“Shang...”

“Shang...” At the very top and center of the altar, an old man in a purple robe sat cross-legged. His face was covered in wrinkles and mottled with brown spots. He muttered as he opened his eyes, but they were dull and lifeless—clearly, he was blind.

In front of him lay a complete spine, emitting a chilling white glow. In his right hand, he held a stone shard, which hovered above the thirteenth vertebra.

His hollow eyes silently gazed at the sky. After a long, long time, he let out a deep sigh.

“Tell King Yu... I have done all I can...”

As he spoke, his right hand, holding the stone shard, began to move again along the strange spine, scraping against the beast bone and producing a crackling sound that echoed into the distance. His figure appeared desolate, merging with the sound, exuding a sorrowful sense of loneliness and decline.

“As the Man Gong of the Great Yu Dynasty, the world I see is one you cannot...”

“You... cannot see...”

“Hope...”

Volume One: If Only Life Were as It Was at First Sight

Chapter 1 James Walker

The mountain was a green mountain.

A vast, unending range stretched out like a dragon’s spine across the boundless land, filled with abundant vegetation and the constant calls of birds and beasts echoing through the air.

From afar, the protruding parts of the range formed five peaks, like five fingers reaching up to grasp the sky. On a large, sunken rock midway up one of the peaks, a young boy leaned in the shade. Beside him sat a woven basket, filled with herbs that gave off a rich medicinal fragrance, curling around him.

The boy had delicate features, but his body was thin and frail. He wore a small shirt sewn from animal hide, and around his neck hung a circle of white crescent-shaped beast bones. His hair was a bit messy, tied casually with a grass rope.

He sat there, holding a book made of more than ten pieces of animal hide stitched together, reading with relish, shaking his head as he read.

“The barbarian tribe has ancestors, who created the heavens and mankind, passing down through countless generations... Those who possess the barbarian power are called barbarian warriors, able to fly through the sky, burrow into the earth, move mountains and overturn seas... With barbarian markings that reach the heavens, one can pluck the sun, moon, and stars...” As the boy read, he sighed.

“Without a barbarian body, how can one become a barbarian... Barbarian warrior... Barbarian warrior... James Walker, you can only gather herbs and become an ordinary healer in the tribe. To become a barbarian warrior who cultivates the barbarian way is a distant dream.” The boy mocked himself, put down the animal hide scroll, and gazed blankly at the distant world.

He had read this animal hide scroll countless times—if not able to recite it backwards, he was close.

“The sky is round, the earth is square, boundless and endless...” James Walker murmured, his mind imagining the world described in the scroll. Unknowingly, dusk was falling, and at the edge of the sky, dark clouds could be seen looming in the distance.

The mountain wind that blew in carried a dampness, falling on the leaves and grass, making a rustling sound.

The moment he saw the dark clouds on the horizon, James Walker suddenly perked up.

“Grandpa’s prediction was right—there really is black dragon saliva today!” James Walker’s eyes shone brightly. He quickly stood up, stuffed the animal hide scroll into his chest, grabbed the woven basket with his left hand and slung it over his back. With a nimble movement, he seized a grass rope beside him and began climbing toward the mountaintop.

From a distance, though the boy’s body looked frail, he burst forth with remarkable strength. Like a monkey, he leapt several times and climbed more than ten zhang in an instant.

The dark clouds rolled in, thunder rumbling as if the wrath of heaven was descending upon the mountains. The clouds connected sky and earth, pitch black and growing ever closer.

At this moment, James Walker climbed even faster. Almost as soon as the dark clouds spread, he had already reached a spot about several dozen zhang from the summit. There, a huge protruding boulder, seemingly formed by nature, was hollow inside with countless fist-sized holes. The whole rock resembled the head of a giant python coiled and fused with the mountain peak.

Beneath the strange rock were conical projections like fangs, looking quite alarming and bizarre. Because it jutted out from the mountain, it was almost suspended in midair and extremely difficult to climb—unless one could fly.

James Walker gripped the rope with his left hand, took a small bottle from his basket with his right, and held it in his mouth. He slowly shifted his body in the opposite direction of the strange rock, moving several zhang so that the rope in his left hand slanted. Then, hooking his fingers into the cliff, he pressed his body close, raised his head to watch the dark clouds, his eyes bright and unmoving.

Moments later, the clouds covered the sky, thunder roared deafeningly, and wild winds raged, as if the mountains themselves would be uprooted. In the midst of the gale, James Walker’s fingers gripping the cliff turned white, but he did not move a muscle. His eyes, fixed on the sky, shone with determination.

The wind grew ever fiercer, whipping the vegetation on the mountains so that the sound was like a giant beast’s roar. Countless dead branches and leaves were swept up, filling the sky and earth, all swirling madly.

Even large pieces of dead wood and small animals were caught up, spinning and flung far away. Their shrill, tragic cries were drowned out by the howling wind.