Can I Get Stronger by Dying?

When he was eighteen, Liu Che had a long, vivid dream. In it, he was an emperor seated in the Golden Throne Hall. Six of his siblings came at him with swords, burning through the palace and straight through his chest. When he woke, he was still an ordinary student at Xiangxiang No. 1 High School, bottom of his class and mocked by Zhang Peng in the hallway. His biggest secret was that Zhou Wantang was pinned to the top of his WeChat chats. She was his classmate, just fifteen steps away, yet she seemed an entire youth apart. He thought his days would go on rotting away in quiet mediocrity: peeking at her Moments, saving breakfast money to buy a fountain pen, and working up the courage to slip her a letter at the coming-of-age ceremony. Until an envelope sealed with Huangpu wax arrived on his desk. Until, on the day of the ceremony, a wound that did not belong to this world split open across the sports field. Black-robed figures advanced, swords of darkness in hand. All he had was half a broken broom handle clutched in his fist. The person from his dream had awakened. “Where... is My sword?” Where would he go from here?