Zhu Chang'an

My surname is Zhu, and my given name is Chang'an. Everyone says I’m the daughter of a schemer, so naturally I grew up plotting every move and devising every trick. Some call people like me strategists; less kindly, they call us villains. The funny thing is that villains are divided into ranks. A low-class villain is a street thug or petty hooligan, and even they can be good or bad. A high-class villain, meanwhile, is a “strategist” like me, armed with schemes and deceptions. People in this world certainly have a lot to say about others. Even when I truly did save a dying mute by chance, I still couldn’t escape the endless gossip of the world. I only saved the mute because no one would bury him if he died, so I sent a servant to gather him up. But the mute was remarkably tough. He clung to life for five whole days, then recovered. When he woke, he insisted on repaying me. I can’t stand all that talk about repaying a life-saving kindness tenfold. After I tried to talk him out of it for ages, he won me over with the excellent tea he brewed. “Mute, if I lose a game of chess to someone that day, remember to run far away and never look back.” On the rice paper, the mute painstakingly wrote: It’s time to take your medicine. In this age of strife, the world may descend into chaos, but the only place untouched by it is probably the hidden paradise in the stories. My surname is Zhu, and my given name is Chang'an. I seek long life and peace, yet what I do brings death. To die a wretched death is only just repayment for my sins.