In the first year of Hongwu, the thirteen-year-old prince Zhu Biao woke up from a big dream.
In the dream, he lived for six hundred years. I've seen Yongle's ships covering the sky, I've seen the Tumu Fort's army collapse like an avalanche, I've seen a crooked tree on the coal mountain, I've seen pigtails entering customs, sea border blockades, iron boxes running on the road, I've seen too much.
Now he sits up. His father has just ascended the throne, his mother is still there, his brothers are still young, and nothing has happened yet.
Zhu Biao knows everyone's ending - his father's, his mother's, and his own. He also knew the end of this dynasty.
But he wasn't going to let it happen.
It starts with a repartee in the imperial study room, from the second brother picking up flower petals in the imperial garden, and from an insight that a thirteen-year-old boy should not have - the slight flutter of a butterfly's wings.
This time, the Ming sun will not set.
