The Beloved Son's View

In Danyang, the capital of Chu, stands a towering pagoda that reaches into the clouds.

Every year, one hundred boys and girls are sent to its summit, but only one can emerge alive.

The towering pagoda is a furnace. Through layer upon layer of slaughter, the boys and girls are forged into strategists, assassins, spies, courtesans...

Whatever they become, they fight for a chance to survive, to reach the King of Chu and become his most loyal servants, as well as the sharpest swords in Chu's arsenal.

The towering pagoda is famed throughout the Nine Provinces. Other states regard it as a demonic palace, a den of monsters, and call it the Beloved's Observatory.

Zhang Wenshu, the youthful King Ying of Chu, ascended the throne early. He was a master of both letters and arms, and well versed in the Six Lines of divination.

Chancellor Che Yan asked, "What does Your Majesty's hexagram say?"

Zhang Wenshu smiled. "The mandate of Heaven says that the hegemony of the Spring and Autumn period will be established from the towering pagoda, while King Ying of Chu will meet his end at the hands of a female slave born there."

Che Yan said, "The Beloved's Observatory has stood for a hundred years, and every person to emerge from it has been a man. Your Majesty needn't worry."

Zhang Wenshu replied, "Is that so?..."

Five years later, Sang Qionglin pushed open the gates of the Beloved's Observatory with bloodstained hands...

She was the first woman to emerge from the Beloved's Observatory.

Theme: Universal love and opposition to aggression