His theories and achievements, which took a lifetime of agony to complete, had been dismissed in less than five days by Ye Xian's paper, deemed worthless.
Even so, he never gave up, continuing his inquiries until today.
Numerous tragedies, tortures, and failures
had virtually filled Duan Mu's life.
Any single episode could have crushed anyone else, but he had trodden over all of them, surmounted everything. Now, he was a master above tens of thousands, an epitome of a late bloomer.
But nobody knew how much Duan Mu hated the term "late bloomer."
How much he hated himself.
And his meager talent, far from sufficient above, barely adequate below.
"That year, when I met you during the Master's assessment, I knew that one day you would reach heights that I could have never foreseen in my lifetime.
I've felt that way till today."