The laboratory was an island of sterile, logical modernity adrift in the ancient, mystical sea of the Forbidden City. Gleaming German glassware, intricate networks of copper tubing, and the low, steady hum of an electric generator stood in stark, silent opposition to the carved lacquer screens and silk tapestries of the palace just outside its walls. This was Dr. Chen Linwei's domain, a place of science and reason, but lately, it had begun to feel more like a heretic's cell.
She stood before a steel workbench, her slender fingers tracing the chemical diagrams in a German technical manual. Before her lay the prize from Shanghai: a small, lead-lined crate containing vials of the precious chemical precursors. They had been intercepted by Shen Ke's omnipresent network, snatched from Yuan Shikai's grasp even as the traitor believed he was celebrating his victory. The Spymaster's note, delivered with the crate, had been chillingly simple: "The serpent's venom. You will know how to use it."
She now had everything she needed. The final, critical components to build the weapon the Emperor desired, the device he had called his "supernatural artillery." She had the science, the materials, and the imperial mandate. But instead of the thrill of imminent breakthrough, a cold, heavy dread settled in her soul.
Her gaze drifted to a separate set of notes on her desk, pages filled not with chemical equations, but with her own frantic, spidery script, detailing her most recent and most terrifying discovery. The Dragon's Spark. The Emperor's strange, innate power was not a magical font of endless energy. It was a fire, and it consumed a very specific fuel: his own life force. He was a star, burning brilliantly, but burning himself out with every act of unnatural power. The knowledge was a poison, a terrible secret that isolated her from everyone else in the Empire.
He wanted her to build an amplifier, a weapon that could take a spark of his power and project it, turning it into a devastating force on the battlefield. But she understood the horrifying truth of the physics involved. An amplifier would not create more energy; it would simply draw more fuel, more of his life force, at a vastly accelerated rate. He was asking her, his most loyal and devoted subject, to meticulously craft the instrument of his own suicide.
She was trapped. To refuse would be treason. To obey would be a betrayal of a different, deeper kind. Every day she spent working on the project felt like an act of slow-motion murder, and every delay felt like an act of disloyalty to the man who had resurrected her country and given her life purpose. She stared at the vials of yellow-green liquid, seeing not a weapon, but the mechanism of a gilded guillotine.
The soft, shuffling footsteps of a palace eunuch at her laboratory door made her jump. The old man, his face a mask of placid deference, bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the floor.
"Dr. Chen," his voice was a reedy whisper. "The Son of Heaven requires your presence in the Hall of Mental Cultivation. At once."
Her blood ran cold. The time for theories and research was over. He was a man of action, of results. He was going to ask for a progress report, and she did not know what lie she could possibly tell him.
The Hall of Mental Cultivation was not a place of comfort; it was a place of immense, crushing power. The air was cool and smelled of old books and sandalwood incense. The Emperor sat not on the Dragon Throne, but behind his simple, black lacquer desk, which was, as always, covered in maps of the world. He was not alone.
Standing in the corner of the room, as still and silent as a terracotta statue, was a second figure. He was tall and lean, his face a mask of cold, chiseled granite, his eyes holding the flat, empty look of a man who had stared into the abyss and found it to his liking. He wore the simple, unadorned uniform of a Marshal of the Qing Army, but there was an aura of profound, disciplined lethality around him that seemed to suck the very warmth from the air. It was Meng Tian, the Shinigami of Siberia, summoned from the frozen front lines. His presence here could only mean one thing: a fundamental shift in the war was coming.
Dr. Chen performed the full kowtow, her heart hammering against the polished floorboards.
"Rise," the Emperor's voice commanded. It was not unkind, but it held the weight of absolute authority.
She rose, keeping her eyes downcast.
"The materials from Shanghai have arrived, Doctor," the Emperor said, his tone direct, analytical. "I have been told they are the final components you required. Can it be done?"
She had to choose her words with the care of a woman walking through a minefield. She could feel Meng Tian's cold, impassive gaze on her, and it made her skin crawl. "The theoretical principles are sound, Your Majesty," she began, her voice trembling slightly. "We can build a device, a resonator, to focus and project the… the energy. We have already begun constructing the housing. But stabilizing the resonant frequency will be incredibly difficult. Dangerous. Any fluctuation could cause a catastrophic backlash. It will require… more time. For safety trials."
It was a lie, a beautifully crafted, scientific-sounding lie. She was buying time, trying to protect him from himself, using the very language of reason he respected to forestall his own demise.
The Emperor was silent for a long moment. He studied her face, his dark eyes seeming to strip away her meticulously constructed falsehoods, to see the fear and desperation cowering beneath. When he spoke, his voice was flat, without judgment, but also without compromise.
"Time is a luxury we do not have, Doctor. The British are reeling. The Russians are broken. Now is the moment to press our advantage, not to hesitate. Begin final construction immediately. I accept all risks."
It was a dismissal. Her arguments, her fears, her desperate attempt to shield him, were swept aside. She bowed, defeated, and backed out of the room, her mind screaming. She had failed. She would have to build the weapon that would kill her Emperor.
Once she was gone, the Emperor turned his full, undivided attention to his general. He rose from his desk and walked towards the corner where Meng Tian stood. The two men, the ancient emperor and his reborn general, faced each other in silence. One was the mind, the grand strategist who saw the world as a chessboard. The other was the hand, the perfect, ruthless instrument of that strategy.
"Marshal Meng," the Emperor said, his voice now holding a different quality, a tone of respect for a fellow practitioner of the art of war. "Your army is the finest fighting force on this planet. It has been hardened by the Siberian winter and blooded in a victory that will be spoken of for a hundred years. Siberia is now a frozen graveyard for the Tsar's ambitions. It can be held by lesser men and garrison troops."
Meng Tian did not speak. He did not ask questions. He did not nod. He simply waited, his posture unchanging. He was a sword in its scabbard, awaiting the hand that would draw it and point it at a new enemy.
The Emperor turned and walked to the great world map that dominated one wall. He swept his hand over the vast, blood-soaked plains of Siberia, dismissing them. His hand did not move west, towards the Ural Mountains and the heart of Russia, as all military logic would have dictated. Instead, his hand moved south, in a great, sweeping arc down the entire length of the Chinese Empire.
"Marshal Sun Lian has kicked open a door in Burma with his campaign of terror and insurgency," the Emperor said, his voice a low, chilling command that was filled with the promise of epic violence. "But his army of ghosts and rebels cannot conquer an empire. You, Marshal Meng, are the battering ram that will smash that door from its very hinges."
He tapped the map, his long, pale finger landing with decisive force on a new, utterly unthinkable target. It was a location so vast, so populous, so central to the British Empire's power, that to attack it would be to strike at the enemy's very heart.
"You will begin immediate preparations to move your entire Northern Army south. You will cross the length of our Empire, a feat of logistics not seen since my first life. You will absorb the new training divisions in the central provinces. You will reinforce the Southern Front."
He looked over his shoulder, his eyes locking with his general's.
"And you will prepare my legions for their next great conquest."
"You are going to give me India."