His tongue root was numb and he couldn’t open his mouth to shout. Han Qian felt irritable and resentful in his heart, but could only lie sprawled at the desk, listening to the window covered with a layer of oiled paper creaking and swaying all night as the light breeze blew from the mountain ridge—the sound made Han Qian want to tear down the entire damn courtyard.

The study faced east. The mountain terrain wasn’t particularly steep, but the ridges undulated continuously. In the deep purple night, they appeared as thin as stacked cut-paper silhouettes of varying light shades.

As dawn approached, the clouds above the distant ridge line gradually brightened, and the mountain forests became progressively clearer, revealing that the mountain cliffs weren’t far from here.

“…Creak…”

Only then was the door pushed open. A young woman whose face was covered with a large dark red birthmark walked in carrying a copper basin.

“Young Master has truly changed his temperament, actually sitting at the desk all night. If you could do this in the city, why would you have provoked the Master’s anger?”

The ugly maid didn’t notice Han Qian’s abnormal condition either. She placed the copper basin filled with washing water on the wooden stand. Seeing that the bedding in the inner room hadn’t been spread out, she truly believed Han Qian had been reading through the night without rest until now.

“Shut your chattering mouth!”

Seeing this ugly maid, Han Qian felt disgusted in his heart and wanted to open his mouth to berate her, but his throat could only make hoarse sounds.

He struggled to stand up, thinking of grabbing that copper basin full of washing water and smashing it toward the annoying ugly maid’s face, thinking to himself that this lowly maid had let him sit by the window all night without even thinking to come in and attend to him.

Han Qian supported himself on the desk, his body trying to stand, but nearly fell headfirst from the chair to the floor.

The ugly maid was startled and supported Han Qian. Seeing his face was terribly pale, she reached out to touch his forehead:

“Oh my, why is it burning so badly? They say you can’t keep the window open while reading at night. The mountain wind is wickedly cold. Young Master must have caught a chill from the wind—the Master strictly forbids servants from attending to Young Master inside at night, and Steward Fan was careless too, not knowing to close this window. With your forehead burning like this, what are we to do?”

The ugly maid helped the powerless Han Qian to the sleeping couch in the inner room to lie down.

Han Qian’s head was still muddled, his body weak. He wanted to curse but didn’t have the strength. He could only watch helplessly as Qing Yun busied herself back and forth caring for him as he lay down. In between, he drank a bowl of bitter medicinal soup. He didn’t know what was in the soup or whether it would make him sick. Dazed and confused, he thought perhaps everything before his eyes was still in a dream, and there was no need to take anything seriously.

Afterward, he fell into a drowsy sleep again, and fragmentary dreams assailed him once more.

Only this time, what Han Qian dreamed of was no longer that bizarre and fantastical world, but bloody and valiant fierce soldiers, gleaming sharp blades and spears, corpses strewn beneath broken city walls with blood flowing like rivers, the setting sun shining on the reed grass by the riverbank…

In the Grand Library far from the empire’s center of power, the collection of books was as deep and vast as an ocean…

In the deep, secluded Han family mansion, a withered figure sat in the cold shadows, his feminine yet piercing gaze giving one a needle-pricking sensation…

The autumn waters of the Pu River reflected by candlelight seemed like black silk satin flickering with light under the night sky. Fine ripples beat against the boat like jade. Inside the pleasure boat, those warm jade-like delicate bodies wore not a thread of clothing, murmuring softly in their sleep, emitting fatal temptation…

This was the world Han Qian was familiar with. This was the world familiar to him as the son of the Junior Supervisor of the Secretariat, the Han family’s hopeless “Seventh Young Master Han” who relied on his family’s power and influence to run wild in Xuanzhou and Jinling City!

Opening his eyes and waking, Han Qian saw the sun had already slanted westward. Feeling slightly better, he noticed a bowl of vegetable congee at his bedside, still steaming hot—it must have been brought in by the ugly maid Qing Yun just moments ago.

Ravenously hungry, Han Qian didn’t care about anything else. He picked up the vegetable congee and gulped it down into his stomach.

After the somewhat hot bowl of vegetable congee entered his stomach, he broke out in a sweat. Only then did Han Qian recover his strength. Without the weakness and dazed feeling from the poisoning, everything before his eyes naturally became more real.

However, the more this was so, the more Han Qian felt the dream from the previous night was strange.

The life memories of Zhai Xinping from the dream realm were so clear in his mind, and possessed such a sense of reality—so real that Han Qian suspected whether his mind had been possessed by a ghost from a thousand years in the future.

At this moment, the ugly maid Qing Yun heard movement in the room and walked in. Seeing her young master Han Qian sitting there dazed with a somewhat fierce expression, she didn’t dare say much. She tidied up the bowls and dishes and went out.

Han Qian picked up the bronze mirror with beast-shaped handle by the bedside and looked at himself in the mirror. He was still that pale-faced, somewhat elongated-looking youth of eighteen or nineteen due to his thin, gaunt cheeks—

This made Han Qian feel slightly better. It was still the appearance he was familiar with. He had almost thought he had turned into that middle-aged man of orphan origin named Zhai Xinping from the dream.

Han Qian walked to the outer study.

Against the wall was a bookshelf reaching to the ceiling, filled with old and new books.

Mainly thread-bound books, but also some paper or silk scrolls, and some bamboo slips that looked very old and weathered—all were his father Han Daoxun’s collection. On the bookshelves were two incense burners with beast-head designs, and some uniquely shaped white, black, brown, or tan colored strange stones serving as bookends…

Against the west wall was also a sitting couch. Han Qian remembered it was where that little whore Yao Xishui had drunk with him the previous night, but now the small table on the sitting couch was completely empty—no wine pot or cups, not a trace that Yao Xishui had ever appeared.

Had he been driven to Autumn Lake Mountain Villa by his father for too long and become confused?

Had that girl Yao Xishui never come to the manor at all, and everything was just his own imagination? Had he simply caught a chill and had a few strange dreams?

However, the window by the desk was still half-open. Not having been cleaned for two or three days, a layer of dust had accumulated on the windowsill, leaving several messy palm prints and footprints, clearly visible.

Yao Xishui and that other man had stepped on the windowsill and jumped out—it wasn’t his imagination!

No matter how confused Han Qian was, at this moment he could confirm that Yao Xishui coming at night to poison him was not a dream, but had truly happened.

Only, this made Han Qian even more confused.

No matter how much of a scoundrel Han Qian was, he still had some self-awareness.

Even though he usually enjoyed frequenting the Evening Red Pavilion to cavort with courtesans for pleasure and spoke disrespectfully to Yao Xishui who sold her art but not her body, teasing her in every way, in just two or three months he had squandered over a hundred taels of gold at the Evening Red Pavilion without even managing to touch Yao Xishui’s breasts.

Yao Xishui should have been spending her efforts hooking him, this extravagant spendthrift patron—so why would she come to kill him?

Could there be some other conspiracy hidden?

But his grandfather Han Wenhuan, who had served as Vice Minister of War, had already retired and returned to his hometown, going back to live in Xuanzhou. His father Han Daoxun, as Junior Supervisor of the Secretariat, held the rank of fourth grade junior, and was definitely not prominent among the civil and military officials of the court. He himself was a wastrel. His father, disappointed that he couldn’t amount to anything, had driven him to the villa to cultivate his character and temperament. He had no power or influence in his hands. He couldn’t even order around that old dog Fan Xicheng who only listened to his father’s commands. Who would go through such elaborate schemes to poison him?

Han Qian cleared his throat, just about to call the ugly maid Qing Yun to ask her clearly, when a fragment of memory suddenly flashed through his mind. More accurately, it should be said it was a passage of Southern Chu history that the dream figure Zhai Xinping had once read:

In his later years, the Martial Emperor of Southern Chu governed incompetently and became suspicious of his ministers. When the minister Han Daoxun admonished him to be diligent in governing affairs, he enraged the Martial Emperor and was beaten to death before Wenying Hall. His son Han Qian fled to his ancestral home in Xuanzhou intending to raise troops, but was captured by family guards en route and delivered to the authorities, then torn apart by horses in the marketplace…

Torn apart in the marketplace?

Han Qian was no stranger to death by dismemberment.

When the previous dynasty fell and the Chu state was newly established, with the capital set in Jinling only twelve years ago, the Chu territory was not at all peaceful at this time. Emperor Tianyou governed harshly with severe punishments and strict laws. Each year, many prisoners were executed by dismemberment.

After his father Han Daoxun was transferred to serve in the court, Han Qian had also been brought to Jinling to reunite with his father. Though it had only been three or four months, he had opportunities to personally witness scenes of executions by dismemberment.

In previous dynasties, death by dismemberment meant being torn apart by five horses, but the Chu state’s dismemberment execution was somewhat simpler—ropes were tied separately around the death row prisoner’s armpits and waist, then two horses would pull desperately in opposite directions until the prisoner was torn alive into two halves, with intestines, excrement, urine, and gushing blood spilling all over the ground.

As a spectator, Han Qian found such scenes extremely stimulating.

Although his father had cursed him bloody for it, he still felt such scenes were worth watching again. But thinking that such a thing might possibly happen to himself, at this moment Han Qian was chilled to the bone, his hair standing on end, his heart involuntarily throbbing faintly.

How could such a thing possibly happen to him?

Why would he have such a strange dream the previous night? How damn unlucky!

Han Qian tried to discard these chaotic thoughts, but the dream from the previous night presented itself more and more clearly in his mind, as if the life memories of the dream figure Zhai Xinping had already merged into his bloodstream, impossible to erase.

The dream figure Zhai Xinping couldn’t be said to be familiar with this period of Southern Chu history. No matter how hard Han Qian tried to recall, there were only scattered memory fragments.

During the late period of the previous dynasty, regional military governors had divided territories for a hundred years. In the year nine hundred, the last emperor was killed by a powerful minister and the dynasty completely fell. At that time, the Military Governor of Huainan, Yang Mi, simultaneously proclaimed himself emperor in Jinling, designating the state name as “Chu” and using “Tianyou” as the era name.

Emperor Tianyou reigned for seventeen years. After his death, his posthumous title was Most Sacred and Martial Emperor. Later generations called him Emperor Chuwu of Chu…

Wait.

Wasn’t this passage of history describing the process of Emperor Tianyou establishing the Chu state?

And right now it was only the twelfth year of Tianyou. There were still five years until Emperor Tianyou’s death in the seventeenth year of Tianyou?

That bizarre and fantastical dream from the previous night—was it possession by ghosts, or was it a warning from heaven?

If these things were destined to happen, wouldn’t that mean Emperor Tianyou would die five years from now, and before that, he himself would be “torn apart in the marketplace”?

Han Qian had lived carelessly and heartlessly for so many years. He didn’t care if the world flooded after his death, but thinking that he might be “torn apart in the marketplace” within five years, how could he possibly calm down?

Only, how could he prove that the historical fragments remembered by the dream figure would be true?