The Enfeoffment of Thirty Provinces

Late autumn gave way to early winter.

Snow fell on Great Peace City.

The snow was leaden gray. It settled on the vermilion walls, drifting soundlessly from the low sky. The moment it touched the ground, it hardened into a dark, dull frost, staining the green tiles and crimson steps of the ninefold palace a heavy leaden hue.

Outside Heaven-Bearing Hall, a thin layer of snow covered the white jade steps. Smooth as a mirror, they reflected no daylight, only the looming outline of the hall, like some great beast crouched in the heart of the imperial capital, breathing without a sound.

Inside, the candles burned on.

A thousand coiling-dragon palace lanterns lit up one after another, casting warm gold across the beams and pillars. Yet they could not dispel the oppressive gloom that had lingered for three days. Before the throne, the great rosewood desk lay buried beneath a mountain of memorials.

Sealed in vermilion lacquer and marked with feathers, their blood-red covers gleamed darkly in the lamplight. These were no ordinary reports of floods, droughts, locust plagues, or earthquakes, nor of corrupt provincial officials or mutinies on the frontier.

Every last one was an eight-hundred-li urgent dispatch from the thirty-six provinces. For three days, feather-marked reports had poured into the capital like snowflakes, day and night without cease.

Even though every relay horse was a ranked Demonic Beast, no fewer than twenty had died on the official roads. Messengers arrived with blood staining their travel-worn uniforms, then collapsed from exhaustion, all to bring news of the strange calamities across the land into the imperial city.

The rustle of attendants turning through memorials sounded fitfully through the vast hall. Each turn of a page seemed another heavy stone laid upon everyone's heart.

At the top of the imperial desk