In the sixth year of the Tianqi reign, a deafening blast at the Wang Gong Factory leveled everything within ten miles. Shen Yan, a minor official in the Ministry of Works, crawled out of the ruins as the sole surviving witness.
The emperor had a dream: a faceless man stood above the Wang Gong Factory and said, "This device must not be kept." When the emperor awoke, the factory was gone.
Shen Yan was handed a bronze plaque from the Embroidered Uniform Guard and ordered to investigate the truth. He remembered the words of a strange fishmonger at the Tongzhou docks three years earlier: "In three years, there'll be a blast in the capital. When iron falls from the sky, run west. Don't look back."
The man in black glanced back at him. His eyes were completely black, without a trace of white. Three iron-box wagons were already heading west.
Shen Yan spent half his life pursuing the truth, crossing the breadth of the Ming Empire, only to discover that his true enemy had been watching him all along.
Four hundred years later, on Mount Zhongnan, a Taoist priest in his fifties played chess with a tourist.
"Sir, you really don't remember what year you were born?"
"The sixth year of the Tianqi reign, the year the Wang Gong Factory exploded."
"Come on, that's 1626."
"Mm. I happened to be there that year."
