Seventeen years ago, on the Hour of the Rat (Zi), midnight of the Autumn Festival, everyone was happy and celebrating.
The Qinrong Imperial City was filled with lanterns and the sweet fragrance of mooncakes.
Suddenly, in the middle of the night, chaos erupted.
The sound of an Imperial drum broke through the festive atmosphere. The drum was loud and clear, beating in a certain rhythm that caught the attention of everyone in Qinrong Imperial City.
All of them started looking toward the Royal Palace.
Suddenly, the great yellow and red dragon flag was lowered from the Royal Palace, and a white dragon flag took its place instead.
The meaning of the drums was powerful yet deeply mournful:
"The Son of Heaven has passed away."
It was the announcement of the death of Emperor Qin Wenzhao, the great emperor who ruled the Qin Dynasty with wisdom.
He had only ascended the throne two years ago, but he was a beloved ruler. The people admired him for his righteousness and virtue.
Everyone knelt down and started crying.
Inside the Imperial Palace, mourning began.
Commoners, noble families, servants, and slaves, everyone now knew, because of the sound of the Imperial drum, that their monarch had passed away.
People knelt wherever they were, showing respect to Emperor Qin Wenzhao.
The next morning, shocking news spread throughout Qinrong Imperial City.
The king's death was a conspiracy.
He had been poisoned and murdered.
It was said that Empress Yan Lingshu, together with her father, General Yan Wangzhi of Yancheng City, had conspired to poison the emperor.
The empress, worried about securing the throne for her newborn child, had killed the emperor to seize power.
But the younger brother of Emperor Qin Wenzhao, the Third Prince Qin Zhaoyan, took the matter into his own hands.
In the middle of the night, leading his Imperial Army, he personally executed Empress Yan Lingshu.
The Imperial Army was then sent to the borders to annihilate the Yan family.
Within two days, the entire Yan family of the empress was executed.
Justice had been served.
Or so the people believed.
However, the newborn child of Empress Lingshu was nowhere to be found.
On that same night of the Autumn Festival, when the tragedy occurred, 3rd Prince Zhaoyan searched everywhere for the imperial child, but could not find it.
At the same time, the Imperial Seal, the symbol of royal authority, the ancestral Phoenix Crown of the Empress, and the Dragon Hairpin of the Emperor symbols of the dragon had also disappeared.
These were the greatest treasures of the Qin royal family, passed down only to the emperor and empress.
Now, all the ancestral royal tokens were lost.
On that same night of the Autumn Festival, while chaos erupted within the royal family.
A cry broke through the night in the largest brothel of the Qin Dynasty, the Red Pavilion, the most famous and beautiful establishment in Qinrong Imperial City.
The most beautiful courtesan of the Red Pavilion, Xie Meiyue, known as the Celestial Moon Fairy, had died.
And at the same time, the cry of a newborn child echoed throughout the entire Red Pavilion.
As the news spread that Mistress Meiyue of Yuexi Palace, the Third Pavilion's most famous beauty, had passed away in the middle of the night, everyone in the Red Pavilion began to cry.
Madam Xie Yueqing, the Pavilion Master, was devastated.
She had lost her sister.
Together with the other courtesans, she began preparing for the funeral.
But in the darkness of the night, a mysterious lady wearing expensive yet blood-soaked silk robes, with long golden nail guards, quietly left through the back door of the Red Pavilion.
In her arms, she carried a newborn child.
Beside her ran an eleven-year-old boy.
Together, they fled toward the city gates.
Two days later
It was the official day of the coronation ceremony of 3rd Prince Qin Zhaoyan.
Meanwhile
In Yancheng City, everything had been burned to ashes.
Smoke filled the sky, and dark clouds loomed over the ruined city.
The crops had been burned.
People had been brutally murdered.
Only a few survivors desperately struggled to stay alive.
Among the countless corpses of soldiers and civilians, an eleven-year-old boy walked silently.
The war in Yancheng City had killed almost everyone.
This was the result of the execution of the Yan family.
The boy walked past the bodies of servants and commoners, struggling to hold back his tears.
Finally, he entered the ruined Yan family mansion.
The walls were covered in blood.
Black smoke rose from every corner.
Suddenly, he saw the bodies of the young masters and children his friends.
Their bodies were destroyed.
They had been brutally killed.
Then he found the bodies of his own family.
His mother.
His father.
His younger sibling.
Half burned.
His father was holding his mother and younger brother tightly, even in death.
His father had never been a warrior.
He was only a scholar.
The boy could not hold back any longer.
He cried uncontrollably.
Then he saw the body of his beloved grandfather,
General Yan Wangzhi, the great general of Yancheng City.
His body was half burned, but he was still holding his Phoenix Sword.
The symbol of Yancheng.
The symbol of the fire and courage of every Yan family member.
With trembling hands and tear-filled eyes, the boy held his grandfather's stiff body and cried.
Then he spoke.
"Grandfather… I know what happened in the Royal Palace."
"I saw it with my own eyes."
"I know our Yan family was wrongfully accused."
"I know everything!"
He screamed in anger.
Taking the Phoenix Sword, he cut his palm and made a bloody oath.
"I, Yan Ruozhi, the last descendant of the Yan family, grandson of General Yan Wangzhi and nephew of Empress Yan Lingshu…"
"I swear this oath."
"I will take revenge for every innocent citizen of Yancheng City… and for my Yan family."
"I will kill each of them without mercy."
He screams,
"I will destroy even the last descendant of the one who brought this calamity upon Yancheng!"
But…
Is this the whole truth?
Or is there a deeper conspiracy?
Will the real heir of the Qin Dynasty return?
What secret lies behind the Red Pavilion?
And what truly happened seventeen years ago in the Imperial Palace?
All of this will be revealed in the story.
To Be Continued…