Chapter 3
Chapter 3: Searching the Heart
The drivers hadn’t been exaggerating. Three days after leaving the post station, the official road bent into layered forest.
At midday, sunlight spilled through gaps where leaves interlocked, scattering gold across the ground.
But in the early morning or late evening, the canopy swallowed most of the light. The road became dim as dusk, even at noon.
The convoy moved through that darkness, tense and cautious. With bandits rumored nearby, even the guard martial adepts didn’t dare let the children climb down to rest.
Two drivers took turns on every cart. They pressed on for four or five straight days, until the animals foamed at the mouth, before they finally reached the outer region of the Royal Capital.
The moment they emerged from the forest, the world opened.
Zhao Chun could only stare. The city wall stretched as far as the eye could see, a barrier rising from the plain as if it had grown there naturally. The main gate soared toward the clouds, its shadow large enough to swallow the convoy of nearly 2,000 people whole.
The gate stood open. On either side, the Black-Armor Army lined the passage in rigid formation, faces solemn, eyes forward.
Ping Yang and He Dong were among the farthest commanderies from the Royal Capital. Once they entered the city, Zhao Chun learned they were the last to arrive.
“Now that everyone is here, I’ll return to report,” the purple-robed Master said. Zhao Chun still didn’t know his name, but she’d heard Pang Zhen call him Master Zhuang. “This selection by the Ling Zhen Sect temple is a major event for Chu Kingdom. Rest for two days. When the gathering is about to begin, someone will deliver the order.”
Master Zhuang spoke with warmth and smiles, even when addressing children.
Zhao Yue believed it meant he was simply gentle by nature. Zhao Chun didn’t. Neither did Zhao Mian, nor the Wang sisters. His courtesy was too careful, as if he feared something unseen.
Zhao Chun and Zhao Mian were bewildered. The Wang sisters, though, looked as if they’d just gained firmer footing for some private conviction.
Pang Zhen escorted Master Zhuang out of the courtyard, then turned back and ordered their lodgings arranged.
The Royal Capital was vast. Tens of thousands of children had been summoned for this selection. Pang Zhen and the Wang Family commander had worried for days about where they would stay.
They needn’t have. Once inside the city, they discovered everything had already been prepared. All they had to do was carry their bundles in.
The Zhao and Wang households were placed side by side, separated by only a courtyard wall.
No sooner had Zhao Chun finished unpacking than a voice sounded at her door.
Wang Yi Jiao. “Your two sisters don’t want to be chosen,” she said. “What about you? Do you want to go?”
She was the same age as Zhao Chun and loved books too. They had that in common. Of all the people Zhao Chun had met on the road, Wang Yi Jiao was the easiest to talk to.
Even so, the girl wore contradictions like jewelry—half-disdain for Zhao Chun’s low status, half-admiration for her broad knowledge. Their friendship always felt faintly off-balance.
Zhao Chun folded the last of her clothes into the wardrobe and turned. Wang Yi Jiao had already made herself comfortable, sprawled in a chair as if she owned the room.
Zhao Chun nearly laughed. At heart, she was still just a little girl.
“I do,” Zhao Chun said. “I can’t walk the martial path. Entering the temple is a way out.”
“That’ll be difficult.” Wang Yi Jiao arched her brows dramatically. “My mother says a lot of people came just to show their faces. If you’re truly chosen… you’ll have blessings you couldn’t finish enjoying in a lifetime!”
She lifted both arms and drew a huge circle over her head, as if measuring the size of those blessings.
Zhao Chun’s attention sharpened. The Wang sisters had been coy on the road, but Zhao Chun had still learned one key thing: the current Commandery Governor of He Dong had married into a noble house in the Royal Capital.
A clan rooted under the Son of Heaven’s eyes might know secrets others couldn’t even guess at.
“What blessing could be greater than reaching the second layer of martial arts?” Zhao Chun asked. “My brothers are all hoping they’ll fail the selection so they can go back and make up their training.”
Wang Yi Jiao clicked her tongue and grabbed a bunch of grapes from the table. “It’s not the same.
“My mother also said…” Her voice dropped. She leaned forward, shoulders hunching conspiratorially. Zhao Chun tilted her head closer.
The next words hit like thunder beside her ear.
“Those who are chosen can cultivate the Dao and become immortals.”
When Zhao Chun was four, she’d heard people boast that one of her brothers could toss a thousand-pound cauldron like a toy. She’d laughed then, certain it was nonsense.
Later, she watched Instructor Zheng twist a bronze jar into a spiral with her bare hands. Only then did she understand what it meant to be ignorant.
Now, at 10, she was being told there was a path to immortality.
It sounded absurd—and yet her heart couldn’t help believing a little.
What startled her more was her own reaction. She didn’t feel the wild yearning she expected. Not quite.
“How can that be real?” she said slowly. “Even martial grandmasters aren’t said to ascend.”
“Believe it or not, my brother was brought to the Royal Capital last year,” Wang Yi Jiao whispered. “He stays beside the Abbot. They even complained he was too old.”
She snorted, then added quickly, “He’s only 15. When he left, he was nearly at the Third Martial Layer. One day he might even surpass Father. And still the family sent him.”
By then, Zhao Chun believed it seven parts out of 10. She kept her face smooth and only smiled. “Then there must be a better road ahead for him.”
Wang Yi Jiao’s lashes lowered. She didn’t look pleased. “Whether it’s better or not, it’s his road. What does it have to do with me?”
“Is he unkind to you?”
“It’s not that.” Wang Yi Jiao hesitated, searching for words. “It’s just… something’s missing. Something feels wrong.”
She dropped her chin onto the table, cheeks squishing against the wood.
Dusk spilled through the window, washing the small room in amber. The light seemed to drape her in a weary melancholy.
Zhao Chun wasn’t good at comforting anyone. Several lines rose to her tongue and tangled there. None came out.
“Zhao Chun,” Wang Yi Jiao said quietly.
“Hm?”
Wang Yi Jiao turned her head, pressing her cheek flat to the polished tabletop. “Do you think my relationship with my sister is good?”
Zhao Chun sat beside her. “Compared to my household? You two are already doing well.”
They were full sisters, raised together. That kind of closeness was worlds apart from Zhao Chun’s situation, where you might not even recognize your own siblings on sight.
In her previous life, Zhao Chun had been an only child. She didn’t know how siblings were supposed to fit together. And after arriving here, she’d kept herself distant from everyone in the Zhao Family.
For a moment, she missed her parents—and realized with a jolt that their faces had begun to blur. Already. In only 10 years.
One day, everything from her first life would peel away entirely. It would be reshaped into a new “Zhao Chun,” someone who belonged to this world, not the one she came from.
The thought should have made her numb. Instead, something in her went strangely clear.
It felt as if a barrier that had covered her since birth suddenly cracked and fell away.
Nothing changed in the room. Nothing changed in her body. And yet she felt, unmistakably, more real—more present—than she ever had.
They didn’t speak again. Dusk deepened in the quiet.
Wang Yi Jiao left soon after, using the late hour as her excuse. Zhao Chun sat alone, staring at nothing.
Outside, the wind stirred leaves into soft rustling. Zhao Chun flinched, blinking herself awake, understanding something she’d never named.
All these years, she’d been avoiding this world. She’d treated her life here as a long dream she would eventually wake from.
Training, ambition, safety—every choice she made was anchored to one secret desire: to return to her original world.
That was why she kept herself apart. Why she never let herself grow too close. Why she refused to let anything become something she might miss.
The thing that had kept her from fitting here wasn’t the world. It was her.
When that inner barrier broke, she finally lived as Zhao Chun.
She lay back on the bed and felt a calm she’d never known.
Under that calm, though, something else churned—an unnamed fear.
Luck couldn’t hide her forever. She had to face this strange world head-on. And if the road ahead veered away from everything she understood, then all she could do was step onto it anyway.
On the third day, just past the fifth watch, an order arrived at their door.
It was called a gathering, but the Ling Zhen Sect temple had given it an elegant name: the Banquet of Longevity. They’d set up a ritual ground in the Royal Capital large enough to seat nearly 100,000 people.
Zhao Chun entered with the convoy. Twenty children shared each great table, and once everyone sat, it still didn’t feel cramped.
From the high platform, Zhao Chun looked out over a sea of heads swaying left and right. The noise was a living thing, a roaring tide.
Her ears were nearly numb when a voice rang out above it all—loud, commanding, and absolute.
“Silence!”
The clamor died as if someone had cut a cord.
Children stared up at the platform, bewildered. People from the Royal Capital remained calm, as if this was expected. But the visiting martial adepts went pale.
Tens of thousands filled the grounds. The farthest tables stood nearly two miles from the platform. To project a voice that far by sheer human power was almost unimaginable.
It felt like the work of a Divine Immortal.
So it begins, Zhao Chun thought.
This world that worshiped martial warriors was about to be overturned.