Book Title: A THOUSAND LI: THE FIRST STEP
Character Name: Long Wu Ying
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Blessed, for the most part, if harsh. There were no major droughts, no wars that affected us in a major way and our teacher was blessed in his knowledge of the rigors of immortal cultivation. Training with my father before we worked the fields every morning and in the evening was hard, and I could – would – wish for more, but I am not blind to the privileges our family received because my father was a reliable guard against bandits and demonic beasts.
What is your greatest talent?
I often feel like a frog looking up the well, not understanding how wide the sky truly is. In my village, before we left, I would have said my martial talent. Outside of my father, I was the most gifted in martial matters. Then, I came to the Verdant Green Waters sect to study the path of cultivation to become an immortal being and realized, that compared to many here, my martial talent was nothing. If anything, I would say that I am willing to work hard, beyond most of the nobles and scholars here who have had a life of opportunity gifted to them.
Significant other?
Who has the time? I see the suitors chase after my martial sister, Fairy Yang, and note that many are poor cultivators. I have only one chance to make a name for myself here, and pursuing a relationship would wreck those plans.
Where do you live?
These days, in the outer sect with all the other outer sect members of the Verdant Green Waters in a cell that seems luxurious, since it’s my personal one but most others complain about. Not everyone, of course, because the outer sect does have others drawn from other classes, but many do not last long due to the end-of-year tournaments. The sect is no place for the lazy.
Do you have any enemies?
I do not think I’m worthy of having an enemy, but if I had to pick someone, it would be Wen Yin Xue. He’s always made my life more difficult. Why a Lord’s son feels challenged by a farmer, you would have to ask him. It is my poor luck that he has joined the sect as well.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly attached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
The Verdant Green Waters sect is an opportunity, and I am not foolish enough to turn it down. Yet, I feel conflicted about my presence here. The prospect of cultivating to immortality means leaving the life I had envisioned for myself behind – my friends, my family, my future. Instead, I’m thrust amongst nobles and scholars, poets and apothecarists and told to cultivate and fight for my place in the heavens.
Yet, immortality is a tempting fruit; as is the power to change one’s fate.
What do you do for a living?
As an outer sect cultivator, I run errands for the sect. A large organization like this has many needs, and outer sect cultivators fulfil them. Everything from cooking, cleaning, washing the flagstones or running errands are necessary. At the same time, these duties are but a necessity, our greatest role is to improve our cultivation base to ascend towards immortality. We are but at the base of a very high mountain, and have many, many steps to ascend before achieving the peak.
Greatest disappointment?
How petty so many here are. One would not think that with our shared goals, the focus would be on this near-impossible task, but matters of status and respect seem more important to some than the process of cultivation.
Greatest source of joy?
My new friend, Liu Tou He. The meat-eating ex-monk is as much an outcast as I am here, though he draws less trouble. It is hard to bully one so kind, even for the fools here. Though I believe that kindness is as much a trained behavior as a matter of natural personality.
What do you do to entertain yourself or have fun?
Again, with what time? Though, I am grateful I find the martial training to be enjoyable in the sect. I am improving my sword work all the time, if for no other reason than because I have new challengers to test myself against.
What is your greatest personal failing, in your view?
It would be good to have a few inches more of height. It would help with so many things, including the measure in my lunge.
What keeps you awake at night?
Failure. Not just at achieving immortality, but shaming my family and the village by losing out on an opportunity that so few are given.
What is the most pressing problem you have at the moment?
Understanding my dao, my own path to immortality. Understanding what steps I must take, to climb this mountain, to defy the heavens and make a small part of the Dao my own, to embody that concept fully such that I might become it and achieve the next step.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Everything is within my grasp, if I can climb higher in the sect. Achievement benefits the village, provides food and money and aid to my family, perhaps even cultivation pills to help my parents extend their lives. I can achieve immortality, but to do so, I must have a good cultivation manual, I must find enlightenment. And that last part, it cannot be forced; only experienced.
Why don’t you have it? What is in the way?
If I understood the Dao, then I would already have achieved immortality; would I not? Great sages struggle to grasp such a boundless concept; what hope is there that a teenage farmer to do the same? I can only work hard, do what I can and hope for the best.
Thousand Li #1
In a spectacular world of immortals, spirit beasts, and mystical martial arts, the young farmer Wu Ying’s life will be changed forever when he is unexpectedly invited to join an elite school of cultivation.
Now with a bonus story exclusive to this print edition!
It is said that a journey of a thousand li begins with a single step. . . .
Long Wu Ying never expected to become a real cultivator, never dreamed of having the chance to train and develop wondrous martial arts skills and magic of his own. As a farmer’s son in a rural village, his days were spent studying, planting rice, and spending time with his friends. Fate, however, has different plans for him.
Conscripted into the army and taken from everything he knows, Wu Ying’s chance observation of an incoming ambush prevents a bloody rout—and brings him to the attention of the powerful Verdant Green Waters sect, an elite school of cultivation. Invited to join the sect as a novice, Wu Ying is thrown into a world he is utterly unprepared for, one filled with demonic beasts, haughty nobles, and, most of all, the very real possibility of reaching immortality—if he’s brave enough to seize it.
Action | Fiction Adventure | Fantasy Epic [ Ace, On Sale: March 10, 2026, Hardcover, ISBN: 9798217188420 / ]
Tao Wong is the author of the A Thousand Li progression fantasy series and the System Apocalypse LitRPG series, among others. His work has been released in audio, paperback, hardcover, and ebook formats, and translated into German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and several other languages. He was shortlisted for the UK Kindle Storyteller Award in 2021 for A Thousand Li: The Second Sect. In 2026, the first three books in the A Thousand Li series will be republished in hardcover by Ace Books.
When he’s not writing or working, he enjoys practicing martial arts, reading, and dreaming up new worlds. He lives in Toronto, Canada.
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