Song Ge, a squad leader in the border forces of Great Sheng, even inherited his name from his ancestors. His rank was so low it might as well have been buried in the dirt, and in half a lifetime he had learned only one thing: how to pretend to be alive in a heap of corpses. At the Battle of Qingshi Pass, the commander Mu Changkong sold out all three thousand defenders. Song Ge crawled out of a mountain of corpses and blood, then casually picked up half of a rusted, nearly broken halberd. A black-haired boy crawled out of it and said, “Your hands are filthy. Don’t touch me.” Then he added, “I am the ancient divine weapon Zheng. I have a terrible temper, so don’t bother me with trivial matters.”
Song Ge thought he had found a treasure, but it turned out the divine weapon did nothing but talk big and go on strike. In the middle of a battle, it would say it was in a bad mood and demand compliments. When an enemy was about to take Song Ge’s head, it would complain that the battlefield lacked dignity and refuse to act until Song Ge first yelled, “Everyone over there is trash!” Even more absurdly, the old halberd was jealous. If Song Ge so much as touched another weapon, it would roll around on the ground and pretend to be dead.
While being schemed against by the court powerbroker Cui Fushi, and driven to the brink of a fit by his own divine weapon, Song Ge relied on his sharp tongue and sheer toughness to fight his way from a lone force defending a pass to ruler of the world. Only in the final battle did he understand that behind the weapon’s childish whims lay a betrayal and an obsession spanning a thousand years. It wasn’t disobedient. It was just afraid of being treated as a convenient tool again.
