Faceted Jade a.k.a Carven Jade [ENG Translation]

PROLOGUE

The small tavern by the Reincarnation Bridge received a strange guest in the late winter of the year of Guihai.

Wearing a golden cirrus pattern ink-black robe, with a golden guān on his head and a small golden fan in his hand, he appeared abruptly in the barren land together with his attendant.

The snow had accumulated to a depth past his knees that day due to the heavy snowfall. He appeared quite frail, with a pale face and trembling hands and feet, yet he persisted in trudging through the snow and moving forward against the blizzard.

They continued to walk for a while until the young man in black entered the tavern, appearing to be physically exhausted.

The young man's complexion appeared to be slightly improving when he raised the curtain and entered the tavern, where heat was pouring out of it. When he looked up, he saw that the hall was packed with people gathered around a platform where a storyteller was standing and thoroughly recounting folktales. Everyone in the crowd appeared to have already heard the stories he was sharing, and those who were drinking and chit-chatting paid him no attention at all.

While they were dressed in finery and looked stunningly handsome, the two made no sound when they walked through the door, and nobody even noticed that they had entered.

Among the throng, they made their way to the innermost table, where they took a seat. The attendant poured tea for the young man and then left to fetch some spiritual food. Then, appearing a little sleepy, the young man sat on one side, leaned his head against the wall, and gently closed his eyes to recuperate.

"As demonic cultivation becomes more prevalent, Yunze's spiritual energy is dwindling. Huayang Jun is said to be sustaining the spiritual energy right now, but I wonder how much longer he can last."

There were murmurs in the crowd about current affairs, with a tone of concern in their voices. The storyteller on the platform, however, was describing with great passion the times when Yunze was in its prime: "Back then, the grass and trees in the Immortal Realm of Yunze were lush, the spiritual energy was abundant, and there were countless righteous cultivators. Many mortals climbed mountains and traversed rivers to come to Yunze."

"A child by the name of Qin Yan was among them. He travelled across the sea with his mother to Yunze in search of immortality during the year of a severe drought and other natural disasters."

The young man in black, who had been recuperating, opened his eyes slightly when he heard the name "Qin Yan".

The storyteller was talking about the "Biography of Sui Yan", a long-standing folk tale.

The legendary Sui Yan MoJun was the main culprit behind the devastation of the living souls in Yunze today.

He used to be Jiang Yebai's chief disciple, the Hongmeng Heavenly Palace's leader, and the most promising future successor of the Hongmeng Heavenly Palace. However, he killed his master and betrayed his sect, opened the Karma Prison covertly, built the Immaculate Palace, and became a demon lord of his time.

Nearly twenty years of bloodshed between the righteous cultivators and Qin Yan culminated in an attack on the Immaculate Palace led by Huayang Jun-Fu Changling, who managed to capture Qin Yan alive and bring him to the judgement platform, where he was dismembered to death.

This was a past that everyone in Yunze was familiar with, and no one liked to listen when the storyteller talked about it. "Sir, you should stop talking about this same old stuff and tell us something we haven't heard before," a youngster sitting under the platform finally said, appearing to be annoyed by the storyteller's noise.