Star Calendar 1998 was a year of grand upheaval in the history of the Holy Moon Empire. Much later, whenever the sun rose, Jiang Ming would always remember that beautiful morning when he lay in bed playing games.
Deep within the dungeon, the damp, cold air hung stagnant like dead water.
“What should I call you?” A young woman with white hair and red eyes stood silently before the man.
Her voice was calm, yet every word cut like a blade.
“Jiang Ming? Benefactor? Teacher? Brother? Lord Protector? Darling—?”
She paused briefly, her crimson eyes like tempered glass, reflecting his silhouette.
“—Or should I call you ‘Pride,’ the head of the Seven Sins, who instigated the ten-year Dark Fire Chaos within the Empire?”
Her name was Lillian. Although she was only twenty years old, her hair was as white as snow and her skin as pale as jade. She was already the Empress of the Holy Moon Empire, standing above tens of thousands. At this moment, however, she stood before the man imprisoned in the dungeon, holding a bowl of warm white porridge.
The man was shirtless, his limbs tightly bound by several god-forged chains, yet his expression remained composed. He looked up at her, a faint, almost imperceptible smile playing at the corners of his lips.
Across his bare torso, from his waist to his chest, were countless patterns and scars. They bit into one another, coiling around his body like an Ouroboros.
Lillian held the porridge in her right hand, while the fingers of her left hand—slender like jade scallions—gently traced the scars on the man’s body, her eyes filled with endless melancholy.
Then, she pressed her ear tightly against his chest, listening carefully to his heartbeat, just as she had done on countless nights before.
“Lillian,” the man softly called her name.
Behind that name lay the authority and majesty of the Empire; she was the Empress. Yet, she who stood above all others was here, personally feeding him porridge. If word of this got out, no one would believe it.
“You came alone?” The man named Jiang Ming asked with a hint of surprise in his tone.
“I thought… they would all come together to enjoy seeing me like this.”
“Your light is too brilliant. They fear you and do not dare to come.”
As she spoke, Lillian unexpectedly dropped to one knee, performing a standard disciple’s rite toward him.
It was the same salutation she had performed every morning when she first became his student years ago.
In this world, knowledge was priceless, and the teacher was supreme.
Jiang Ming was slightly stunned, then broke into a low laugh, as if he had heard the most absurd joke in the world. It was unclear whether he was mocking Lillian’s gesture or the cowardice of the nobles.
“Four chains personally bestowed by the Star Goddess bind me here, and a triple alchemy matrix seals away all my magic. The people from the Origin School have even drained the mana from the air in this place. How am I any different from an ordinary man now?”
“But the miracles you once created were far more… incredible than these.” Lillian remained in her kneeling position, answering calmly.
“During the Battle of the Rhine Blood River, you stood alone before the Imperial Capital. Commanding fewer than fifty thousand men, you repelled nearly two hundred thousand rebels.”
“During the Ash Angel Eclipse, when no one else dared to go, you alone charged into the inner world and strangled the soon-to-be-born angel in its cradle. When you emerged, you even carried the heads of two Crowned Ones.”
“All of this was your doing.”
“In such a situation, killing the nobles who came to watch would seem entirely trivial compared to your previous miracles.”
Jiang Ming fell silent.
The dungeon sank into a deathly stillness, with only the sound of breathing echoing against the stone walls.
After about two or three minutes, Lillian spoke again, though this time she changed the subject.
“Regarding that final proposal you submitted—asking the Church to grant the Goddess’s mercy to the slaves during the mass on the last night of every week, giving each person a piece of black bread…” She raised her eyes.
“The House of Lords passed it, eighty-two votes to thirty-two.”
“A bill from ten years ago is passing now?” Jiang Ming smiled.
It was clearly a bill used to buy public favor, especially after a great war. They needed such methods to stabilize the populace.
“What is it called?” Jiang Ming asked with some curiosity. Such days usually were given a special name.
“Grace Day,” Lillian said.
“What an ugly name. Couldn’t they use the name I gave it at the start? Wouldn’t calling it ‘Sunday’ be better?” Jiang Ming frowned, clearly dissatisfied.
“No.” Lillian’s expression did not change.
“The foundation of the Empire does not change based on the words of a single person.”
There was no emotion in her words. Yet, beneath the calm, there were turbulent waves.
“Do you know, Jiang Ming? Do you remember that soldier named Ross whom you promoted during the previous imperial pacification? He is now the core of the rising nobility, owning seventeen plantations and over a thousand slaves.”
“He was promoted by you from a slave to a general and followed you across the world. Yesterday, he also gained the right to vote. In yesterday’s vote, he cast a dissenting vote. His reason was simple: he felt that slaves had no need for such things.”
“Your efforts are meaningless. Even if lowly, ignorant commoners reach high positions, they will never learn your theories,” Lillian said once more.
A soft sigh echoed through the dungeon, seemingly lamenting Ross’s actions, or perhaps sighing at the girl’s words.
However, after the sigh, a deathly silence descended again. After another two or three minutes, Lillian was the first to speak, but this time, her emotions could no longer be buried.
Lillian had thought of many things to say before coming—questions, admonitions, expressions of love—but in the end, they all dissolved into a series of roars.
“Why? I need a reason! We could have clearly spent the rest of our days together. Why did you have to rebel!”
“Did we do so much just for this outcome? Why couldn’t we just live our lives in peace!”
“Everything in this world belongs to you! Even I belong to you!”
“What more could you possibly be dissatisfied with!”
Jiang Ming remained calm. His black eyes were as deep as ink, looking at the clearly distraught girl like a well of ancient, still water.
“Do you remember that story I once told you?” Jiang Ming spoke slowly again.
“Once, there was an Evil Dragon. Every year, the King dispatched heroes to slay it, but none ever succeeded. The King sent people to investigate, only to find a few scattered corpses.”
“Until one day, a true Dragon Slayer appeared. He stepped into the dragon’s den and slew the Evil Dragon with ease.”
“The moment the Evil Dragon fell, the hero saw the mountain of treasure piled beneath its body—any single piece was enough for him to enjoy for a lifetime.”
“And so, greed took root in his heart.”
“He lay in that golden sea, imagining it all belonged to him, unaware that scales had already begun to grow upon his body.”
Jiang Ming’s voice was low and clear, as if proclaiming destiny:
“And just like that—the next Evil Dragon chasing treasure was born.”
“Just as I said when I accepted your father’s deathbed decree in the palace all those years ago: I would fight to protect the Highness’s people.”
He raised his eyes, his gaze like a blade piercing straight into Lillian.
“Lillian, my dear student. You dispatch ‘heroes’ every year to suppress so-called ‘Evil Dragons,’ but have you ever looked down…”
He tried to move his bound hands, and the chains rattled loudly, as if pointing toward the invisible Empire behind Lillian.
“…at whose corpses you are currently standing upon, and whose treasure you are guarding?”
“You call them ignorant and foolish, but have you ever truly tried to understand them?”
“The story you just told was also created by them.”
“Everything you eat, wear, and live in was created by them.”
“How can you be so sure that you yourself… are not the newest Evil Dragon waiting to be slain in the eyes of your subjects?”
A brief silence permeated the air again. In this dungeon, silence had long since become the norm.
After a long time, Lillian regained her previous cold composure, as if the loss of control just now had belonged to someone else. She spoke softly but firmly:
“Regardless, the Holy Moon Empire… must never fall by my hand.”
The monarch was only young, not immature. Such words clearly could not shake her.
From the time she took over the throne at age six until now, fourteen years had passed. And the man before her had also been by her side for those fourteen years.
“Do you know, Lillian,” Jiang Ming suddenly changed the subject. He shifted his body, but because his limbs were bound, he could only slightly tilt his head back.
“Some time ago, I took another disciple.”
“She is not as clever or quick-witted as you. You could even say… she is a bit clumsy. But being slow has its benefits; such people are often more persistent, more pure.”
“If she were as smart as you, perhaps one day she would perform this same play before me, teaching me to guard against arrogance and impetuousness.”
“Teacher must be joking,” Lillian’s voice suddenly became light and cold. “You have only one disciple. The Shadow of Glory has already set out. Dead people do not count.”
After saying this, she stood up and took a crystalline potion bottle from her robe. It was a bottle of teal liquid, and within the fluid, traces of starlight seemed to flow.
“Since Teacher has finished his story, now it is my turn.”
She slowly poured the teal liquid from the bottle into the porridge. Her movements were as elegant as a ritual, but a desperate madness swirled in the depths of her eyes.
“Legend says there was once a witch who fell deeply in love with a man. She longed never to be parted from him. Thus, she exhausted all alchemical methods to finally refine a potion called ‘One Magnitude Star Night.'”
She gently pushed the bowl of porridge forward:
“Drink it, and I guarantee you will not die. I will shoulder the pressure from the nobles. You will remain the Lord Protector of the Empire.”
Jiang Ming listened silently until she finished speaking, only then did a very faint curve appear at the corner of his mouth.
“A story is never truly complete if it isn’t told to the end.” He raised his eyes to meet Lillian’s expectant red pupils, but his own gaze was as unruffled as an ancient well.
“At the final moment, that woman… did not use the potion. She only left a letter, inviting the man to go to the mountaintop with her to watch a once-in-a-century meteor shower.”
“It was on that very night that they truly pledged their lives to one another.”
The silence in the dungeon spread wordlessly once more, leaving Lillian with a pale face. This time, it lasted exceptionally long, as if even time was waiting for an answer.
Lillian was incredibly brilliant; she knew better than anyone—what this man sought was never secular power or fleeting fame.
He wanted to turn this world into a fairy tale that existed only in his words.
It was the world he had described to her when she was still a child, a world where everyone was equal and everyone had their own life.
She still remembered the spark in the man’s eyes when he spoke of it back then—a spark of conviction, as if he had already lived there for a long time.
No bullying, no oppression, everyone equal.
But if the royal family wished to endure, the interests of the nobility could not be shaken.
She stood in the center of the scales: on one side were her teacher and love, and on the other were the imperial nobility and her responsibility.
Finally, Lillian broke the suffocating silence.
“You, and this country,” she said word by word, her voice as light as a falling feather yet carrying an irrevocable resolve, “I will not give up either one.”
Before the words had even finished, she reached out both hands and gently cupped Jiang Ming’s face. She then tilted her head back, drinking the medicated porridge into her mouth. She leaned down, intending to press her warm lips against his in a gesture that brooked no refusal.
But in the next second, flames suddenly erupted from nowhere.
Lillian’s expression changed instantly. A violet light erupted from her body—the color of the School of Miracles. Under that light, the colors of the entire cell began to vanish, and time began to stagnate.
Lillian tried to use the frozen time to extinguish the flames.
However, all was in vain. The flames remained brilliantly vivid upon the colorless canvas, unaffected in the slightest.
As Jiang Ming was one of those standing at the pinnacle of this era, if he was determined to die, Lillian was powerless to stop him.
Even time itself could not stop him.
Amidst the fire, a panic-stricken Lillian collapsed to the ground, and a heart-wrenching scream echoed through the dungeon:
“Jiang Ming!”
“Game Over.”
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