It was the face of a man nearing forty, fair-skinned, unlike someone who spent his years exposed to the wind and sun by the sea.
His beard and hair were sparse, and an indescribable composure rested between his brows. It seemed to seep from the very marrow of his bones, as though nothing in this world could ever make him frown.
On closer inspection, every fine line at the corners of his eyes lay in easy harmony-not one too many, not one too few, together forming a face of gentle harmlessness.
His eyes tilted slightly upward. As those phoenix-shaped eyes opened and closed, a keen gleam occasionally flashed through them like cold lightning, so swiftly it might have been imagined. Yet anyone who met it felt a chill deep in their heart.
His gaze was so faint as to verge on indifference, like that of a man standing beside a board covered in black and white stones, watching not where the next piece should fall, but victory and defeat, life and death.
This man was one of the central leaders of Unknown Island. Everyone on the island called him the strategist; no one knew his true name.
With peerless skills in disguise and schemes that reached the heavens, he struck fear into both the martial world and the imperial court. The world had given him a name: the Thousand-Faced Illusionist.
The Illusionist.
That name had vanished from the martial world for many years. Yet anyone who had lived through the upheaval twenty years ago felt a chill crawl down their spine upon hearing it.
When Great Liang fell, he had spent three years posing as an adviser beside the Great Liang Kingdom's Imperial Father-in-Law. He devised strategies, allocated money and grain, formed factions for private gain, and urged the Liang