Autumn, the thirty-seventh year of the Tianqi reign, Great Yong Dynasty.
Blackwind Ridge, Yunzhou, on the northwestern frontier.
At the bottom of a valley beneath a cliff, decaying leaves mingled with mud. The cold seeped into his bones like a venomous snake. Shen Jingchen suddenly coughed up a mouthful of congealed blood and opened his eyes in the endless darkness.
Before him, towering ancient trees blocked out the sky. Wolves howled all around. His brocade scholar’s robe was already shredded by thorns, and a deep slash across his chest exposed the bone, still gushing blood. Every breath tugged at the wound, bringing a tearing pain.
“Water…”
His cracked lips moved as two utterly different sets of memories surged through his mind, engulfing him like a tide.
One belonged to Shen Jingchen of the twenty-first century, a graduate student in history and professional Age of Empires II player. After staying up for three straight nights to compete in the national tournament, he suffered a heart attack. In his final moments, all he could see was the victory screen on his computer.
The other belonged to the original Shen Jingchen, an imperial censor of the Great Yong Dynasty. An upright man, he had been stripped of his position and exiled for impeaching the eunuch faction’s leader, Wei Zhongxian, for forming a clique, embezzling public funds, and breaking the law. On the way through Blackwind Ridge, Wei Zhongxian’s lackeys had ambushed him. His family and servants traveling with him were slaughtered, and he himself was slashed off the cliff, with no chance of survival.
“The eunuch faction… Wei Zhongxian…”
As the memories fused, bone-deep hatred mingled with the piercing cold. Shen Jingchen clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. He could feel the original owner’s dying anguish: the despair of watching his loved ones die before his eyes while he himself suffered wrongful accusations, and his overwhelming rage at this rotten dynasty and its treacherous officials.
But for now, rage was useless.
The cliff face rose sheer and sheer, leaving no way
