Chongzhen had a dream.
In the dream, he was no longer an emperor. He was a boy named Zhu Guan, born in Huaguo several centuries later.
There were no kowtows, no eunuchs, and no Donglin partisans pointing at him and cursing that he was unfit to be emperor.
He grew up under the red flag. As he came of age, he learned about the history of that era:
"The seventeenth year of Chongzhen, the nineteenth day of the third month: Beijing falls, and the emperor hangs himself on Coal Hill."
Then came the fall of China, the Ten Days of Yangzhou, the Three Massacres of Jiading...
Zhu Guan watched the words, imprinting them in his heart one by one. He did not cry, but grew ever more silent.
Chongzhen, reborn as Zhu Guan, lived in Huaguo for over twenty years. The frustration within him, belonging to Zhu Youjian, grew ever more intense.
After graduating from university, he returned to Beijing to revisit the old haunts, only to find that everything had changed and nothing remained as it was.
When he reached the Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum in Nanjing, Zhu Guan, his heart heavy with emotion, prayed to Emperor Gao, the founding emperor of the Ming:
"Your unfilial descendant, Zhu Youjian, begs Grand Ancestor: dream or not, real or not, give me one more chance. Let me wake up..."
That night, he truly woke up, in the dead of night in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen.
But this time, the one who had returned was not Zhu Youjian, the emperor who hanged himself.
It was Zhu Guan, raised beneath the red flag.
