands, and for the first time in years, felt the pull to return home.

A young man in white, face shadowed by a wide-brimmed hat, with a seventh rank blade slung across his back, walked the rural roads and village paths.

He had traveled a long, long way. And finally, he could feel it, the change in the air, in the land, and in the people’s hearts.

But he also heard the whispers of powerful landowners plotting in secret to seize all the grain and hoard it. Yet, they hesitated. Pressure from above weighed heavily on the local officials, making them think twice. They wanted to act but didn’t dare.

This pressure came from one man, Li Yuan. For nearly a decade, he had done more than just bring the miracle of warm snow to this land. He had quietly spread a single, resounding message through every corner of his vast network.

"Not a single grain of the people's food shall be taken. Take it, and you will pay."

And those who dared to test that rule? Punished a hundredfold. A thousandfold. Publicly. Mercilessly.

𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The message landed.

It was oppression, pure and simple, for the powerful. But it worked.

The Empress Dowager backed him.

The Lotus Cult stood with him.

Yan Yu also lent her support.

Gu Xuejian, the temple master of the Holy Tree Temple, rallied the sects under her banner. And those who didn't support her? At least they didn't oppose her. Not openly.

After all, the warm snow benefitted everyone. And no one in their right mind would reject that.

No one had ever managed to unite so many factions, righteous and evil, worldly and spiritual...for something so simple, so selfless—the good of the common folk.

And yet...no one knew his name.

At most, those perched at the very top of the hierarchy might vaguely sense the presence of an invisible hand behind this quiet revolution.

Li Yuan continued his journey, watching as the world slowly changed. Along the way, he lent a hand in the wheat fields, helped local officials hunt down bandits and thieves. His blade shed blood, but only of the guilty.

At last, he smiled.

For the first time in a long while, his heart swelled with a true, deep joy.

And in that moment, he understood something. His path of the blade was not robbing the rich to feed the poor, nor was it simply slaying the wicked, not even serving the nation and its people.

No, his path was reviving the hopes of people. Not just for the martial artists, but the farmers, the families, and the very system that bound society together.

Dynasties could rise and fall, but the people had to come first.

And what did the people need above all? That was food.

Li Yuan shed his white robes and put on plain, dusty-gray clothes instead.

White was too easy to stain in the fields. Gray, at least, could hide the dirt.

He could feel the changes stirring inside him, the seeds of his ancestral seal evolving with his every act. So he kept working the land, helping harvest grain, quietly solving injustices that only he could see, strange and subtle wrongs hiding in plain sight.

By now, Li Yuan held within him 18,000 ancestral seal seeds.

Each year, he visited the Bladeseekers to harvest more seeds, and each year, his collection grew. Once chaotic and unrefined, the seeds had begun to take shape.

Under the serene clarity of Li Yuan’s heart, something inside him was changing. The seeds, born from thoughts and intentions, were finally stirring.

These seeds weren’t originally his. He’d devoured them over the years, yes, but they had always been foreign, never fully digested. They sat dormant, a chaotic mess of power with no direction. But now, they were aligning.

This was a phenomenon that had occurred for all the great sects across the continent. All of them had three cultivation techniques, but only one branch could lead to the third rank.

For the Holy Tree Temple, it was the Cycle of Withering and Growth. For the Sacred Fire Palace, only those who cultivated the Earthfire Roaming Technique could wield the Earthfire Sword and transcend.

Now, of the three blade paths Li Yuan had cultivated—the Ruling Blade, Phantom Blade, and Final Blade—one had finally begun to evolve.

That path was the Ruling Blade. A hero could roam a thousand miles, not for fame, not for fortune, but simply so that the world would have hope.

˙·٠✧🐗➶➴🏹✧٠·˙

Autumn passed.

Real snow began to fall again in December, soft and fluttering. The year was drawing to a close.

Xie Yu had not only broken through to the fifth rank but fully consolidated her cultivation. The abundance of blood energy provided by the third rank meat fields made her cultivation smooth and unhindered.

Her next step was to leave the comfort of home, to face the world and begin tempering herself, so she could one day awaken her source blood.

That evening, she rose from beneath the apricot blossom tree and saw Li Yuan returning.

The once white-robed blademaster was now dressed in dusty gray.

And he was smiling.

Xie Yu smiled too.

“You seem really happy today. What’s the good news?”

Li Yuan placed his hand back on his blade and said, “My heart’s no longer in chaos.”

“No longer...chaotic?” She blinked, surprised. She’d heard him say those words so often over the years—

My heart’s in turmoil,

I can’t find clarity

—that it had become almost a second nature. To hear him say it was over...it felt unreal.

Then, without any warning, without any visible movement, Li Yuan let go of the hilt. And yet, the blade unsheathed itself. It floated into the air and slowly circled around him, weightless and calm.

This was no weapon spirit bond. This was a true seventh rank blade. For it to move like this, without touch, without command, it could only be due to one thing. That was the domain power unique to those who had stepped into fourth rank.

“You’re back at fourth rank!” Xie Yu’s face lit up with joy.

Li Yuan smiled and nodded. But in truth, he still wasn’t entirely sure.

The 18,000 ancestral seal seeds inside him had finally unified. His status window even now displayed,

Rank 4

-

Ancestral Realm

.

By all logic, he had broken through. Yet the path he had taken was unlike anything he’d known, and the

why

behind his breakthrough still eluded him.

And though he had stepped in, it would take time to fully settle into this new realm.

Still, Xie Yu’s heart swelled with happiness. Her eyes curved like crescent moons, and her whole face seemed to glow.

Even so, she didn’t ask too many questions. She still remembered that time, when the thousand-foot-tall golden giant had appeared behind Li Yuan. Compared to that awe-inspiring presence, even breaking into fourth rank might still be...underwhelming.

And if that was the case, wouldn't that be insulting his efforts?

Li Yuan didn’t show off any further. He simply said, “Now that I can hold my blade again, it’s time to chase an even sharper path.”

Xie Yu beamed at him. Then suddenly, with a playful tug, she hooked her arm through his, rested her cheek against his shoulder, and said softly, “It’s the end of the year...there’s a festival at Yan Yu’s temple today. Want to go?”

“Sure.” Li Yuan answered. He’d originally planned to take her by carriage. But when they reached the road and saw an ocean of people blocking every street, he abandoned that plan.

Instead, they took the water route. Not far from home, they boarded a boat on the Silver Creek river and headed north. In just over half an hour, they would reach the foot of the temple’s hill.

The boat was crowded. Xie Yu sat close beside Li Yuan.

He glanced around. There were merchants and martial artists, some traveling alone, others with their families.

Inside the boat, the air buzzed with conversation, people chatting about how life was finally starting to turn around.

“We’ve arrived!” the boatman called out, tapping the bamboo pole against the dock. The boat pulled in, and everyone began disembarking.

Arm in arm, Xie Yu and Li Yuan walked toward the base of the hill. Red lanterns strung overhead glowed brightly, dancing in the breeze with a cheerful luster.

On both sides of the path, vendors had set up shop, but each stall was packed to the brim with people.

Voices clashed in the air, mingling with the smoky scent of roasted meats and sizzling oil.

Behind a meat cart, a burly butcher with a face full of scars chopped and sliced with practiced ease, passing cuts to his assistant, who skewered and roasted them over open flame. The scent from the nearby pancake stall was mouthwatering, and the shouts from the vendor hinted at more than a dozen different kinds. At the tea stands, bright-eyed young women bustled about selling drinks and candied fruits.

Xie Yu glanced at several stalls that looked promising, but each one had a line that curled down the street. There was no telling how long the wait would be.

They soon found themselves in front of the most popular building on the mountain, a grand restaurant packed to capacity.

Any place bold enough to set up shop right next to Yan Yu’s temple had to have connections that reached heaven itself.

Xie Yu rose on tiptoe to read the signboard,

Ginger Tavern.

She puffed out her cheeks in frustration. “There’s always a crowd here. I’ve come over a dozen times, and I still haven’t eaten a single bite.”

Li Yuan chuckled. Almost 50 years ago, he never would’ve imagined the Ginger Tavern would become what it was today.

Now, the business behind it was run by the Court of Judges. In other words, it belonged to Yan Yu herself. And because of that, this massive restaurant and the entire merchant group it backed had somehow become genuinely charitable. The idea alone was enough to make one’s head spin.

If he wanted to, Li Yuan could’ve made a single gesture, spoken a single word, and the entire building would have been cleared in minutes. They would’ve welcomed him and Xie Yu with the grandest reception. But he didn’t want that.

As the two of them hesitated near the entrance, a voice suddenly rang out from the upper floors.

“Hey, you two!”

Li Yuan looked up and broke into a grin.

It was Tie Sha. Next to him sat Fang Jianlong, Zhao Chunxin, and Zhu Qiao’er, along with her son. Clearly, they’d come for a group meal.

Tie Sha stood, raising both hands to wave them over. “Brother, you and your wife should come up and join us!”

Xie Yu recognized Tie Sha too, but she’d always assumed he was just another one of her husband’s random acquaintances from the town. She glanced over at Li Yuan.

He smiled at her and asked, “Shall we go up and say hi?”

“Sure!” She nodded.

But just as the two stepped forward, a waiter blocked their way.

“Sorry, folks. We’re full. If you’d like a table, please join the queue.”

“We have friends upstairs,” Xie Yu explained.

“I’m sure you do,” the waiter replied politely, “but space is limited. If we let you up, others with friends inside will want in too.”

“You...” Xie Yu’s expression started to harden.

However, Li Yuan gave her hand a gentle tug, waved up at Tie Sha, and said with a smile, “It’s crowded today; let’s catch up another time.”

Then, before Xie Yu could erupt, he steered her away and bought two cups of sweet osmanthus tea from a roadside vendor.

They drank as they strolled.

Back inside the Ginger Tavern, Zhu Qiao’er didn’t think much of the scene. To her, it all felt perfectly normal.

Tie Sha, Fang Jianlong, and Zhao Chunxin looked utterly dumbfounded, as if they’d just witnessed the dead rise.

Zhao Chunxin was the first to snap out of it and immediately let loose. “What the hell? I must be hallucinating.”

Fang Jianlong was still in disbelief. “He actually got turned away...by a simple waiter at the Ginger Tavern.”

“It’s unreal. Like seeing pigs fly.” Tie Sha shook his head.

Yun’er, oblivious to their shock, said earnestly, “The Ginger Tavern’s always packed. Getting stopped outside is normal. If Auntie Zhao hadn’t sent someone to hold our spot early, we wouldn’t have made it in either.”

Tie Sha burst out laughing, ruffling the boy’s head. “Look at that, kid’s got more sense than the lot of us.”