"Am I going to die?"
In the dark old house.
Song Dongyang lay quietly on his sickbed, staring blankly up at the drops seeping through a hole in the roof.
The dripping sounded especially clear in the empty room.
Drop by drop, the water fell into the uneven hollows in the dirt floor, gradually forming a small puddle.
The splashing rainwater soaked the surrounding earth, and a faint muddy smell drifted through the room.
Smelling it, listening to the snores of soldiers sleeping outside in the rainy night.
Yet before Song Dongyang's eyes, as though in a final flare of life, everything he had experienced flashed swiftly past.
Born into a wealthy merchant family, he had never wanted for food or clothing as a child;
He had earned a reputation as a child prodigy soon after beginning his studies. At sixteen, he had traveled to the capital for the examinations. Though he had not placed first, his Memorial on Flood Control, proposing measures against coastal flooding, had won the reigning Chancellor's regard. The Chancellor had personally praised him as "a pillar of the state!" and offered him his daughter's hand, but he had declined. Far from taking offense, the Chancellor had felt all the more that a true scholar possessed an elegance all his own, and had lavished praise on him. From then on, he had risen to youthful fame, brilliant as a star-truly, with spring winds at his back and his horse's hooves flying, he had seen all Hailing's flowers in a single day.
Afterward, he had moved between the central court and provincial posts, yet had never been entrusted with important duties.
Gloomy and frustrated, he had languished for years, until one day he finally understood.
Then he had painstakingly built his position, married the Chancellor's daughter, and