Ashes: The Fatekeeper of an Era

[No System + Ancient Setting + Political Intrigue + Unofficial History + Thoughtful Storytelling, Not Mindless]

In the autumn of the twenty-third year of Chenghua, Li Mao became a puppet emperor of the Great Sheng.

Emperor Chenghua died suddenly in the great hall of his temporary palace, his dragon robe stained with his own blood. Before he died, he wrote three words on a yellowed sheet of paper: “Jingtai bloodline,” “Red Star,” and “Qishan.” None of his attendants dared speak of it. By the time the empress dowager arrived, the bloodstained curtains had already been burned.

Seventeen-year-old Crown Prince Li Mao ascended the throne beside his father’s corpse, becoming the loneliest puppet emperor in the annals of history.

In this imperial city, taken over by the relatives of the empress dowager, he could trust no one. His only hope was a jade pendant his father had hidden in a secret compartment in the Imperial Study. Carved into it was the name of a kingdom that had fallen nearly a century ago, and that the founding emperor had ordered erased from history: Jingtai. Anyone who could recognize this pendant might become his savior. If no one could, he was doomed.

Meanwhile, in the northern frontier, the Huo Family Army, cut off from provisions and fodder, faced the barbarian cavalry alone amid a blizzard, along with an imperial edict from the capital that would seal their fate.

And so, the secrets beneath the ruins, the puppet on the throne, and the lone minister commanding the army would soon be drawn by a shard of jade concealing an old crime toward a truth that would determine the empire’s survival.