It's rare for a man to live to seventy, as the old saying goes. Elder Zhao was eighty-two today. He had lived long enough; even if he were to die now, he would have come out ahead.
He never expected that now, when he should have been enjoying the bliss of a large family, his sons would die one by one before he did.
He crawled toward the Crowned Snake, which held its head high, radiating a monstrous Killing Intent. The approach of death brought him no fear or terror. 'Perhaps if I die,' he thought, 'this can all come to a perfect end.'
With every inch he crawled, scenes from the past flashed before Elder Zhao's clouded eyes. The people and events of his life rose and fell like a roller coaster.
Fifty years ago, Zhao Changmin's family—he was not yet Elder Zhao then—hired an elementary school teacher to tutor his son. She wasn't a local but had come from out of town. She was as beautiful as a flower, with an elegance as subtle as a chrysanthemum's.
