The All Under Heaven Chessboard.
Ten figures stood before an enormous sand table, studying the scene within it.
The sand table held a miniature Divine Treasury of the Great Wilderness. Mountains, rivers, cities, and fields were all there, lifelike down to the last detail.
Points of light dotted the sand table, dense as stars and scattered across the Great Wilderness in different colors.
But now, strands of black mist drifted among them, flickering through one star after another.
One of the ten figures extended a slender, fair-skinned finger and lightly touched the cluster of stars most heavily shrouded in black smoke.
At once, light rippled across those stars and collided, spreading rings like ripples on water. Illusory scenes rose from them, presenting fragments before the onlookers.
In those fragments, ordinary people schemed against one another over all kinds of money, trading deception and intrigue, even coming to blows. Countless joys and sorrows played out among them—
Some grew rich overnight. Their lives changed, and they gradually became objects of envy, until they stood above everyone else.
Some saw their households fall into ruin and their lives sink to rock bottom. Friends and family drifted away, their own blood rejected them, and in the end they walked alone, like mud rotting by the roadside.
Some inherited fortunes and spent their days feasting and reveling, surrounded by lovers. Their lives brimmed with pleasure, and they were hailed as respected local figures.
Some endured hardship and rose from poverty, swindling and cheating, burning, killing, and plundering all along the way. They committed every evil imaginable and were seen by untold numbers as evil ghosts of the Mortal World. But once they had amassed mountains of gold and silver, everyone praised them and longed to be like them.
Some held power and used it