Chapter 01

The space, utterly devoid of light, stretched out around him, giving the illusion of infinity. The scholar dimly knew it wasn’t truly that vast, but it mattered little. He couldn’t move anyway.

[Greetings.]

A voice emerged from the darkness, sudden and unexpected. There shouldn’t have been anyone else here.

Yet, the scholar tried to answer. He was not in his right mind; his reason had been stripped away, and all he could manage was to cling to the frayed edges of his consciousness.

“Cough, cough.”

He wanted to ask, Who are you? but it was physically impossible. There was no way for him to form a reply. A bitter smile touched the scholar’s lips.

[It’s quite all right. I can hear your voice.]

How?

The scholar tried to shape the sound, but the tongue that was now nothing but a stump was regrettably incapable of producing the satisfying clarity of language. All that escaped was a pained, unintelligible gurgle that no one could possibly understand.

[There, there. No need to force yourself to speak. I’ve been watching you ever since they tore out your tongue.]

The question of how the voice could read his mind never even occurred to him. He was too broken for such thoughts—mentally and physically.

[Hmm, it was hardly a pleasant sight to behold. A pair of red-hot tongs dug in and ripped your tongue right out. You let out some kind of scream before you fainted.]

Contrary to the gruesome words, the unidentified voice was light and cheerful. It wasn’t the tone of someone who reveled in the scholar’s suffering; it simply seemed to be its natural way of speaking.

I can’t… I can’t see.

The scholar fumbled his gaze toward the direction of the voice, only then realizing he couldn’t see. He had likely come to this realization several times before, and just as many times, he had forgotten it again. Though he was in a deep cavern, a sufficient amount of light did filter in. It was just that…

[Have you forgotten? Those eyes of yours, once filled with such mystic depth[1], were pierced and plucked out by a fire-heated iron skewer.]

Did… that happen?

The scholar tried to raise a hand to touch the empty sockets of his eyes, but he had no fingers. In fact, his left hand was gone from the wrist down. Puzzled, he asked the voice.

By any chance, did you see where my hands went?

The voice, still dignified yet carrying a cheerful echo, answered him.

[Those delicate fingers of yours, which had never known a day of hard work, were snipped off, one by one, by a pair of shears. But don’t you worry. They were kind enough to use red-hot shears, just for you.]

What he was supposed to not worry about, he couldn’t fathom.

Thank you for answering.

The scholar staggered, trying to rise from his spot, but he had no legs. After tilting his head with great effort, he asked the voice.

Do you happen to know what took my legs?

[A fodder-cutter[2] claimed your two slender legs. And since you don’t remember, I’ll tell you: they started with your toes, carving them off one by one, methodically. It took three days for them to sever your ankles, ten to reach your knees, and a full fortnight to carve away your thighs.]

Is that so?

The scholar tried to summon his past memories, but the effort sent a splitting pain through his skull. The only small mercy was that he could, however faintly, recall something of it.

…I think I remember something of it. Then, do you perhaps know what became of my family?

[Oh dear. You were so busy being tortured that you haven’t heard any news of your family, have you? Come to think of it, you’ve been in this prison for quite some time.]

Now that it was mentioned, a dim awareness surfaced that he had indeed been confined for a very, very long time. As the scholar was fumbling through his thoughts, the voice continued.

[Your eldest sister was beaten to death by her husband. He didn’t stop until his fists had turned that lovely face of hers to pulp.]

What…?!

The scholar was aghast.

My brother-in-law’s temperament is notoriously fierce, but he is the head of a family renowned for being just and honorable[3]. How could such a man beat his own wife to death so brutally?

The voice clicked its tongue.

[How foolish you are. If you, the eldest son of the family, claim ignorance, who else could possibly know the affairs of your house?]

The scholar asked in a rush, Then, my younger sister. What happened to my younger sister?

[She was violated by a band of lewd brigands, after which she bit off her own tongue and took her life.]

What are you talking about?

The scholar couldn’t comprehend it.

My second sister was a swordmaster[4], second to none among the rising talents of our generation. How could she possibly fall to mere brigands?

[How dim-witted. How long has it been since her Danjeon was destroyed? Of what use was a cycle’s worth of internal energy[5] and her polished sword techniques¹¹ then?]

The scholar shook his head again, violently.

And what about my family? Even if my second sister had lost her internal energy, it’s impossible that the family wouldn’t have protected her.

He struggled to grasp the memories that flickered at the edge of his mind.

My family was a great house, with no rival that dared to challenge its authority in all the Central Plains. How could the second daughter of such a family fall prey to common thugs?

The voice remained unmoved.

[How foolish. You mean to tell me you didn’t know? How long has it been since your family was shattered to pieces? What family was left to protect her?]

…Exterminated[6]?

What did that mean? A wave of dizziness washed over the scholar, and he tried to clutch his head, but he had no hands.

I may have been nothing more than a scholar who found his joy in reading books day after day, shut away in a small room, but my family had my younger brothers. Their brilliant intellects and formidable martial prowess were famed throughout the entire continent. And standing behind them like a fortress wall were our legions of peerless warriors. How on earth could this have happened?

[How frustratingly dense. Truly, how dense you are. How can you feign ignorance of what happened after you left to become a son-in-law living with his wife’s family[7]?]

The voice berated the scholar fiercely.

[Are you truly unaware that those very brothers you praised waged a bitter war of fratricide to seize the position of family head?]

I didn’t know. I didn’t know any of it.

The scholar shook his head wildly.

[Is that so? You truly did not know?] the voice asked again, its tone heavy with meaning.

The scholar couldn’t understand. He was just an ordinary scholar. His entire life was a simple affair, spent whiling away the days reading in a small room. An occasional stroll to tend the garden, paint a picture, or play an instrument was the extent of his pleasure.

[Is that so?] the voice repeated, its tone making it clear it didn’t believe a word.

…Of course.

He couldn’t even begin to fathom why someone who had lived so benevolently was now trapped in a place like this. And this torture? All he had ever done was live his life with peace as his guiding virtue.

[A prodigy of your caliber was unaware of what was happening in your own family while you were there, and what would unfold after you left? You mean to tell me you couldn’t foresee the ultimate outcome?]

The voice was now openly mocking him.

The scholar pleaded, his voice choked with a sense of injustice.

I truly did not know. I swear it. How could a mere commoner like myself possibly know such things?

Something tickled the edge of his mind, a thought that almost formed but never quite materialized.

Who was he?

What had he done with his life?

Faint memories brushed past him, but they were like phantoms, vanishing the moment he tried to grasp them. With death already seeping into his marrow, the scholar’s mind no longer worked with its former brilliance.

[Is that so?]

The voice grew low and chilling. It was as if it could see through every lie, as if it were dissecting his entire life piece by piece. The voice was relentless, backing him into a corner.

[Is that truly so? You, who could see a thousand li ahead without clairvoyance[8], you, who could perceive a thousand days into the future without any supernatural power.²⁰ You are truly telling me you did not know?]

I didn’t know. I didn’t know! I told you, I didn’t know!

The scholar was in turmoil. How could any person possibly do such a thing? To sit in one place and see the workings of the world as clearly as the palm of one’s own hand? What an absurd ability. That was the talent of a prodigy of the ages, one possessing a divine wisdom and a god-like foresight.

The voice spoke again, its tone low and deliberate.

[And was that person not you?]

‘That’s impossible. Surely you’ve mistaken me for someone like Zizhang or Changqing?’

Zizhang and Changqing were none other than the courtesy names for Sima Qian and Sun Wu.

[Zizhang and Changqing?]

The voice let out a booming laugh.

[Compared to you, do you not realize that Sima Qian and Sun Wu were merely a historian and a strategist, respectively?]

Hearing this, the scholar felt his consciousness begin to fade. Sima Qian was the man who left behind the work known as the Shiji[9], hailed in this land of the Central Plains as the ‘Father of History.’ Sun Wu was the great mind who dominated the Spring and Autumn Period,[10] defeating the mighty state of Chu and elevating the strategic vision of all who studied the art of war.

Perhaps it was because he hadn’t spoken in so long.

You rank me, a simple commoner, higher than those great figures?

Slowly, the fog in the scholar’s mind began to clear.

[I ask you,] the voice said, and with each exchange, bit by bit…

[When was it that you aided your mother in organizing and condensing hundreds of medical texts, publishing them in twenty-five volumes?]

The scholar calmly dredged up the memory.

…Perhaps, that was when I was four years of age.

[When was it that you submitted your written remonstrance to the Emperor, leading to the proclamation of a new agricultural method?]

That was when I was five years of age.

[And when was it that you read the heavens and observed the weather, predicting a great drought and advising that relief grains be stockpiled in advance, thereby saving millions of common folk from starvation?]

That was when I was six years of age.

As the conversation continued, the scholar’s dim memories began to resurface, growing clearer with each passing moment. After some time, the voice asked once more.

[Do you remember now?]

The scholar had to admit it.

Yes.

The truth was, he had known all along.

After leaving his family home to become a live-in son-in-law, he had never once paid any mind to the news from his clan. Yet, he knew it all as if he were looking at the palm of his hand. Ordinary people knew that a fratricidal war would break out, but they could not know its outcome.

But he had known. He had seen the result of it all.

Everything. In every last detail.

Without a single exception.

He knew that they would all meet a miserable end.

He knew that his family, once so vast and powerful, would fall to ruin.

He knew all of it.

And he had let it all happen.