During the Xuande reign of the Ming dynasty, Wu Ya of the Embroidered Uniform Guard is ordered to hunt down the remnants of the White Lotus Society, only to become entangled in a dragon-slaying conspiracy spanning two hundred years.
His Dragon Scale-forged Embroidered Spring Saber tears out the heart of his own twelfth reincarnation;
The ink in the Ministry of Revenue’s registers is crawling with soul-devouring demons made from generations of ministers;
Through the coin holes of Jingtai-era cash, he glimpses the fate of emperors and ministers reduced to puppets of taxes and labor levies.
“A Dragon Warden doesn’t slay dragons. He slays the human heart.”
When the Ziwei Emperor Star is forged into a prison by the Yongle Encyclopedia, and the stench of copper from the Taicang Silver Vault becomes a miasma blotting out the sky, Wu Ya grips his rust-stained Dragon-Slaying Blade and meets Bai Xiu, both enemy and friend, in the rifts between reincarnations.
She is a traitor to the Pavilion of Heavenly Secrets, the embodiment of Jianwen’s dragon aura, and the “demoness” he has personally slain in every life.
Between the six realms of reincarnation, who is a pawn, and who holds the scales?
From the theft of the Yongle Encyclopedia to the Wanli Single Whip Reform, from the underground mausoleum at Xianling to the witchcraft-ridden seas of the Southern Ocean, this gamble with the empire as its board and all living people as its stake was laid long ago:
The Qing Fu Merchant Guild’s bronze scales weigh the fate of the nation, the icy edge of Kunlun’s frost cultivators points straight at the Emperor Star, and the sharpest blade of all is the “tax and labor register” barely mentioned in the history books.
“What you need to slay has never been the true dragon. It’s this world, rusted to the bone.”
When Wu Ya breaks the final seal on his Embroidered Spring Saber, its blade reflects not an enemy chieftain, but a snowy night in Liaodong in the tenth year of Wanli.
The one who plunged a blade into Bai Xiu’s chest was none other than himself, reincarnated a thousand times over.
