As It Was Before

People are always transformed by time. How much more so those whose bones have been scorched by hatred, whose bodies have been buried beneath the ashes of a fallen nation, who have wallowed in the mire of political schemes and had their throats cut by the blade of love?

The years carve the marks of hardship between their brows, grind calluses into their palms, and wrap even their laughter in the dull sound of calculation, turning them into strangers unrecognizable to those around them.

Yet if you brush aside the bloodstains and dust, something at their core should remain as it was: the unchanging moonlight on the walls of the Liang Qin palace, the wind snapping against Ye Wudao's battle flag, the lingering warmth of the words they spoke when they first met: “We must defend this land.”

In the fourth year of Jianxing under the Great Wu, Liang Qin, once at the height of its power, suddenly collapsed, its reign brought to an end. The death of the God of War, Ye Wudao, was even more mysterious, like a broken sword tempered in riddles and driven deep into a crack in history, provoking questions from generations to come. A group of geniuses, each destined to shine on their own and with no ties to one another, were unexpectedly brought together by this calamity. From their initial wariness and probing to their eventual willingness to live and die for one another, they would gather around the fire on cold nights, its glow reflecting off their bloodstained hands. And then, at some moment, they would suddenly pause: the light in that person's eyes was still just as it had been at their first meeting, still wishing to see the moonlight of Liang Qin shine upon the world once more.

Along a path where their fates were entwined, they became people even they could no longer recognize amid wind and rain. Yet with every glance they exchanged, they saw deep in each other's souls that spark which should always remain as it was.