This is a supplementary biography of Zhao Zilong of Changshan, told from the perspective of a transmigrator. It is not a story about a ruler and subject who understand one another. It is the regret of a loyal minister and an emperor who understand each other, yet can never make each other's wishes come true. With a transmigrator's soul inhabiting Zhao Yun as its unique perspective, The Lord's Promises Unkept retells a heroic epic from the chaos of the Three Kingdoms, one history books glossed over in a few words. The protagonist falls from the twenty-first century into the Battle of Changban in the thirteenth year of Jian'an. Amid mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, he takes over Zhao Yun's battered body and fights desperately through seven charges out and seven charges back to save the young Liu Shan. But on the riverbank, he witnesses Liu Bei's imperial calculations and cold judgment as he publicly drops his son. For the next forty years, he lives under Zhao Yun's name through every northern campaign, every remonstrance, and every year of estrangement from his fellow officials. He defends Chengdu, protects the people, and blocks military campaigns, keeping the “promise” in his heart even though no one ever fully trusts him. At last, in the fifteenth year of Jianxing, he is buried beneath Jinping Mountain. The transmigrator's soul leaves his body and drifts above the mountains in full bloom with peach blossoms, looking back on forty years of war. He seeks neither fame nor favor. He only hopes that the general mentioned in so few words in the history books might be remembered with a little more warmth, and that when people speak of “General Zhao,” there will be a light in their eyes.
