In the first year of the Qin dynasty's second reign, the realm is in turmoil. Beneath Mount Li, convicts toil in the pitch-black depths, carving out their own tombs day after day.
No one remembers their names. Prisoners branded on their faces, defeated soldiers captured from the six states, descendants of officials punished through guilt by association: they are called convicts, the empire's most disposable labor. That changes when a soul from a later age awakens within one of them, bringing knowledge and courage far beyond anything this era has seen.
His name is A Qi, a convict abandoned by fate who refuses to abandon himself.
Before news of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang's uprising at Dazexiang has spread through Guanzhong, while Zhang Han is still arguing at court for the convicts to be released and conscripted, A Qi has already seen the truth: wait, and you die. The empire's mercy always comes too late, and the only things they can seize are the pickaxes in their hands and the fury in their hearts.
That night, strange sounds echo from the depths of Mount Li's underground palace. They are not the sounds of tomb construction, but of chains breaking.
He wasn't released. He walked out on his own.
An uprising that erupts ahead of schedule, a ragtag band with no famous general to lead it, and a group of desperadoes forgotten in the deepest darkness. Can they fight their way out under the Qin army's siege? And as history changes, how will this so-called Mount Li Army shake the realm?
Before the empire collapsed, the first domino fell at the foot of Mount Li.
