One Slash Shatters the Stars

When six-year-old Ye Wufeng was tackled by another child, the square pendant around his neck cut into his skin.

Blood seeped into the patterns in the metal, which glowed a deep blue beneath the moonlight.

When the thugs from the Wild Wolves Gang stole the last half-sack of millet, his grandfather held down his bloodied fist with all his might.

"That pendant... You'll understand when you grow up." In the old man's clouded eyes, the fresh grave in the dunes was reflected.

The condemned people of the Northwest had been trapped for two thousand years. The prophesied savior had never come.

On the night Ye Wufeng's blood soaked the pendant, a blue light unlike any flame shone for the first time at the edge of the desert.