Trouble stirs once more in Jiuzhou City. After the Night of Ruin, he spent sixteen years in seclusion at a desert waystation. He traveled a thousand miles to the border, where he became sworn brothers with a prince amid a bloody battle. He escorted the prince to the imperial capital to contend for the throne, only to be caught in a deadly power struggle between the empress and the Nine-Thousand-Year-Old. The mission failed, his brother was imprisoned, and his beloved was torn from him.
Ten years later, he rides back. His mission is complete, but his brotherhood is over. He unfastens his sword and lays it before the city gates, then vanishes into the desert sands.
A wild goose passes over a cold pool, leaving no reflection. What he set down was not a sword, but an obsession.
