Dragonshadow Erosion

On a stormy night in the eighth year of Chengjing, every monk at Hanyuan Temple was hung upside down from a bronze bell, and molten bronze sealed the gates.

Monk Zhiheng tucked the infant Wuchen inside a bronze bell. Carved into its wall were the words: "The seventh day of the third month, midnight, in the eighth year of Chengjing."

Twenty years later, Wuchen was brought into the palace as a young eunuch to serve tea. Only then did he learn that he was the legitimate prince who had been switched out in the scandal known as "the civet cat for the crown prince." The "Eighth Prince" seated in the Golden Throne Hall was an impostor with the same face as his.

One half of a chi-dragon blood jade pendant lay in his sleeve; the other half hung at the impostor's waist. The reunited pendant would reveal their true identities, but the palace rule was "the one who seals it claims the throne, the one who opens it loses himself." To claim his identity would be treason. Yet if he did nothing, he could only watch as the eunuch in charge of the seals drove the shadow with his face inch by inch into the snow.

The man who survived inside a bronze bell had no way back. Between snowy nights, palace walls, and the shadows of wolf banners, he could only piece that half-pendant back together, little by little, until he reclaimed his name.