A blood-red dynasty where flashing blades mingle with the scent of ink, and two lives are bound together across time and space
After falling off a cliff, Xiao Han, a modern special forces soldier, opens his eyes to find himself a "corpse" floating in a river in the Great Zhao Dynasty. Lu Mingji, a frail scholar, drags him back to a shabby study and spends his last half-string of copper coins on medicine. One is a blade forced to remain in a strange world; the other, a lonely official burdened by a blood feud. Watching Lu Mingji cough up blood as he copies out a petition, Xiao Han is suddenly reminded of the comrade he lost. In this cruel world, someone has to carve a way through.
He teaches refugees to reclaim wasteland using military tactics, reforges broken blades by quenching them in vinegar, and turns the Censor's carriage into a mobile evidence vault. Meanwhile, Lu Mingji sinks deeper into the deadly struggle left behind by the previous dynasty. His accusations against corrupt officials cut to the bone, and even on the torture rack in the secret prison, he smiles at Xiao Han. "If I die, will you be my blade?"
When the imperial examination scandal reveals the mystery of a bloody edict from twenty years ago, and the Hidden Scale Guards' undercover agent is betrayed by a close friend, Xiao Han grips Lu Mingji's bloodstained official robe amid a rain of arrows. "I'll cut a path through this court for you, but you are not allowed to die." The other man catches his wrist in turn, the blaze that could engulf the heavens reflected in his eyes. "What I want has never been a comrade-in-arms."
The clash of cold steel and hot blood, the battle between political intrigue and true feeling:
The blade will eventually rust, but the bright moon will hang forever in the dark sky.
