Chapter 1: The Seed of the Bloodline
Rain lashed against the thatched roof of the mud-brick hut, finding every conceivable gap in the dried yellow grass to drip, cold and merciless, onto the packed dirt floor below. The sound was a chaotic, rhythmic drumming that echoed the agonizing thumping inside Li Mo's skull.
He opened his eyes, only to be blinded by the dim, flickering light of a single, sputtering oil lamp. The smell hit him first—a pungent mixture of damp earth, dried herbs, old sweat, and the sharp, metallic tang of animal blood. It was a scent far removed from the sterile, artificially cooled air of the corporate office he remembered falling asleep in.
"Water..." his voice cracked, sounding like dry leaves crushed underfoot. It wasn't his voice. It was higher, weaker, lacking the baritone depth of a thirty-year-old man.
A shadow shifted in the corner of the small, single-room dwelling. A large, calloused hand, rough as tree bark and smelling strongly of cheap medicinal wine, lifted his head gently. A chipped earthen bowl was pressed to his cracked lips.
"Drink, Mo'er. Slowly now. The fever has finally broken. The ancestors have shown mercy," a deep, gravelly voice rumbled above him.
Li Mo drank, the cool, slightly murky water soothing the fiery dryness in his throat. As he swallowed, the memories hit him. They did not arrive like a gentle stream, but rather crashed into his consciousness like a collapsed dam.
He was Li Mo. Sixteen years old. The only son of Li Dashan, a hunter and part-time tenant farmer in Clearwater Village, a remote settlement nestled at the foot of the sprawling, mist-shrouded Black Mountain Range. The world he now inhabited was not Earth. It was the Great Wei Dynasty, a sprawling feudal empire governed by magistrates, nobles, and, most terrifyingly, martial artists.
This was a world where human life was cheaper than the wild game his father hunted. It was a world where a local gang leader could wipe out a family over a perceived slight, where tax collectors operated with the brutality of bandits, and where legends spoke of men who could shatter boulders with a single punch, leap over city walls, and tread on air. And beyond them, whispered only in the most terrified and reverent tones around the village fire pits, were the 'Immortals'—beings who rode flying swords, commanded the lightning, and lived for thousands of years.
The original Li Mo had been caught in a sudden, violent downpour while checking rabbit snares at the edge of the forest. A severe chill had rapidly evolved into a raging fever. In a world without antibiotics, it was a death sentence. The original soul had perished in the night, allowing a soul from a modern Earth to take its place.
Li Mo closed his eyes, letting his head rest back on the straw-stuffed pillow. "Father," he rasped, testing the word. It felt foreign, yet inherently right. The lingering emotions of the original host resonated within his chest—a deep, abiding respect and love for the scarred, imposing man sitting beside the bed.
Li Dashan let out a long, shuddering breath, his broad shoulders slumping in relief. In the dim light, Li Mo could see the severe limp his father favored, the result of a long-ago encounter in his mysterious past before he settled in Clearwater Village. A massive, jagged scar ran down the left side of Dashan's face, disappearing into a thick, untamed beard.
"Rest. I will simmer some wild ginseng roots I traded for in the town last moon. You need to rebuild your vitality," Dashan muttered, standing up with a heavy lean on his right leg. He limped over to the clay stove in the corner, his massive frame casting a looming shadow across the entire hut.
Left alone in the semi-darkness, Li Mo turned his attention inward. He was a pragmatic man in his past life, an actuary who dealt in risk, numbers, and cold, hard facts. He had read enough web novels during his commutes to understand the situation. He had transmigrated. He was in a high martial arts, potentially immortal cultivation world. And his starting point was abysmal. A poor hunter's son with no resources, no backing, and a fragile body that had just narrowly survived a common cold.
Where is my golden finger? he thought, a sense of cautious anticipation warring with rising dread. A system? An old grandpa in a ring? A supreme martial arts manual?
He waited. He mentally called out. Status? Panel? System?
Nothing. No mechanical voice echoed in his mind. No translucent blue screen projected itself into his vision. There was only the sound of the rain and the crackle of the fire his father was stoking.
A profound sense of disappointment washed over him, quickly followed by the icy grip of panic. In a world where martial arts masters could treat ordinary people like weeds to be cut down, surviving without a cheat was a monumental task. Thriving was near impossible.
But as he closed his eyes and tried to calm his racing heart, he felt something. It wasn't a system. It wasn't an external entity. It was an innate, profound understanding, resting deep within the very core of his soul, as natural to him as breathing or the beating of his own heart.
In the limitless dark expanse of his sea of consciousness, an image manifested. It was a tree.
It wasn't a physical tree, but a phantom woven from strands of golden light. Currently, it was merely a sapling, fragile and small. At its base, a single, glowing root pulsed with a soft, steady rhythm. That root was him. Li Mo.
As he focused his consciousness upon the glowing sapling, a burst of profound, wordless knowledge cascaded into his mind. It was a resonance with the Dao, an ironclad rule of the universe that had somehow bound itself to his soul upon his transmigration.
The Ancestral Bloodline Tree.
There was no artificial intelligence to explain it to him, only an innate, instinctual comprehension. He understood his 'cheat' perfectly.
The ability was absolute, yet uniquely passive. He was the First Ancestor, the root of the tree. Whenever a direct bloodline descendant of his—a son, a daughter, a grandchild, a great-grandchild—passed away and their soul entered the cycle of reincarnation, their entire life's accumulation would return to him as feedback.
He would receive their lifetime of martial arts cultivation. He would receive their combat experience. He would receive their comprehension of techniques, their academic knowledge, their skills in blacksmithing, alchemy, or farming. And, most importantly, he would receive a purified wisp of their innate longevity—a fraction of the lifespan they had possessed, added directly to his own.
Li Mo lay paralyzed in the dark, his breath catching in his throat.
This... His actuary mind immediately began spinning, calculating the profound, terrifying implications of this ability.
He didn't need to risk his life venturing into deadly secret realms to fight over a single spiritual herb. He didn't need to join a brutal martial arts sect and compete in life-and-death tournaments to gain the favor of elders. He didn't need to stand out, act arrogant, or draw the attention of the heavens.
All he needed to do was survive, spread his bloodline, and wait.
If he had ten children, and they all practiced martial arts for fifty years before passing away, upon their deaths, he would instantly gain five hundred years of martial arts cultivation and experience. If his grandchildren numbered a hundred, and they reached higher realms... the compounding interest of this ability was staggering. It was exponential growth.
But there was a catch. A massive, unavoidable catch that dictated how he must live his life from this moment forward.
He had to outlive them.
The feedback only occurred upon the death of a descendant. If he died before them, the tree would wither, and the ability would be meaningless. Furthermore, he couldn't simply murder his descendants to harvest them; the Dao resonance made it clear that the soul must naturally pass into the cycle of reincarnation, its destiny fulfilled, for the feedback to occur. Murdering his own bloodline would sever the branch and invite heavenly tribulation upon his soul. He had to be a true ancestor—providing for them, protecting them, teaching them, and eventually, watching them grow old and return to the earth, while he remained.
I have to live a very, very long time, Li Mo realized, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. And I have to be the most cautious, low-key person in this entire world.
If he showed off and was killed by a passing martial arts master, it was over. If he drew the ire of the local magistrate and was executed, the grand plan was dead. He could not afford to be the typical hot-blooded protagonist. He had to be a turtle. He had to hide his true depths, build a clan in the shadows, and let his descendants brave the storms of the world. They would be the heroes, the generals, the sect masters, and the wandering swordsmen.
He would just be the reclusive ancestor in the ancestral hall, quietly sweeping the floor and accumulating the power of generations.
"It's a heavy burden," Li Mo whispered into the darkness. The ethical weight of it pressed on him briefly. He would be building a family knowing he would ultimately benefit from their passing. But as he thought about it, the guilt faded into a pragmatic resolve. He wasn't causing their deaths. In this brutal, feudal world, he would be giving them life, providing them with a safe harbor, teaching them, and giving them the resources to reach heights they could never achieve alone. In return, their legacy would not fade into dust; it would live on eternally within him. It was a symbiotic relationship across the bounds of mortality.
"Mo'er? Did you say something?" Dashan's voice called out from the stove, accompanied by the bubbling sound of boiling water.
"No, Father. Just clearing my throat," Li Mo replied, his voice steadier now. His path was set. The grand strategy of the next thousand years had been formulated in the span of ten minutes on a straw bed.
First step: Survive the present.
Second step: Gain enough personal strength to protect himself and his future family from common threats.
Third step: Marry. Have children.
Fourth step: Hide.
A week passed before Li Mo was allowed to leave the bed. The wild ginseng his father had brewed, likely costing a significant portion of their meager savings, worked wonders on his weakened body.
During this week, Li Mo played the role of the dutiful, recovering son perfectly. He asked subtle questions, framing them as a boy whose brush with death had made him curious about the wider world. Dashan, perhaps softened by the near-loss of his only heir, was uncharacteristically talkative.
Clearwater Village was under the jurisdiction of Qinglin Town, which in turn answered to the Ironwood City of the Azure Province. But the real power in the rural areas wasn't the distant magistrate; it was the Black Tiger Gang. They collected 'protection taxes' every harvest season. If you didn't pay, they broke legs. If you fought back, they burned your house with your family inside.
"They have martial artists, Mo'er," Dashan had explained one evening, sitting by the fire and polishing his heavy, iron-wood hunting bow. "The Gang Leader, Black Tiger Wang, is said to be a master of the Flesh Tempering realm. Ordinary men, even ten of them armed with pitchforks, cannot scratch his skin. His muscles are like coiled copper wire."
Li Mo had listened intently. Through his father's explanations, he mapped out the initial mortal martial arts realms.
Skin Refining. Flesh Tempering. Bone Forging. Blood Moving. Marrow Cleansing.
Each realm was a massive leap in human potential. A Skin Refining martial artist had skin as tough as cowhide, able to resist blunt trauma and shallow cuts. A Flesh Tempering expert had explosive power and endless stamina. Someone at the Bone Forging realm could shatter solid rock with their bare fists.
"Father," Li Mo had asked carefully, watching the flames dance in the hearth. "You know a lot about martial arts. More than the other hunters."
Dashan's hand had paused on his bow. The large man remained silent for a long time, the firelight casting deep, melancholic shadows across his scarred face. Finally, he sighed, a sound that carried the weight of years of regret.
"Before your mother... before I came to this village, I ran with an escort agency in the provincial capital. I was a junior guard. Reached the peak of Skin Refining. I thought I was something special." Dashan tapped his ruined left leg. "Then we met a real martial artist. A Bone Forging expert from a mountain bandit crew. He killed ten of us in the time it takes to brew a pot of tea. He shattered my knee with a casual kick just because I was in his way. I barely crawled away alive."
He looked up at Li Mo, his eyes fierce and protective. "The martial world is a meat grinder, Mo'er. It eats young men with hot blood and spits out corpses. I brought your mother here to hide. To live a quiet life. And that is what you will do. You will inherit my bow, learn the mountain paths, and live in peace."
Li Mo lowered his head, hiding the sharp glint in his eyes. He agreed with his father's philosophy of hiding, but he fundamentally disagreed with the method. True safety didn't come from ignoring the wolves; true safety came from having a tiger hidden in your backyard while you pretended to be a sheep.
"I understand, Father," Li Mo said softly. "But the Black Tiger Gang still comes. The wild beasts still roam the mountains. I don't want to fight the world, but I want to be able to protect our home. If I had been stronger, perhaps the rain wouldn't have nearly killed me. Teach me what you know."
Dashan frowned deeply, his thick brows knitting together. He stared at his son for a long time. Perhaps he saw a new maturity in the boy's eyes, a calm determination that hadn't been there before the fever.
"It is agonizing work," Dashan warned. "Without medicinal baths and massive amounts of meat to replenish your blood and Qi, progressing is slow and damages the body. I only have an incomplete, basic manual."
"I am not afraid of pain," Li Mo replied, his tone even and resolute. "I just want to be strong enough to survive."
Dashan slowly nodded. He stood up, limped to a loose floorboard near the bed, pried it up, and withdrew a small, oil-cloth wrapped package. He unwrapped it to reveal a thin, thread-bound booklet. The cover was worn, the ink faded, but the characters were still legible.
Iron Wood Body Tempering Art.
"This is an external cultivation method," Dashan explained, handing the book to Li Mo. "It focuses purely on polishing the skin and toughening the muscles through repetitive striking and specific breathing techniques. It is crude, it is painful, and it is a dead end after the Skin Refining realm. But it is all I have."
Li Mo took the manual with reverent hands. To him, it wasn't crude. It was the crucial first stepping stone. It was the seed from which his thousand-year clan would sprout.
"Thank you, Father."
The next day, Li Mo's true journey began.
The Iron Wood Body Tempering Art was, as his father promised, brutally simple. It consisted of twelve specific postures designed to stretch the muscles and tendons to their absolute limits, paired with a breathing rhythm that forced oxygen deep into the blood. The physical aspect required the practitioner to rhythmically strike their own body—arms, legs, torso—with a thick wooden rod to build micro-fractures and callouses, forcing the skin to thicken and toughen in response.
Behind their small hut, hidden from the prying eyes of the village by a dense thicket of bamboo, Li Mo stood stripped to the waist in the crisp morning air.
Thwack. He brought a smooth, thick branch of iron-birch down against his left forearm. The sting was immediate and sharp.
Hiss. Inhale.
He adjusted his breathing according to the manual, imagining the cool morning air traveling down into his stomach and dispersing to the point of impact.
Thwack.
He struck his chest. A red welt instantly appeared.
Within an hour, Li Mo was covered in sweat and angry red bruises. His entire body throbbed with a dull, sickening ache. His lungs burned. The original body of this sixteen-year-old was weak, undernourished by years of eating mostly coarse grains and whatever meager scrap meat his father didn't sell in town.
My talent... is truly garbage, Li Mo thought with a wry, pained smile as he collapsed onto the damp grass, gasping for air.
In the web novels he used to read, the protagonist would practice a crude manual once, experience an epiphany, clear their meridians, and immediately break through to the first realm, shocking everyone.
Reality was far crueler. Li Mo felt no magical energy. He just felt like he had been trampled by a mule. He estimated that at this rate, without expensive medicinal baths to heal the micro-tears and rich beast meat to fuel the bodily changes, it would take him three to five years just to reach the entry-level of Skin Refining.
Five years just to have tough skin, he calculated. By then, I'll be twenty-one. Dashan will be older, his leg worse. The Black Tiger Gang might raise taxes again. I cannot rely on my own cultivation speed to become a master.
He pulled himself up to a sitting position, wincing as his bruised ribs protested.
He closed his eyes and looked inward at the golden sapling in his sea of consciousness. The single root was still there, pulsing slowly.
I am the soil. My descendants are the branches. I cannot grow tall on my own. I need to plant the seeds.
That evening, over a dinner of watery millet porridge and a small piece of salted rabbit meat, Li Mo initiated the conversation that would change the trajectory of his life.
"Father," Li Mo said, putting down his bowl. "The village chief came by while you were checking the traps on the lower ridge."
Dashan paused, chewing slowly. "Old Man Wang? What did that old fox want? We already paid our portion of the grain tax."
"He wasn't here for taxes," Li Mo said, keeping his voice level, perfectly mimicking the slight embarrassment a boy of sixteen should feel. "He came to ask about my health. And... he mentioned his niece. Wang Cui. From the neighboring Willow Village."
Dashan stopped chewing entirely. He set his chopsticks down, his sharp hunter's eyes locking onto his son. In this era, sixteen was prime marriage age. Many boys in the village were already fathers by eighteen. Dashan had delayed bringing it up because of Li Mo's sickly nature and their poverty, not wanting to saddle a girl with a dying husband. But now, the boy had survived his trial, and his eyes held a new, steady light.
"Wang Cui," Dashan muttered, rubbing his bearded chin. "I know of her. Her father is a carpenter. She's a year older than you. Seventeen. Not exactly a village beauty. Broad shoulders, thick waist. Hands rougher than yours."
"The chief said she is strong," Li Mo countered smoothly. "She can carry two buckets of water from the river without resting. She helps her father saw wood. She eats well, but she works harder."
Dashan narrowed his eyes. "And what do you think? Most boys your age are staring at the innkeeper's daughter in town, dreaming of silk dresses and soft hands."
Li Mo mentally scoffed. The innkeeper's daughter? A woman like that in a world like this was a walking calamity for a weak man. She would attract the attention of gang members, arrogant young masters, or corrupt officials. Taking a beautiful wife without the strength to protect her was akin to hanging a piece of raw meat around your neck and walking into a wolf den. It was the antithesis of his entire grand strategy.
"Soft hands cannot weed a field, Father. Silk dresses tear in the briars," Li Mo said, repeating a rustic proverb he had found in the original host's memories. He looked his father dead in the eye, projecting an image of total, pragmatic maturity. "We are hunters and farmers. We need someone who can keep the hearth warm, help process the meat, and bear strong, healthy children for the Li family. Beauty fades. A strong back endures. If the Wang family is willing to accept our meager bride price, I am willing to marry her."
Dashan was stunned into silence. He stared at his son as if seeing him for the first time. He had expected resistance, embarrassment, or foolish romantic ideals. Instead, he heard the cold, calculated logic of a man who understood the harsh realities of survival in the Great Wei Dynasty.
Slowly, a wide, proud smile broke through Dashan's scarred visage. He slammed his large hand on the rickety wooden table, making the bowls jump.
"Good! Good boy!" Dashan laughed, a booming sound that filled the small hut. "You have truly grown up. You see the world clearly now. A strong woman, a stable home. That is the foundation of a good life. I will take two of the finest fox pelts I have saved and go to Willow Village tomorrow to speak with her father."
Li Mo smiled, a modest, dutiful expression on his face.
Inside, his mind was cold, calculating, and looking centuries into the future.
Wang Cui. She would be the First Matriarch. She was sturdy, strong, and capable of bearing multiple children. In an era with high infant mortality and no modern medicine, a physically robust mother was the most critical asset he could acquire.
He didn't need a grand romance. He needed a partner in survival. He needed the first branches of his bloodline tree.
He would treat her well. He would respect her, provide for her to the absolute best of his ability, and protect her. He would be a model husband in this feudal era. But his heart would remain an fortress, focused solely on the long game.
Over the next month, Li Mo's life settled into a grueling, highly disciplined routine that would have broken most ordinary teenagers.
He woke an hour before dawn. While the village was still shrouded in mist and silence, he was behind the hut, rhythmically beating himself with the iron-birch rod, practicing the Iron Wood Body Tempering Art. He learned to embrace the pain, viewing every bruise and callus as a microscopic deposit into his future survival fund.
When the sun rose, he accompanied his father into the foothills of the Black Mountain Range. He didn't just walk; he observed. He memorized the terrain, the medicinal herbs, the tracks of wild boars, wolves, and the elusive cloud-leopards. He learned to shoot the heavy iron-wood bow, his arms screaming in protest every time he drew the string back. His accuracy was terrible at first, but his patience was infinite. He could sit perfectly still in a hunting blind for six hours without twitching, an eerie stillness that even impressed his veteran father.
In the afternoons, he tended their small plot of tenant farmland, weeding, watering, and observing the villagers. He maintained a perfectly unremarkable facade. To the village, he was still Li Mo—quiet, slightly sickly, polite to his elders, and utterly ordinary. He never showed off his martial arts practice. If a village bully bumped into him, Li Mo would apologize and step aside, smiling meekly.
He was practicing the ultimate art of the 'Gou' (cautious/low-key) philosophy. Hide your strength, hide your wealth, hide your potential.
The true test of his resolve came two months later, just as the leaves began to turn the color of rust, signaling the approaching autumn harvest.
Li Mo was in the yard, carefully stretching a rabbit pelt on a wooden frame, when the sound of galloping hooves shattered the peaceful afternoon. Horses were a luxury in the rural areas; their presence meant only one thing.
The Black Tiger Gang had arrived for the autumn collection.
Four men rode into the village square, kicking up dust and scattering chickens. They wore matching black tunics embroidered with a crude, roaring tiger on the chest. They carried heavy, ringed broadswords on their backs and carried themselves with the swagger of men who knew they held the power of life and death over the peasants around them.
The leader was a man with a shaved head and a vicious scar across his nose. Li Mo, watching through the gaps in the bamboo fence, recognized the signs of martial arts cultivation. The man's breathing was long and slow, his muscles dense and visible even through his tunic. He was at least at the peak of Skin Refining, perhaps even half a step into Flesh Tempering. To the ordinary villagers, he was an insurmountable monster.
"Village Chief Wang!" the bald man roared, his voice carrying easily across the square. "Bring out the registry! The Black Tiger requires its due. Ten copper coins per household, or equivalent in grain or pelts! And let's not have any of that 'poor harvest' nonsense this year."
Old Man Wang, the village chief, hurried out of his house, bowing so low his back was nearly parallel to the ground. He was followed by a line of terrified villagers, each clutching small bags of grain, strings of copper coins, or bundles of dried meat.
Li Dashan emerged from the hut, his face grim. He held a bundle of three high-quality wolf pelts. It was a significant portion of their winter savings.
"Stay here, Mo'er," Dashan ordered, his voice low and tight. "Keep your head down."
"Yes, Father," Li Mo said, stepping back into the shadows of the doorway.
He watched as his father limped toward the square, joining the line. He watched as the bald gang member snatched the pelts from Dashan's hands, inspected them roughly, and then casually tossed them into a large sack on his horse. The man didn't even acknowledge Dashan, treating the towering, scarred hunter as if he were invisible.
A younger villager, a hot-headed youth named Er Gou, tried to argue that his family only had five coppers and a sickly chicken. The bald man didn't speak. He simply lashed out with a heavy leather riding crop.
CRACK.
The crop struck Er Gou across the face, tearing the skin and sending the boy spinning to the dirt, blood instantly pouring from his nose and cheek.
"Five coppers is half the tax," the bald man sneered, looking down at the bleeding boy. "So I'll take half your leg to make up the difference." He reached for the hilt of his broadsword.
The village gasped. Women turned away. Old Man Wang fell to his knees, begging for mercy.
Li Mo stood in his doorway, perfectly still. His fists were clenched so tightly his nails bit into his palms, but his breathing remained entirely steady. His face was a mask of placid observation.
He felt a surge of anger, a natural human reaction to injustice and cruelty. But he ruthlessly crushed it down with the cold logic of an actuary.
If I intervene, he calculated rapidly, I am dead. I am not even at the entry-level of Skin Refining. My father might try to save me, and with his crippled leg, he would die too. The village would be burned. The bloodline tree would be uprooted before it even sprouted.
He watched, motionless, as the scene unfolded.
Dashan, unable to stand by, stepped forward and silently placed two more silver coins—his absolute last emergency savings—into the bald man's hand. He bowed his head respectfully. "For the boy's tax, Lord."
The bald man weighed the silver, sneered at Dashan's crippled leg, and spat on the ground near Dashan's boots. "Consider yourself lucky I'm in a good mood, cripple." He kicked dirt over the silver, leaving Dashan to kneel and pick it up, before turning his horse away.
It was a profound humiliation. Dashan, a man who had once fought martial artists, reduced to bowing to a petty gang enforcer and retrieving coins from the dirt.
When Dashan returned to the hut, his face was like thunder, his knuckles white. He expected his son to be outraged, to ask why they didn't fight, to display the hot blood of youth.
Instead, Li Mo poured a cup of warm water and handed it to his father.
"You did the right thing, Father," Li Mo said softly, his voice devoid of anger, entirely calm. "The pelts and the silver can be earned again. Life cannot. Enduring temporary humiliation to secure long-term survival is the highest form of wisdom."
Dashan paused, the cup halfway to his lips. He looked at his son, truly unnerved by the absolute lack of emotion in the boy's eyes. It wasn't the look of a coward who was afraid. It was the look of a predator watching a lesser animal pass by, knowing that its time would come.
"You... you are not angry?" Dashan asked, his voice rough.
Li Mo looked out the window, toward the direction the gang members had ridden off. In his mind's eye, he didn't see the four men. He saw the next hundred years. He saw his future children, heavily armored, practicing high-tier martial arts in a hidden courtyard. He saw his grandchildren commanding armies. He saw himself, sitting beneath the Golden Bloodline Tree, absorbing the power of generations.
"Anger is a luxury for the strong, and a poison for the weak," Li Mo said quietly, turning back to his father. "Today, we are weak. So we smile, we bow, and we survive. But Father..."
Li Mo smiled, and for a fleeting second, it was a smile that did not belong on the face of a sixteen-year-old farmer. It was ancient, cold, and utterly terrifying.
"...they will grow old and die. Their gang will crumble. Their bones will turn to dust. And we will still be here. We will outlast them all."
Dashan shivered, suddenly feeling that the small mud-brick hut was entirely too cold. He didn't understand the depth of his son's words, but he recognized the absolute, unbreakable iron will behind them.
Two weeks later, the autumn winds brought a chill to the air, and a red palanquin carried by four sturdy men arrived at the Li household.
Wang Cui, a girl with broad shoulders, a plain but kind face, and hands calloused from hard labor, stepped out in a simple red dress. There was no grand ceremony, no extravagant banquet. Just the village chief acting as a witness, a few neighbors sharing a cup of cheap wine, and the bowing to heaven, earth, and ancestors.
That night, lying beside his new wife in the small, newly partitioned section of the hut, Li Mo stared up at the dark, thatched roof. Wang Cui was asleep, her breathing deep and even, exhausted from the day's anxieties.
Li Mo closed his eyes and looked into his sea of consciousness.
The Golden Bloodline Tree stood there, silent and eternal. The single root that represented him pulsed with a steady light.
The foundation is laid, Li Mo thought, a profound sense of calm washing over him. Let the heavens scheme. Let the immortals fight over their treasures. Let the dynasties rise and fall.
I, Li Mo, have all the time in the world. The long, hidden journey of the Immortal Ancestor had officially begun.