In the final years of the Warring States period, the twelve-year-old envoy Gan Luo went to Zhao. Without losing a single soldier, he used his wits to win more than a dozen cities for the King of Qin and was appointed chancellor after a single campaign.
Yet just months later, this young prodigy died unexpectedly in a great fire on a winter night.
Everyone said, “Heaven is jealous of talent! So jealous!”
No one knew that the mysterious youth from beyond the Eastern Sea, whom Gan Luo had met in Zhao, also vanished without a trace after the fire.
Two years later, Xinghun, the Yin-Yang School’s Left Guardian, emerged from seclusion for the first time. At just fourteen, he was appointed State Preceptor of Qin and rose above all others. His Yin-Yang puppet arts and the eerie, chilling purple blades of energy hidden in his sleeves struck terror into everyone beneath heaven.
Several years later, the State Preceptor acquired a companion: a peerlessly beautiful puppet around his own age.
It was said to be the first puppet the State Preceptor had ever made with his own hands, and the only one in the world that still possessed a soul.
As evening falls, the stars shine bright.
Many years later, Liang Shuo still remembered the night he first met Xinghun.
On the first moonless night after White Dew, the Milky Way stretched across the sky, bright stars scattered overhead. Atop the towering palace walls stood two slender youths, like two specks of dust too tiny to see.
A pair of eyes, purer than the night sky, gazed at him. A clear smile bloomed on that still-innocent face.
The night breeze stirred. From beneath his fluttering sleeve, the youth gently extended a hand toward him.
“Liang Shuo, would you come back to Qin with me?”
It was an image he could never forget for the rest of his life.
From then on, he stood upon the chessboard of fate, forever pursuing the cold yet blazing, lonely yet brilliant star that pulled him along by puppet strings.
In this vast, desolate sea of stars, I’ll sink alongside you.
A character-focused work.
*The historical events and characters’ ages in this work are not historically accurate. The timeline has been extremely compressed, and everything serves the plot. Please don’t look too closely.
Theme: How does a person become who they are now?
