I transmigrated to the Three Kingdoms era and became a minor clerk in Xudu, tasked with writing Cao Cao’s daily records.
Political intrigue? War? No, my story is a historical mystery.
Xun Yu summoned me late one night and pointed to the bamboo slips recording Liu Biao’s case. “He keeps saying he dreams of black ropes coiling around him, and hands reaching up from a well to drag him down. What does it mean?”
I broke into a cold sweat, because those symptoms were exactly like those of a prisoner I had written as “dead.”
Just then, Sima Yi sent over a secret letter. It contained only one line:
“Court historian, do you still dare to put pen to paper and alter the ledger of life and death?”
And I had just discovered that the prisoner who was supposed to have died at Guandu was standing outside my door. His eyes were vacant as he whispered:
“My lord, the ‘escape to my hometown’ you wrote for me… that path to survival never existed.”
[Warning: Every time you put pen to paper, you feed the “madness” of this age.]
