Chapter 1: The Boy
Dark clouds layered the sky, hiding the golden sun. The whole world was silent.
The indifferent wind shuttled fiercely, throwing the birds and insects around, as the weak flowers and grass trembled on the ground, just before the mountain rains came.
In the dense forest of ancient trees, a figure shuffled through, targeting a black lion running ahead.
The speed of the black lion wasn't anything to scoff at, but the figure was faster. When the figure was six or seven feet away from the black lion, its right arm raised and violently waved forward. A half-foot long piece of black iron caught up with the lion and emerged from its back into its forebelly, nailing the lion to the ground.
The black-scaled lion roared and struggled, but could not pull out the black iron spear that had been nailed to the ground through his body. Its breath was getting weaker and weaker. At this time, the figure approached the black-scaled lion. It was a boy in coarse linen clothes. The boy had a pair of clear eyes, his black hair draped behind his head and a silk cloth covering his face. A childish look was masked underneath.
Looking at the defeated black lion, the boy shook the spear in both hands, carried the lion behind him and turned away.
If people saw this scene, they would be shocked. The black lion was a large beast, weighing several hundred kilograms. An ordinary adult hunter, even a team of hunters, would dare not provoke it, but now the boy had easily killed the lion.
Lightning flashed across the sky, and the rain poured down like a torrent. Fortunately, the boy had arrived under the protection an ancient tree.
"The weather isn't good today. Thankfully, there's a harvest." The boy looked at the black-scaled lion's paw on his shoulder and murmured in a low voice.
After the rain stopped, the boy, carrying the body of the black lion, turned towards a direction and hurried forward.
An hour later, a small village appeared before the boy's eyes.
"Ye Shang is back!" The children playing in the village saw the boy appear and shouted loudly.
"Call Uncle Niu to divide up the black-scaled lion meat!" The boy laid down the body of the black-scaled lion, pulled out a knife from his waist, took off a lion's leg and then left.
The children's eyes were filled with worship as they watched him walk away.
In the village, a man couldn't go hunting until he was fifteen years old. Even when he reached fifteen years old, he could only go out with the village's hunting team. But Ye Shang was only fourteen years old. He even had more than a year of hunting experience. Every time he returned with a full load.
The ordinary village was called Zhuyuan Village. Around forty or fifty families resided within the village, all living by hunting. When they see Ye Shang, all of the aunts greet him warmly.
Greeting everyone, Ye Shang came to the west end of the village where his home was. His house only had two residents. Ye Shang and his father.
"You have come back!" Ye Shang's dad raised his eyelids and said hello.
"Daddy, I'm back." After greeting him, Ye Shang went to light a fire to cook the back legs of the black lion.
Because there were only two people in the family, Ye Shang had cut off only one leg of the black lion and took it back, the rest was distributed to the villagers.
The two were father and son, but not with the same surname. Ye Shang was an orphan picked up by the old father, who was the head of Zhuyuan Village.
"Daddy, you haven't finished your last story yet. Who won the final battle between the Protestant Church of the Holy Light and the Nandoumen women?" He lit the fire and roasted the black lion's hind legs, asking, his face full of curiosity.
"It was game where both sides won and both sides lost. Wipe your face first." His dad came to the fire and handed a towel to Ye Shang. After traveling through the woods in the rain, his hair and face were drenched.
In the evening after the storm, the weather was somewhat cool. The wind blew a cluster of bamboo plants in the yard swinging from side to side. The swaying fire reflected the face of the father and his son
"You're interested in this?" Old Dad looked at Ye Shang.
Nodding, Ye Shang continued to turn over the lion's legs on the fire.
In the silence, his dad knew that Ye Shang wanted to go out in the world and become a martial artist, but Ye Shang was unwilling to let himself go out because the world was filled with danger.
"Well, how much do you know about the outside world?" father sighed.
The nine regions and eighteen states were vast, millions of miles stretched one region to another. Nobody knows how huge they really were. After all, a normal person couldn't walk in one region for their lifetime.
There were dangers present everywhere in the vast mountains and great rivers. Beasts and monsters ran rampant, and there even existed ancient beasts, which were the hegemony in the mountains and forests. Even those who cultivate themselves as practitioners of martial arts dare not easily provoke them.
Zhuyuan Village was located in a remote area in the north of DongXuanZhou, thousands of miles away from the nearest town, and thousands of miles away from the Jade Valley of XiuZongMen.
"That also means changing our lives and the status quo. Doesn't it mean that if we can join a good clan, we will be blessed? If we become blessed, the tragedy of before can be avoided." Ye Shang sighed and thought aloud.
Some time ago, the village of Zhuyuan was attacked by a monster and suffered heavy losses. The village lost three good hunters. Finally, it had to rely on the old father and the village.
Looking at the thinking of the old father, Ye Shang did not continue to speak. He knew the character of his father, he agreed then he agreed, if not then it was useless to continue to speak.
After eating, Ye Shang returned to the West House of the three bamboo houses, where his rome was located. This was the characteristic of Zhuyuan Village. The houses in the village were all bamboo buildings, which was very rare in the vast barren mountains and rivers.
It rained fast and short in the deep mountains. Looking out at the stars in the sky through the cracks in the bamboo wall, Ye Shang thought of his father and his viewpoint on him leaving.
Unable to sleep, Ye Shang sat up and put on his coat walking towards the back of the bamboo house. There were two solitary graves behind it.
Looking at the lonely grave, Ye Shang's fingers brushed his ribs, where there was a fierce scar.
According to Old Dad, when father went hunting he found Ye Shang. The two people in the solitary grave had died, and steel knives were inserted through their ribs. The only reason Ye Shang had survived was because his knife was slanted a little missing his vitals.
The stone tablet above the grave had the words Ye Family. This was the name old father saw engraved on tokens on the two dead people. There was also a jade card carved with the characters of the Ye Family on the neck of the orphan.
Touching the stone tablet, Ye Shang bit his lips, knowing that the reason he could live was not only because of the old father, but it also had a lot to do with the people in the grave.
Nearest to Death, this was the origin of Ye Shang's name.
"It seems that it's hard to get rid of your thoughts. I had wanted to make you live in Zhuyuan Village safely and steadily. Like everyone else, you would marry a wife, have children, live to be old and die sick. But after all, you are not the offspring of ordinary people." Old dad patted the dead shoulder and sighed.
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