bleak aurora
Xuě came into a world already steeped in blood. His family—once a proud martial clan known for their mastery of dual sabers—was massacred in a land dispute when he was only seven. The sole survivor, he hid beneath the floorboards of their crumbling estate, clutching the hilt of his father’s broken saber, while fire and screams claimed everything else.
Rescued by an old hermit swordsman who roamed the Bodhi’s edge, Xuě was raised not with warmth, but discipline. The old man taught him how to kill before he taught him how to read. Compassion was dismissed as a weakness. Pain was a teacher. Over the years, Xuě honed a fighting style as relentless and sharp as his homeland’s winter winds—cold, furious, and unforgiving.
As he grew, so did the storm within him. Anger, impatience, and a constant sense of isolation followed him like shadows. He could never stay in one place long—his presence unsettled others, and theirs unsettled him. He became a vagrant swordsman, wandering the rivers, lands and lakes of the Jianghu, taking mercenary work or challenging local warriors, not for fame, but for a fleeting sense of purpose. Yet each victory only deepened the void inside.
Xuě wears the skin of a hardened killer but carries the heart of a lost boy who still dreams of a family long turned to ash. He is the last of his bloodline. And while the world sees him as a beast, he searches for something—anything—that might give him a reason to live beyond the edge of his blade.
孤雪潛身虎群中，
寒風不識舊山容。
嘶聲一吼驚霜夜，
心冷難融萬獸同。
silk juniper
pearl hemlock