Yao Ji Comes by Night

One afternoon in the second semester of her junior year.

Shen Chi was buried in her books at the library. When she opened her eyes again, she had returned to a thousand years ago.

The page of the history book she had been reading: the seventeenth year of the Chun Cheng era.

That year,

the realm was in turmoil, and the people suffered.

All awaited the sudden rise of the Azure Emperor Yin Qi, who would command the Six Directions, unify the realm, usher in an era of peace unlike any before, and save all the people from misery.

But what Shen Chi saw

was a boy sitting in the snow of midwinter, facing his family's corpses, blood reflected in his eyes.

-

Even thousands of years later, a great many Yin Qi fans on the forums still adore his achievements, and widely agree that he is "my most swoon-worthy ancestor."

He expanded the borders and brought the realm under control.

He eased taxes and prioritized people's livelihoods.

The only thing anyone could criticize was that, during his reign, he spent a fortune building lofty terraces and pursuing immortality,

hoping to climb closer to the heavens and live as long as the immortals.

Aside from that, he was almost the perfect emperor, and the greatest career-minded ruler in all of history.

Until 2025, when the tomb of the Azure Emperor was opened to archaeologists for the first time.

The densely inscribed words on the tomb's stone and golden artifacts recorded the obsession that had consumed his entire life:

"When will the immortal maiden return?"

"If I do not die, might she still come back?"

He spent his whole life waiting for someone.

Even if the official histories turn to ash, his love shines in every finely written word.

A thousand years, a hundred centuries, and it cannot be erased.

#20240326

"If I do not die, might she still come back?" is adapted from "If you do not die, might you still come back?" in The Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven, "Song of the White Clouds." Inspired by "The Eight Steeds travel thirty thousand li a day. Why did King Mu never return?"

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