In a secluded mountain valley of an unnamed timeline, Yun Lintian sat motionless upon a flat stone. Snow piled upon his shoulders, his hair, his lashes—yet he did not stir.
For three years, he had sat thus.
The accumulated power of Primordial Gods churned within him, their essences resisting assimilation. Golden veins pulsed beneath his skin as he forcibly refined them, one by one, turning stolen divinity into his own strength.
Seasons changed. The snow melted, then returned. Animals came and went, sensing the dangerous aura yet finding the strange man harmless in his stillness.
Then, one winter morning—
A rustle in the undergrowth.
A girl of perhaps twelve stumbled into the clearing, her thin robes tattered, her lips blue with cold. Hunger hollowed her cheeks, yet her dark eyes burned with stubborn will to survive.
Yun Meimei froze when she saw the snow-covered figure.
"A dead cultivator?" she whispered, her breath puffing white.
