The doors to the Imperial Study were closed. Outside, the new head tutor, Wo Ren, fumed in protest, his sense of protocol utterly shattered by this private audience between the Emperor and a common guardsman. Inside, the world had shrunk to this single, silent room, a pocket of impossible reality suspended in the heart of the Qing Dynasty.
Meng Tian remained on one knee, his head bowed, his mind a raging sea. The recognition had been like a lightning strike, a blast of pure energy that had shattered the fog of his amnesia and illuminated the truth of his existence. The small boy before him was not a child. He was a presence, an authority, a will that was as familiar to him as the weight of a sword in his hand. He was the Emperor. His Emperor.
"Rise, General," Ying Zheng commanded again. His voice was quiet, but it resonated with the ancient power that Meng Tian now fully recognized. He slowly, stiffly, rose to his feet, his gaze still fixed on the floor, not daring to look directly at the impossible sight before him.
"Close the inner chamber door," Ying Zheng ordered. "Ensure it is barred. No one is to enter. No one is to listen."
Meng Tian moved with the silent, reflexive obedience of a lifetime of command. He secured the heavy doors, the act of following a direct order from his sovereign a strangely calming balm to his chaotic thoughts. He returned to the center of the room and stood at attention, a soldier awaiting his briefing.
Ying Zheng gestured to a low stool. "Sit. There is much to discuss, and little time. The story is… long."
For the next hour, in the dim, quiet study, the First Emperor of Qin laid out the entirety of his impossible tale. He spoke in a low, steady voice, not as a child reciting a fantasy, but as a monarch delivering a detailed report to his most trusted commander. He recounted the final days of his first reign, the gnawing paranoia, the all-consuming desire to conquer death itself. He described the grand, blasphemous ritual beneath Mount Tai, the alchemist Xu Fu's promises, the swirling cauldron, and the taste of the golden elixir, the Celestial Pearl.
He spoke of the terrifying dissolution of his body and the agonizing journey of his consciousness through the river of time. He described the visions of his dynasty's swift collapse, the rise and fall of the Han, the Tang, the Song, the humiliation of the Mongol and Manchu conquests. He explained his awakening in this weak, foreign era, in this frail child's body, on the very eve of his enthronement as a puppet emperor.
He laid bare the political situation with the cold precision of a battle plan. He described the power of the Empress Dowager Cixi, a woman whose ambition he grudgingly respected but whose methods he despised. He spoke of the court's corruption, the military's decay, and the foreign "barbarians" from across the sea, with their fire-spitting rifles and smoke-belching iron ships, who were bleeding his empire dry.
Meng Tian listened, his initial shock slowly giving way to a soldier's focused comprehension. The story was insane, a tale of gods, demons, and impossible magic. Yet the man—the boy—speaking it possessed an authority so absolute, so fundamentally real, that to doubt him would be to doubt the existence of the earth beneath his feet. The story, as fantastic as it was, made a terrifying kind of sense. It answered all the questions that had haunted his own memory-less existence.
When the Emperor finally fell silent, it was Meng Tian's turn to speak. He recounted his own fragmented story, the words tumbling out as he finally gave voice to years of confusion.
"I remember… nothing before the desert," he said, his voice raspy. "I awoke near a great wall of earth, with a thirst that felt a thousand years old. The strength… it was already there. I did not understand it. I was stronger and faster than any man I met." He looked at his own powerful hands as if seeing them for the first time. "And the dreams… always the dreams. Flashes of battle. The dust of a great army on the march. The face of a commander I could never quite see. And a voice… your voice, Majesty… giving orders that were etched into my soul."
Ying Zheng nodded slowly, his ancient eyes filled with a grim understanding. "The alchemist's ritual at Mount Tai. You were there, General. I had you overseeing the security of the outer perimeter." He leaned forward, his small hands resting on the table. "My theory is this: Xu Fu's elixir was far more powerful than he, or I, could have ever imagined. It didn't just affect me. It created a temporal backlash, a vortex. It must have ensnared those who were physically close, those whose will and loyalty were… significant."
"And my strength?" Meng Tian asked, the question a desperate plea for understanding. "This power I cannot explain?"
"The elixir was meant to grant the body of a living god," Ying Zheng explained, a flicker of the old arrogance in his eyes. "It seems that while my soul was thrown forward in time, the raw physical power of the ritual latched onto the nearest, most suitable vessel. It reforged you. It gave you the strength of a demigod, while it gave me… other, more subtle gifts."
The final pieces clicked into place. The circle was closed. Meng Tian's confusion, the burden of his amnesia and his unnatural abilities, finally lifted, replaced by the solid, unwavering certainty of purpose. He was no longer Meng Ao, the foundling guardsman with a mysterious past. He was Meng Tian, General of the Armies of the Great Qin. His Emperor was alive. And his Emperor had a new war to wage.
His loyalty, which had for years been a buried, inexplicable instinct, now resurfaced as a conscious, absolute, and joyous devotion. He slid from the stool and knelt once more on the floor, but this time it was not out of fear. It was out of renewed fealty.
"My life is yours to command, Your Majesty," he said, his voice ringing with the strength of his conviction. "Then, as now. I am your sword."
Ying Zheng looked down at his greatest general, his most loyal servant, reborn like him into this strange, decaying world. For the first time since his rude awakening into this era, he did not feel entirely alone.