The Protagonist Dies in the Next Volume

The Great Sheng dynasty has stood for three hundred years. After its golden age came a long era of decline: emperors die young, and when the heir is a child, the realm is thrown into doubt. A power vacuum opens up, and the sharpest blade in court, the deepest well, and the loudest name all rush to fill it.

The first to take the top seat is Qin Wangshu, the sole chancellor. He kills in the name of legitimacy and uses ritual law to overturn the old order. Within three years, he brings down the great clans and audits the salt and iron industries, purging a rotten bureaucracy in blood. Then he retires and returns to his hometown, only to die on the road. The poison was not administered by a political rival, but by a sea merchant who had held a grudge for three years.

The sea merchant Ruan Guifan enters the capital with a shipload of silver. He buys himself an official title and seal, and makes paper currency the lifeblood of the new reforms. But though he can buy the hearts of the court, he cannot buy the cavalry of the Nine Garrisons. Claiming to be acting to purge the emperor's court of traitors, Zong Tieya raises an army over unpaid wages and personally puts an end to Ruan Guifan atop the city walls.

Can a blade win an empire? Zong Tieya brings that question into court, only to die by the brush of an upright official, an imperial edict summoning him to a banquet, and a cup of the very wine of legitimacy he had spent his life seeking. Lu Henian uses public opinion to bring down the powerful minister. But only after reaching the summit does he realize that the chair he sits in is slowly turning him into the very sort of man he once brought down...

Six volumes, six ways to die: death by reputation, death by profit, death by pride, death by purity, death by illegitimate rule, and death by believing the wheel would stop. Each volume's protagonist buries the one from the previous volume, then dies by the next protagonist's blade. Every protagonist tells "his own story" in the first person. To discover what really happened, you'll have to close the books and piece it together yourself.

Because the protagonist doesn't die. What dies is the very idea that "he is the protagonist."