Watching a Game of Go, I Lost Track of Time

In the autumn of the eighteenth year of Yongping, seven people woke one after another from a catastrophe that had never happened.

Murong Yuan intercepted a Northern Dynasty envoy, only to prompt a troop buildup at the border. Xiao Ji reinforced the palace gates, setting off a change in the Imperial Guard’s watch. Xie Jing secretly investigated the Xu clan of the Eastern Sea, but Wang Ying mistook it for a clandestine romance. Zhao Shen swept the Secretariat, and when he sneaked out a map, sweat from his palms soaked the words “Luoyan Gorge.” The quietest of them was Xu Zhilin. She copied the year of death of every woman in the Xu clan’s three-hundred-year genealogy, her pen stopping at the two-hundredth character for “death.”

The third day of the ninth month, Luoyan Gorge.

The Xu family’s carriage convoy was attacked. The bandits were actually hired marauders sent by the eldest branch to silence them. By the time Xie Jing arrived with his troops, a great fire had already broken out in the gorge. Murong Yuan lay in wait atop the cliff, arrow nocked, but then saw Zhao Shen drag someone out of a smoke-filled carriage. A jade pendant at that person’s waist gleamed brightly. She released the bowstring. The arrow struck the cliff face, and the gorge entrance was sealed.

That day, Xu Zhilin died at Luoyan Gorge. The Xu clan sought an imperial commendation for her “martyrdom,” and the Eastern Sea was spared collective punishment.

The following spring, a new emperor ascended the throne and ushered in the Tianhe era. None of the survivors had seen this year in the script.

Seven were reborn, yet no one rewrote the story. They wagered their lives like pieces on a board, never realizing that the players themselves were blind: the world of mortals was nothing but a game of rotten wood.