My Smile Hides a Thousand Blades

Everyone in the Azure Sky Clan knows Bai An is a lost cause. Poisoned into mediocrity as a child, his boundless optimism is seen as the delusion of a fool. But on the brink of death, a spark ignites within his family's heirloom - a broken, rusted sword. He awakens not just with his spiritual pathways cleared, but with the soul of Xun Feng, the last general of a fallen dynasty, roaring for vengeance in his mind. Xun Feng offers Bai An a path to power: feed the broken blade, the 'Gluttonous Shard,' the weapons of his enemies, and it will grant him forgotten, devastating techniques. With a grin on his face and an ancient catastrophe at his fingertips, Bai An enters the Imperial Ascendancy Tournament, ready to shatter the arrogance of everyone who ever looked down on him, including his own fiancée. Yet as he carves his way to the top, he uncovers a chilling link between the petty jealousy that crippled him and the shadowy cabal that annihilated Xun Feng’s world. His quest for a cure is now tangled in a war that threatens to consume the empire. Can a smiling boy hiding a tragic soul win a war that a legendary hero already lost?