The tenth year of the Xuande reign, on a snowy night. The nine-year-old emperor met a beggar, beaten until his face was black and blue, inside his sedan chair.
The beggar said, “Your Majesty is both a dragon and a worm.”
The young emperor said, “You're the only person who doesn't treat me like an emperor.”
A boy named Jun Wuyou. An emperor named Zhu Qizhen. A friendship forged through life and death, spanning fifteen years.
The Tumu Crisis: five hundred thousand troops wiped out, and the emperor captured. The boy roamed the land and fought bloody battles to save his sovereign. After they returned, the emperor was imprisoned by his own younger brother in the Southern Palace for seven years. The boy stood guard outside for seven years, slipping a note through the door every day.
The day the door opened, the emperor said, “An emperor isn't the Son of Heaven. He's a public servant.”
The boy said, “The word ‘friend’ is worth a life, worth a lifetime.”
The only emperor in Chinese history to be captured and imprisoned, then successfully reclaim the throne. A man of the martial world spends his whole life honoring the word “friend.” More than twenty original martial heroes, and a journey of redemption clawing its way out of hell.
When the master of Elysium City weaves a web to swallow the world, when the man who saved your life falls to the blade of power, when brothers become prisoner and jailer, how grave a mistake must one make to spend a lifetime atoning for it? How long must one wait to hear the words, “I've changed”?
A blade isn't for killing. It's for protecting. Wait a year, wait ten years, wait a lifetime. Wait for what must be awaited. Once it comes, all will be well.
