Ming had been waiting outside the clinic with his family when the soldiers arrived like a sudden storm. A broad-shouldered man seized his arm and yanked him forward.
"What are you doing? Let me go!" Ming snapped, wrenching against the grip.
The assistant's voice cut through the courtyard, cold and sharp as a whip. "Thief! You tried to steal from the lord's money. How dare you!" The words landed heavy, colder than the iron at the soldiers' belts.
"I didn't—" Ming's protest dissolved into a rising tide of murmurs. His father stumbled forward, pale and shaking. "There's a misunderstanding. My son would never steal."
Ming's sister stepped up, eyes hard as flint. "You lie. My brother would never do something like that."
**People clustered in the square, leaning closer, hungry for scandal. Whispers slithered through the crowd: Is he stealing? Who knows? The assistant's face twisted with fury. "You think I'm lying?" he roared. His anger spread through the onlookers like wildfire.
"What's happening?" someone called, but the question drowned in the rising murmur of suspicion. Some one say I heard he stole money for lord.
One by one, the watching faces sharpened—turning into knives aimed at him.**
He swallowed hard, forcing his voice to stay steady though it trembled at the edges.
"I didn't steal. I would never steal. This is my hard-earned money. Tell me—if I were a thief, why would I come back here?"
A ripple passed through the crowd; a few heads nodded in hesitant agreement.
"Why would a thief return to the very place he robbed?"
"Seize him!" the assistant barked.
Soldiers surged forward, slamming Ming to the flagstones. He thrashed, but their grips were iron.
His mother dropped to her knees, clasping her hands in desperate prayer. "If it's money you want, take ours—please, spare my son!"
The assistant sneered and kicked her aside without a flicker of pity.
Rage rose in Ming, hot and alive, clawing at his chest. But ropes and rough hands bound him fast, choking the fury before it could break free.
"Do you think we're doing this for coin?" the assistant spat. Before he could give more orders, a voice rolled over the gathered crowd—deep, controlled, absolute.
"What is going on here?"
Heads snapped toward the voice. From the line of royal guards, two figures stepped forward—the Emperor himself, and at his side, the leader of the Murim Alliance.
The air in the square seemed to vanish. A collective gasp rippled through the crowd before silence crashed down. People dropped to their knees, foreheads pressed to the stones, not daring to breathe in the presence of such power.
The Emperor looked as though he had been carved from ice—his beard white as frost, his eyes austere as the heart of winter.
Beside him stood the leader of the Murim Alliance, a man like a mountain, his scar-lined face etched with the memory of a hundred battles.
Reverence thrummed through the crowd like a pulse. Some recognized them at once and bent lower still, foreheads scraping stone.
The assistant froze, his stomach tightening. Why were the two of them here together? By every rumor, their meeting was to be held far away—on the distant Dragon Plains .
A soldier stepped forward, his knees nearly knocking. "Your Majesty—this one—" he stammered, but the words faltered on his tongue.
From the shadows of the clinic, a slender figure emerged: Physician Lian Hua. His robe swayed with quiet dignity as he bowed low, every motion carrying the poise of a man who had once stood high and still wished to seem so.
"I greet you, Your Majesty," he said, his voice smooth, measured, and tinged with something like pride.
The Emperor's eyes narrowed, cold and sharp.
"Physician Lian? What are you doing here?"
Though his bow remained composed, Lian's hands betrayed him with a faint tremor. Once, he had served as physician to the imperial family itself. But when the heir sickened under his care, his rank was stripped away. Execution might have followed—had the court not judged his knowledge too valuable to discard.
After all, he was one of the legendary disciples of the Divine Healer. There had only ever been two. One had vanished without a trace, leaving Lian as the last known successor of that sacred art.
The Emperor's gaze held no mercy now, only frost. His face did not soften.
Lian turned toward Ming and pointed as if the gesture itself were proof. "He stole money last night. I recovered it."
The accusation struck the courtyard like a stone hurled into still water, sending ripples through every heart.
The Emperor's gaze slid toward Ming, cold and cutting. Already, the air seemed thick with the scent of a verdict.
Beside him, the alliance leader remained unreadable—his expression carved from stone, his eyes watchful, as though gauging which way the wind would shift before he spoke.
Ming's parents and sister collapsed to their knees, pressing their foreheads to the ground in a desperate bow.
"Seek justice for us, Your Majesty! He slanders our name!"
Their cries echoed off the stones of the street, rising and falling like waves of grief.
Ming clenched his teeth until pain cut through the fog of panic. His lips trembled uncontrollably as he mouthed one phrase toward Lian Hua—
I will never forgive you.
A sudden shape, grotesque and unstoppable, hurtled toward Ming like a falling boulder.
His sister's head spun free from her shoulders, arcing through the air in a sickening, impossible curve.
Blood geysered from his parents, bursting forth as though the earth itself had been split open.
The Emperor's blade gleamed in the square—silver, wet, and merciless.
"You dare speak so before me?" The Emperor's voice cut through the courtyard like a drawn blade.
To him, the words of a commoner were no more than filth—an affront so grave it stained his very presence. For one of commoner station to speak at all was insult enough; to speak in front of the Emperor was unforgivable.
The alliance leader's reply came soft and precise, each syllable measured:
"Your blade grows sharper by the hour."
Ming told himself it was only a nightmare. He squeezed his eyes shut until stars burned against the dark. But when he opened them, the scene only sharpened—merciless, unyielding.
Electricity crawled beneath his skin; his limbs jerked as if pulled by unseen strings. With a burst of frenzy, he tore free of the guard's grip, snatched a sword from a fallen hand, and hurled it straight toward the Emperor.
His voice cracked the square, raw with grief, rage, and sorrow.
"Why? Why did you do this? Tell me why! What wrong did they ever do to you?"
Tears streamed down his face, blinding him, yet he shouted on, each word a wound torn from his chest.
The blade flew true.
The Emperor caught it in one hand as if it were no more than a drifting leaf. His gaze was hard, polished, and merciless.
"How dare you, lowly commoner—raise a sword against me?"
In that frozen stare Emperor saw them—the same eyes he had feared since childhood, the eyes of the First Emperor.
With terrifying ease, the Emperor tossed the weapon back. The steel spun through the air and buried itself in Ming's shoulder. Pain flared white-hot, blood soaking his tunic in a sudden rush.
But Ming did not look away. Even as agony seared through him, his gaze clung to the Emperor—an animal stare, every shred of ruin, rage, and grief burning in his eyes.
Ming's breaths came ragged, each one a small, cruel victory over the blackness pressing at his chest. Lying on the cold stone, the truth settled over him like burial cloth: he had lost everything—family, name, future—at the hands of those who wore power like armor. The realization was a white, iron certainty that left no room for denial.
"If there is a next life," he whispered, voice thin and steady as a blade, "I will drag them through hell until they remember my name." He fixed the Emperor with a look that was neither plea nor prayer but a raw promise. "You may stand beyond death's reach, but I will never grant you peace."
Then he closed his eyes.