The history books say that Mu Tianbo, Duke of Qian, died for his country when the city fell, his loyalty and heroism remembered for all time.
Only I know the truth:
That poisoned cup was meant for me.
On the night Kunming fell, Qing soldiers stood at the gates, armed with blades and axes.
I knelt before my father, waiting for the Mu family’s final act of dignity: a cup of poison, a noble death, and a place in the history books.
But with trembling hands, he pushed the cup toward me.
“Liang’er, live on in my place...”
In that moment, my world collapsed.
He had taught me to die for my sovereign, yet he was also the one forcing me to live in disgrace.
He took the poison and killed himself, using his own body to clear a path to life for me.
And I had to bear his name as a “loyal hero,” living like a stray dog no one could afford to see.
From heir to a duke to “Number Seven” in a labor camp, I had my head shaved, ate slop, and crawled through heaps of corpses.
Then, deep in the underground passage, I discovered the real last words my father had left behind.
As it turned out, both his “death” and my “survival” were part of a performance for the whole world.
Beneath that stage lay a secret the Mu family had dared not speak of for three hundred years.
