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Chapter 1
— — —
Chapter 00.
In the Beginning, There Was a Meeting
— — —
“Exit light,
Enter night.”
Metallica, Enter Sandman, 1991
.
Part 1 Prologue
— — —
The dark space, devoid of a single point of light, created the illusion of stretching out infinitely.
The scholar vaguely knew that the space was not actually that large, but it did not matter.
He could not move anyway.
[Greetings.]
A voice had suddenly rung out from within the darkness.
There was no reason for anyone to be here.
Yet, the scholar felt compelled to answer. He was not in his right mind.
His reason had been lost.
Maintaining a faint, flickering consciousness was all he could manage.
"Cough, cough."
He wanted to ask who it was. But that was physically impossible. There was no way he could have replied.
The scholar gave a bitter smile.
[It is fine. I can hear your voice.]
'How?'
The scholar tried to form words, but his tongue, now reduced to a mere root, could not produce language with any satisfying clarity.
Only agonizing, guttural sounds that no one could understand leaked out.
[My, there is no need to force yourself to speak. I have been watching you ever since they tore your tongue out.]
The question of how this entity could read his mind did not even occur to him.
He was too broken to think such thoughts. Mentally and physically.
[Hmm, it was a sight not easily watched with pleasure. A pair of red-hot tongs pulled your tongue right out. You shrieked in agony before losing consciousness.]
Contrary to the words, the mysterious voice remained light and cheerful.
It did not seem to be a tone that enjoyed the scholar's suffering.
It simply seemed to be the way it spoke.
'I... I cannot see.'
The scholar looked around toward the direction of the voice, only to realize that he could not see.
In truth, he must have realized this many times before.
And many times, he must have forgotten it again.
Although he was in a deep cave, there was enough light filtering in. It was just that...
[Have you forgotten? Your eyes, once filled with profound mystery, were pierced by red-hot iron skewers.]
'Was that... so?'
The scholar tried to raise his hand to touch his eyes.
But he had no fingers.
His left hand was missing even up to the wrist.
Puzzled, he asked the voice.
'Did you happen to see where my hands went?'
The voice replied with a tone that was still grave, yet carried a pleasant resonance.
[Your fair fingers, which had never known a day of hard labor, were snipped away by shears. Do not worry. They used red-hot shears for your sake.]
He could not understand what he was not to worry about.
'Thank you for answering.'
The scholar tried to stand up, staggering.
But he had no legs.
Tilting his head with great difficulty, the scholar asked the voice.
'What took my legs?'
[Your slender legs were taken by a guillotine. For your sake, since you cannot remember, I shall tell you: they were severed one by one, starting from the toes. It took three days to reach the ankles. Ten days to sever the knees. And fifteen days to reach the thighs.]
'Is that so?'
The scholar tried to recall the past, and he felt a headache so intense it felt as if his head would shatter.
Yet, the fortunate thing was that he could, however faintly, bring back his memories.
'…I think I am beginning to remember. Then, do you know what became of my family?'
[My, you were so busy being tortured that you did not even hear news of your family. Now that I think of it, it has been quite a long time since you began living in this prison.]
Come to think of it, he felt he could faintly recall that he had been imprisoned for a very long time.
As the scholar silently sifted through his thoughts, the voice continued.
[Your eldest sister was beaten to death by her husband’s fists until her fair face was reduced to a pulp.]
'How could that be...?!'
The scholar was startled.
'My brother-in-law’s temperament is known to be fierce, but he is the head of a clan renowned for being upright and honorable. How could he beat his own wife to death in such a horrific manner?'
The voice clicked its tongue.
[How dull. If you, the eldest son of the clan, do not know, then who could possibly know the affairs of your house?]
The scholar asked in a rush.
'Then, my younger sister. What became of my younger sister?'
[She was raped by bandits and bit her own tongue to take her own life.]
'What are you talking about?'
The scholar could not understand.
'My second sister was a swordswoman who would be second to none among the rising generation. How could she be defeated by mere bandits?'
[How dull. It has been a long time since her Dantian was rendered useless; what use are sixty years of internal energy and honed sword arts then?]
The scholar shook his head violently once more.
'And my clan? Even if my second sister lost her internal energy, there is no way the clan would not have protected her.'
He grasped at the memories struggling to surface.
'My clan is a great house that had no equal in this Central Kingdom. How could the second daughter of such a clan be defeated by mere bandits?'
The voice did not budge.
[How dull. Did you not even know that? It has been a long time since your clan was utterly destroyed; where is the clan left to protect her?]
'…Destroyed?'
What did that mean? The scholar tried to hold his head, which was being overcome by dizziness.
But he had no hands.
'Although I was merely a scholar who lived for the joy of burying myself in books in a back room, I had younger brothers who shook the entire continent with their brilliant intellect and magnificent martial prowess. And there were elite warriors following those brothers like a folding screen; how on earth did this come to pass?'
[How frustrating, truly frustrating. Why do you pretend not to know what happened after you, the eldest son of the clan, left to become a son-in-law?]
The voice pressed the scholar fiercely.
[Do you truly not know that the brothers you praised engaged in a fratricidal war to seize the position of Clan Leader?]
'I did not know. I truly did not know.'
The scholar shook his head wildly.
[Is that so? Do you truly not know?]
The voice asked back with a meaningful tone.
The scholar could not understand.
He was nothing more than an ordinary scholar.
Living his days reading books in a small room was all he did.
Occasionally tending to the garden, painting, or playing an instrument was the extent of his joys.
[Is that so?]
The voice asked back, as if it did not agree with the scholar's thoughts in the slightest.
'…Of course it is.'
He could not understand why he, who had lived so benevolently, had ended up trapped in such a place.
And such torture, at that?
He had lived his life holding peace as his virtue.
[A genius like you—are you saying you did not know what was happening while you were in the clan, what would happen to the clan after you left? And that you did not know what the final outcome would be?]
The voice was now openly mocking the scholar.
The scholar pleaded his innocence.
'I truly did not know. It is the truth. How could I, a mere commoner, know such things?'
Something felt as if it were on the tip of his mind, but it would not surface.
Who was he?
What had he lived for?
There were faint, passing memories, but they were like phantoms that vanished whenever the scholar tried to grasp them.
The scholar's mind, where death had already reached the marrow, did not function with its former brilliance.
[Is that so?]
The voice became low and chilling.
As if it could see through everything, as if it were peering into every detail of his life, the voice persistently and tenaciously drove the scholar into a corner.
[Is that truly so? You, who could see a thousand miles without the Heavenly Eye, you, who could foresee a thousand days ahead without divine power. Did you truly not know?]
'I did not know. I did not know. I am telling you I did not know!'
The scholar was confused.
How could any person exist who could do such things?
To see the world turning from where one sat as if looking at the palm of one's hand.
Was that not an absurd ability?
It was a talent possessed only by an ancient genius with the divine intellect of a master strategist.
The voice spoke again, low and steady.
[Is that not you?]
'That cannot be. Have you not mistaken me for someone like Zizhang or Zhangqing?'
Zizhang and Zhangqing were none other than the courtesy names of Sima Qian and Sun Wu.
[Zizhang and Zhangqing?]
The voice laughed heartily.
[Do you not know that compared to you, Sima Qian or Sun Wu are nothing more than a mere historian or a mere strategist?]
Hearing those words, the scholar felt his mind go faint for a moment.
Sima Qian was the man who left behind the *Records of the Grand Historian*, a great figure called the "Father of History" in this Central Kingdom.
Sun Wu was the great figure who dominated the Spring and Autumn period, crushed the powerful Chu state, and elevated the perspective of those who practiced the art of war.
Perhaps it was because they had been talking for a while.
'You rate me, a mere commoner, higher than such great figures?'
The scholar's mind was slowly clearing.
[I ask you.]
As the conversation continued, little by little.
[When was it that you helped your mother organize and summarize hundreds of medical texts, publishing them as twenty-five volumes?]
The scholar calmly recalled the memory.
'…Perhaps, that was when I was four years old.'
[When was it that you submitted a memorial to the Emperor with brush and paper, leading to the proclamation of new farming methods?]
'That was when I was five years old.'
[When was it that you read the stars and observed the weather, predicted a great drought, and had grain stockpiled for relief, preventing the starvation of millions of people?]
'That was when I was six years old.'
As the conversation continued, the scholar's faint memories began to revive, and as time passed, they became clearer.
After a long conversation, the voice asked once more.
[Do you remember now?]
The scholar admitted it.
'I do.'
In truth, he...
...had known everything.
After becoming a son-in-law and leaving the main family, he had never once paid attention to news from them.
However, he knew everything as if he were looking at the palm of his hand.
Commoners knew that a fratricidal struggle would break out, but they did not know the outcome.
But he knew the result in its entirety.
Everything. Every single detail.
Without a single thing missing.
He knew that everyone would meet a miserable end.
He knew that the massive, powerful clan would collapse.
He knew all of that, yet—
He had left it all to its fate.
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