He told Qilin that since the time of the First Generation Zhang Qiling, who resurrected Zhang Hai Sheng, a cycle of tragedy had repeated itself endlessly across generations.
The elixir of immortality that King Mu brought back from the Kunlun Divine Palace had a fatal flaw—it violently clashed with mortal bodies, leading to catastrophic side effects. King Mu himself had cultivated the Dao for over a century and had attained a half-divine form, securing his own place among the celestial constellations as the “Owl God.” Though he later fell into corruption and abandoned his path, he still remained far beyond ordinary mortals in nature, allowing him to exist eternally.
But Zhang Hai Sheng was just a mortal man. If he were to ingest the elixir directly, his body would be unable to withstand the backlash, and he would die from the internal turmoil of his own blood.
In his desperation to resurrect Zhang Hai Sheng, the First Generation Zhang Qiling ventured into the depths beyond the Bronze Gate. He used the power of the Ultimate Being to recall Zhang Hai Sheng’s lost soul and employed the elixir to prolong his life. To counteract the backlash of the immortal medicine, he sealed the revived soul within a fallen-jade sarcophagus, stabilizing the fusion of spirit and flesh.
But this process carried immense risk. The Ultimate Land beyond the Bronze Gate was filled with demonic beasts, lethal miasmas, and venomous insects. Any external interference during the resurrection and fusion process could lead to horrifying mutations.
Zhang Hai Sheng’s revived body absorbed a small amount of the toxic miasma, turning him into a “Poison Man.” Any living being that came into contact with him would be poisoned and rapidly wither away—even the First Generation Zhang Qiling, an ageless spirit beast, was not immune.
To stay by his beloved’s side, Zhang Qiling pretended to be completely resistant to the poison, leading Zhang Hai Sheng to believe that as long as he avoided contact with others and remained only with Zhang Qiling, everything would be fine.
But eventually, Zhang Hai Sheng discovered the truth—Zhang Qiling’s body was slowly weakening. He had begun to secretly vomit black, poisoned blood.
Unable to accept that he had become a living toxin, Zhang Hai Sheng took his own life with Zhang Qiling’s black-gold blade on the hundredth day after his resurrection.
Unable to bear the loss of his lover for a second time, the First Generation Zhang Qiling’s heart shattered, and he perished from the poison as well.
Years later, King Mu of Zhou discovered a young boy among the descendants of the Zhang family who was born with a natural Qilin tattoo. By the time he reached the age of twenty, he had completely grown into the likeness of Zhang Qiling—thus becoming the second-generation Zhang Qiling. From that point onward, every generation of Zhang Qiling was born with the Qilin tattoo, and their physical appearance would remain frozen at the age of twenty, never aging or withering. Their lifespan ranged between two hundred and three hundred years.
It seemed that Zhang Qiling had fulfilled his wish to reincarnate as a human, yet he could never escape the fate of love. Each time Zhang Qiling fell in love with a human, the person would die young—never living past the age of thirty-five. Furthermore, every Zhang Qiling was entrusted with the key to the Bronze Gate—the Ghost Seal Dragonfish Jade. Without exception, each generation chose to walk into the Bronze Gate in an attempt to resurrect their beloved. The outcomes were eerily similar—some failed in the resurrection process, their souls dissipating into nothingness, while others succeeded, but at a cost. The revived individuals suffered various mutations, turning into inhuman creatures unfit to exist in the mortal world.
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