In 202 BCE, on the banks of the Wu River, five men divided Xiang Yu's body, each taking a share of his flesh and receiving a noble title.
Yet that night, someone knelt in a pool of blood, spoke five names, and made a silent vow:
You took my body. You will spend your lives paying for it.
His head, arms, torso, legs, and heart: five fragments, five curses, and five men with different ambitions. From then on, their fates became entangled, as madness, betrayal, obsession, and ruin came for them in turn.
This is the book of the dismemberers' fate, and an ancient tale of what it means to take and to repay.
