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“Do you want to live or die?” the girl shouted at him. “It’s a simple question!” “You wouldn’t let me—” “Qin Zheng, I know two hundred and twenty-one more years of what’s going on than you do, and I have no time to explain!” Her tirade continued, but his mind snagged on the number she’d spouted. Two hundred and twenty-one years. Over two centuries.
His General Mi was dead, along with everyone and everything else he knew.
“If you do our bidding as the Sages did, we have ways to bring back what you’ve lost. But if you defy us or reveal the truth, you will lose everything.”
“You know not of the ultimatum I attempted, do you?” “No, I don’t! What are you talking about?” “Three months ago…three months ago from my perspective, I halted all tribute to the gods, refusing to obey them blindly any longer. I had always doubted they were as mighty as they claimed, so I demanded to see their true faces. I told them that if Huaxia were to continue offering tribute, we must receive more in return. The gods responded only with warnings. Then, two weeks ago, I came down with this blasted pox.” He touches his face. Flower-shaped pustules bloom over his skin, the way his body
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“The story of them as aggressive invaders and us as embattled defenders is useful fiction that maintains the resolve of the masses against the Hunduns. Those of us who reach the upper echelons of power know better. We need to, in order to know which studies and discoveries to nip in the bud. It is not difficult for an observant scholar to stumble upon findings that contradict our recorded history.”
I am so tired of these lies upon lies upon lies from those in power. The last thing I want to do is become the one maintaining them.
if launching this subunit was an option all along, I didn’t need to crush my family along with the Palace of Sages. I could’ve scooped them out of the way before destroying everything else with more strategic and controlled damage. “Why didn’t you tell me this was possible?” I grab Qin Zheng in the yīn-yáng realm. “Before I crushed the Palace, you must’ve felt how conflicted I was—why didn’t you stop me?” His gaze roves over me. “Because I wished to see if you would do it.” The corners of his mouth curl ever so slightly upward. “I wished to see what lengths you would go to for power.”
I thought the stories exaggerated his abilities, but given the way he sculpted that Yellow Dragon subunit in the blink of an eye, they didn’t laud him enough.
He glances in disgust at the outline of my bound feet beneath the covers. “Look at you, made physically useless for the sake of vanity.” A sourness prickles like acid beneath my skin. “It wasn’t my decision,” I say, though I don’t know why I’m defending myself. I shouldn’t have to. “It better not have been. I cannot stand women content to be nothing but a pretty face and a birthing vessel. Once you recover from the surgery, I expect you to do your fair share of labor.” I’m about to argue most women don’t get a choice, but something else sticks out in what he said. “Surgery? What surgery?” “I
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I’m a prisoner in this world, in this era, in this room, in this body. It never ends. It will never end.
“I’m sorry about Tengri, by the way,” Qieluo mumbles. “Tengri?” “That was Pilot Li’s Xianbei name. Daye Tengri. He told me during that time Gao Qiu crammed us onto the same hovercraft to Chang’an.”
Yizhi is making the best out of this situation, seizing whatever power he can. Maybe I can do the same.
“Can you bring Secretary Gao a message from me?” I say to Qieluo. “Tell him…tell him to not worry about me. I’ll be okay.” “Funny. He told me to tell you the same thing.”
“No, no, I can’t change anything. I don’t control anything. Our dearest emperor does.” “I think you’ll find His Majesty to be a staunch laborist, my lady. Our history books try their hardest to erase this, but he is. His analysis of the countryside, though, has always been flawed. You can be a voice of the peasantry to him. I believe it’s worth thinking about what changes you could push for to truly transform Huaxia.”
“Get some food in you now,” he mutters. “Aside from your spirit pressure, your moderately sumptuous figure was your sole redeeming quality.”
“Since when did we as a species abide by good sense? Why do cowardly men strike their wives after a reprimand at work? Why do mothers scream at their children after a beating by their husbands? Those unable to conquer their misfortunes take their fury out on more convenient targets.
It’s almost paralyzing, gazing into the truth that the universe is indifferent at its core. There’s no benevolent higher force that rights wrongs. No guarantee of justice. Our gods actively sabotage us. Those who create and enforce the rules are the ones who break them in the most heinous ways. Here at the highest levels of power, there is only awful battling worse.
“I’ve given way too much to not get what I want!” His eyes snap to mine for the first time since Qin Zheng forced us apart. The mantra recording drones on in the silence I’m too stunned to fill. Yizhi looks away again. “What I want is for everything I did to get to this point to mean something.” He speaks more quietly. “As His Majesty would say, power should belong to those who want to make real change, not those who indulge in empty pleasures. I’ve spent years collecting the secrets of everyone who had any significant power in the old order, and they are truly rotten through and through.” He
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“Go be a dutiful wife, Wu Zetian. Be a dutiful mother. Rein in your renegade husband and restore the balance you destroyed.”
one must not prosper by keeping others in desperation!
“You’d be surprised by how quickly your memory of someone can blur once the world no longer carries any trace of their existence.”
“To embody a Chrysalis is to embody a new identity,” Qin Zheng explains.
In this way, preconceptions provide convenient guidance to manifesting and advancing Chrysalises. What you must be wary of is letting the framework restrict your imagination.”
What you are, what we all are, is an illusion. Accept the pretense of your own existence, and you can extend the illusion. You have always been the pilot of a vessel. You simply became accustomed to thinking of the cells that make up your body as yourself, even though you could lose much of those cells and still exist. Once you understand that spirit metal is not so different, you can unlock its true potential.
“Economy, economy, these fucking reactionaries always going on about the fucking economy!”
In the name of stability and security, they condemn only the violence that challenges the status quo, never the violence that perpetuates it. Yet those of us born of the streets know full well that stability and security have only ever existed for the elites! Violence is indeed the answer when the question is whether we ought to endure exploitation so others can live in luxury!”
“You are the strangest-priced whore I have ever met. And that is saying something, considering where I grew up.” “I thought you hate it when people call me that.” “Yes, when others do it. You’re my whore.”
“Because I miss you when you’re gone. The nightmares return to me. It is…not pleasant. My days without you are not pleasant. The only nights I don’t fear falling asleep are when you’re there with me.”
Self-destruction starts making sense when thinking with full clarity is worse.
He nearly rips the tubing out of his chest before remembering he now needs it to stay alive.
