In the nineteenth year of Zhaode, the realm was in turmoil.
The harvest failed, and people in Tanzhou resorted to cannibalism.
The Grand Ancestor happened to be passing through Tanzhou. Amid the rebel troops, he chanced upon the Prince of Langya, and from then on kept him by his side and raised him.
Five-year-old Xiao Baozhuan watched with his own eyes as the Hu barbarians cut off his elder brother's head. Hot blood splashed onto the ground less than a foot from his toes. He smothered every cry with his own cold, clammy hands, swallowing them deep into his chest.
Countless monsters were cut down by blades bright as snow. Numb and rigid, he trembled as he raised his head. Beneath the lonely, cold full moon, Xiao Dingzhi wiped the Hu blood from his blade and bent toward him. Xiao Baozhuan then buried his face against that shoulder, cold and sharp with the scent of blood, and sobbed uncontrollably.
From then on, he would never again be left wandering, with nowhere to turn.
Xiao Dingzhi, who would one day bring order to the realm and establish a new dynasty, was only fifteen at the time. Of course, the jade doll he had found would take his surname. The cold, aloof young man held the jade doll in his arms and went to the only literate military secretary in the camp, asking him to give the child the name
