On the Oath-Shearing Platform, the Keeper publicly scraped away the oath-mark that had kept Huo Ci's father guarding the rampart for eleven years, turning him into an empty shell that could no longer recognize anyone. The laundry basket his mother had protected was snatched up and smashed by everyone in the cave. The broken oath fell to the ground, and no one dared go near it. Touch it, and your whole family would suffer the consequences for life. Yet Huo Ci lunged forward and swallowed the red-hot oath-mark. As his throat tore open, the two characters of his name, Huo Ci, were scraped from his mind root and branch. He picked up the condemned man's name plaque from the platform, tied the dead man's name to himself, and took his place among the living. An old oath-picker huddled among the crowd and said the severed edge was as clean as if cut by an official's blade. Someone had severed that oath in advance. And the two people who had spoken the truth were retreating into the crowd.
