Born Brilliant

The elders and teachers he once revered and admired revealed a completely different, sinister side one day, leaving him disillusioned;

The close friends with whom he once studied poetry and the classics were swept helplessly into the surging currents of their times, until they stood against one another with weapons in hand;

The childhood sweetheart he once cherished, despite a love that cut to the bone, could only be pushed away, and in the end they went their separate ways.

Burying the dazzling, carefree brilliance of his youth, he learned to meet everything with silence and endure his days. When he was once again left alone in this world, would he give up on himself and wallow in self-pity, or fade into the dust like a walking corpse?

Abandoning his lofty ambitions, ideals, and naive dreams, he willingly sank into darkness and schemed against people's hearts. When everything he pursued proved no more than a fleeting illusion, all for someone else's benefit, would he regret killing with his own hands the once-innocent, unblemished self he used to be?

A hall full of gifted talents, reduced to vermin under the grinding wheels of political intrigue.

This is a bloody path carved through thorns, a final song sung upon the stake.

Gentle and refined, yet ruthless and cold-hearted, he no longer lives for himself.

When the hands that held the qin and drew the bow are severed, where will he go, burdened with snow and wind upon his shoulders?

[If anything seems familiar, it is no coincidence]