The North Wind Rises over Xianyang

The Son of Heaven of Zhou huddles in a corner of Luoyi, counting the tiles on his ancestral temple to pass the days. The banners of Han and Wei have faded to pallid white, and moss creeps over the palaces of Yan. Only four giant beasts bare their fangs across the scorched earth:

King Huai of Chu raises the Heavenly Questions as his battle flag. Zhaohua's scheme of sowing discord drenches the gates of Yue in blood. When King Xuan of Qi swallows Yan's lands in the north, he still wears a hint of benevolence at the corner of his mouth. King Wuling of Zhao's reforms of adopting Hu clothing and mastering mounted archery eventually become the cries of four hundred thousand wronged souls at Changping.

And Ying Ji sits in the shadows of Xianyang Palace, rubbing a sheathedless sword.

He rubs it for fifty-six years!

Long enough for Wei Ran to grind the territories of the Six States into a chessboard, for Fan Ju to carve "ally with distant states and attack nearby ones" into the marrow of the warring kingdoms, and for Bai Qi to build a staircase from a million heads. With every step the god of slaughter takes, another bronze nail is driven into the coffin of the Zhou dynasty.

Ritual and music? Long since scattered by the winds of Hangu Pass.

In this world, only one thing matters now:

A bloodstained sword.

Behold the Pole Star of Xianyang, suspended in a blood-red dusk!

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.