The current Confucian Saint was nad Lu Anx, with the courtesy na Chengping. One hundred nineteen years of age, he was born during the reign of Prince Xiao of the Anx Dynasty. Originally an ordinary Confucian scholar, he had inherited a Cultivation Technique after offering aid to a gravely wounded Knight he encountered while traveling to the capital for the imperial examinations.
Lu Chengping’s Talent was rely average, and at first, he wasn’t serious about practicing Martial Arts. He treated it only as a ans to bolster his stamina and aid his studies. After all, he was singularly focused on poring over the classics by candlelight, his goal to cultivate the self, bring order to the Anx Country, and establish peace in the world—not to be so solitary Martial Artist, a brute who did nothing more than swing a three-foot sword.
With his academic talents, Lu Chengping had faith that he could beco an Advanced Scholar. He would serve the nation, act with benevolence toward the people, govern a swath of land, and beco a good official beloved by all... or at least, that’s what he thought at the ti.
That year was the Second Year of Yongning. Prince Xiao had not long passed, and the new Emperor was restoring order to the court, calling a special examination to select the talented and recruit scholars. Lu Chengping bid farewell to his wife, who had only recently given birth, and to their young child and his elderly mother. After reverently lighting incense and kowtowing several tis in his ancestral hall, he set off on his journey.
Along the way, he felt that sothing was quite strange. For one, nearly all the traffic on the roads was headed for the Southern Celestial Capital, with almost no one traveling in the opposite direction. Moreover, squads of the Black Armored Imperial Guard patrolled the checkpoints and docks along the route, as if they were overseeing sothing.
At the ti, Lu Chengping was still a scholar, his Martial Arts Cultivation was poor, but he could still sense that the mbers of the Forbidden Army all had a rather strange ’qi’ about them... ’How should I put it?’ It wasn’t quite human. This qi was more like that of a plant, and it exuded a strange, faint sense of danger.
Back then, Lu Chengping’s mind was not as sharp as it is now, nor did he possess Heart-Eye Clarity. Though he felt sothing was amiss, he still boarded the official ferry to begin his journey by water to the Southern Celestial Capital. ’This so-called danger I’m feeling is probably just the imposing might of the Governnt Office,’ he reasoned. ’After all, who isn’t afraid of armored soldiers?’
Since it was a ferry operated by the Governnt Office, there were naturally Imperial Guards on board. The atmosphere on the vessel was exceptionally strange; both the crew and the guards watched the passengers with odd, smiling eyes. They were enthusiastic in a way that was unlike the crew of a typical governnt ship. He, however, assud it was simply preferential treatnt for scholars heading to the examinations and felt quite pleased with himself.
Until that day.
"I’m so thirsty."
On the day the Southern Celestial Capital was finally visible in the distance, Lu Chengping heard an Imperial Guard let out an incredibly strained voice, as if he could no longer hold back. "No, I’ll just have one... Just one!"
When Lu Chengping heard this, he almost let out a soft laugh. ’These martial brutes really have no self-control,’ he thought. ’Can’t even endure a simple craving... But what is it he wants to eat? A piece of fruit?’
As he lightly pondered the question, he saw it. The Imperial Guard, his voice growing hoarser and stranger, lunged at a nearby rchant, threw open his mouth, and sank his teeth into the man’s neck!
RUSTLE—Vines whipped through the air and roots spread. The rchant tried to scream, but his breath was gone in an instant. As Lu Chengping stared in utter horror, the rchant’s body writhed, his flesh and blood instantly shriveling until he was nothing but skin and bones. The Imperial Guard’s aura surged, then slowly began to transform into Wood Qi, dissolving into the world around them.
What followed was a frenzy. "Zhang the Second had one, so let’s eat too!" "As long as we deliver the right number, no one will care if we sneak a few." "Eat! Let’s eat! Hahaha!"
Lu Chengping’s mory of how he escaped that ferry, a vessel teeming with malice and murderous intent, and made his way back to his hotown in a daze, is hazy. He only knew that even when he unleashed his power with all his might, he couldn’t kill a single one of the Demon Soldiers. His escape had been a desperate, clumsy affair; they simply couldn’t be bothered to chase him into the water, loosing a few arrows from afar before letting him go.
’This can’t be happening. The world is descending into chaos!’ Lu Chengping was overco with terror as he traveled ho in disguise. He saw signal fires burning in the towns along his path. He saw squads of n with that sa strange aura storming into cities, their arrival followed by the sounds of slaughter and wailing. Even a fool could see that the tis were changing. But why? Why would the world, after three generations of peace with no external enemies, suddenly be thrown into turmoil? The sacred classics had never taught this.
He did not understand.
Worried sick for his elderly mother, wife, and young child, Lu Chengping raced howard. But his own two feet were far too slow. He could only curse himself for having disdained the Martial Dao, for never bothering to properly study Qinggong. ’But what good was regret now?’
By the ti he reached his hotown, it had already been reduced to a field of burnt-out ruins.
Corpses, rubble, charred bones, scattered limbs, shattered fragnts of skulls that had been hacked apart or stomped to pieces... How could Lu Chengping not know what had befallen this once-prosperous town? He just couldn’t believe it. Howling in anguish, Lu Chengping ran to his own ho, which had also been reduced to rubble. He dug through the collapsed tiles and stonework with his bare hands. He didn’t want to find anything. He wanted to find nothing, so that he could lie to himself, tell himself that they had escaped, that they weren’t...
But he found them.
Two female bodies, charred black and shriveled from extre heat, and, tossed carelessly in a corner, the tiny remains of a child, seemingly crushed to death.
’Who did this?’
More than seventy years have passed, and the mory of that mont remains etched in the mind of the now white-haired Lu Chengping. ’When a ruler leads beasts to devour his people... he leads beasts to devour his people!’ Only then did he truly understand the words once spoken by ncius.
His family was destroyed, his nation was annihilated, the dynasty was dead, and the world was draped in white mourning. To whom could he now offer all the knowledge he had amassed? What, then, did it an to cultivate the self, bring order to the Anx Country, and establish peace in the world?
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