A Solitary Shadow Over the Realm

A discarded pawn on the board, yet determined to overturn the entire game!

Shen Yan, the illegitimate son of the Minister of Revenue, has astonishing talent but humble origins, leaving him no choice but to serve as a low-ranking officer in Chang’an’s Imperial Guards. While impartially enforcing the law, he arrests the prime minister’s son for assaulting someone in broad daylight. It is a satisfying act of justice, but it also earns him the enmity of a powerful figure who dominates the court. A single order of banishment sends him off like a discarded shoe to the frontier of Guazhou, where yellow sand billows and northern horsemen lurk.

Shen Yan thinks this is the end of the road, the result of political infighting. But in his desperate situation, he discovers that it is all part of an elaborate game laid by his unfathomable father, Shen Youzhi! His banishment is no punishment. It is a way to quietly send this “discarded pawn” into the eye of the storm, the Hexi Corridor, where he can shake the foundations of the empire. His father means to use him to plant the seeds of upheaval in this power vacuum, far from Chang’an.

But Shen Yan has no intention of remaining a blade in someone else’s hand forever. The humiliation of being treated as a pawn and the blood and tears of the frontier soldiers ignite the wildfire lying dormant in his heart. He sneers and tosses aside his father’s chess manual. “I, Shen Yan, will play this game myself!”

In wind-lashed Guazhou, he becomes a demon of slaughter. He crushes all opposition with ruthless force and throws dazzling sums of money at the Guiyi Army to pry open its closed gates, forming the Divine Might Army, which answers to him alone. He outmaneuvers the wily governor, Wang Wei, and stains his blade with blood to establish his authority. He also treads carefully as he maneuvers between the scrutiny and manipulation of Zhang Huaishen, the Guiyi Army’s formidable leader. Every step is perilous, and every decision could mean life or death.

From using the Guiyi Army to establish a foothold, to gradually sidelining it and bringing it to heel, he ultimately brings it completely under his command