Time and space wavered like the shimmering wings of a jade cicada.
Within one of those flickering points of light lay the Tianqi Continent—another spacetime entirely.
Great Ling Dynasty.
Outside the Historiography Academy, the autumn night was thick with chill.
Inside, Chen Mo's brush hovered over a bamboo slip, ink congealing in the inkstone with faint ripples.
The brittle chirps of autumn crickets seeped through the window as bronze lamp light bathed the room in a stale yellow glow, like aged tea steeped in time itself.
He had been annotating the newly delivered Records of Rivers and Canals, but now his brush paused over one particular line:
"In the ninth year of Yuanguang, River Defense Commandant Wang Yan recruited civilians to repair the breach at Huzi…"
A drop of ink fell, blooming across the bamboo slip like the turmoil in his mind.
This was the thirty-fifth discrepancy he had uncovered in recent years.
