Author: Never Known Cold in All My Life (平生未知寒)
Chen Chao dreamt of becoming a powerful immortal cultivator, flying on his sword and vanquishing enemies with daoist magic. His hopes were dashed when he discovered that he had absolutely no talent for immortal cultivation. Refusing to submit to his fate, Chen Chao joined the ranks of countless other talentless martial artists and embarked on the path of martial cultivation, a path scorned by the immortal cultivators. In this era of strife where martial cultivators, immortal cultivators, and demonic cultivators wrestled for hegemony, Chen Chao will either rise to the top or fall into eternal damnation.
It tells the story of Gu Min, a handsome young man, who flees Yingdu to head for Dishan Mountain, thousands of miles away, in search of a path to cultivation. On the way, he chances upon a beautiful sunset. As he thinks of the delicious food in Yingdu and feels tired enough to fall asleep, an unexpected incident suddenly occurs. A woman in white appears, injured—she exudes an otherworldly, immortal aura yet looks flustered. Gu Min responds cautiously, and the woman feels slightly relieved upon sensing that he has no aura of a cultivator.
When the young man held up his sword, he once said with a smile: "Though heaven and earth are vast, I need but a single sword." And this single sword’s aura stretched for ninety thousand li. The Most Contented Under Heaven mainly tells the story of how Confucianism and Taoism plotted to trigger a great war between the swordsman lineage of the mortal world and the Demon Land. This war led to the decline of the swordsman lineage, allowing Confucianism and Taoism to rule over the land and suppress the swordsmen. Six thousand years ago, all sword immortals of the swordsman lineage perished. Liu Xiang, the strongest sword immortal, was originally the most powerful being in the realm. However, in his pursuit of the path to immortality, he split his own being into two, causing his combat strength to plummet drastically and eventually leading to his fall. Six thousand years later, Chao Qingqiu emerged from the swordsman lineage. His combat strength surpassed that of Liu Xiang from six thousand years ago, and he could attain immortality by splitting open the heavenly vault with his sword. In the story, when Chao Qingqiu split open the heavenly vault for the first time, it sowed internal conflicts within Confucianism and Taoism. It also caused Ye Changting, a sword immortal from a thousand years later in the river of time, to travel against the current and appear in the mortal world. After splitting open the heavenly vault for the second time, Chao Qingqiu ascended to the Upper Realm, where he killed a longevity-seeker who had reached the peak of mortal Dao. Having learned many truths about immortality, he no longer desired to become an immortal. Thus, he returned to the mortal world from the heavenly vault and slew two saints and one great demon there.
