In the royal court of the Great Yong Dynasty, survival had never been a matter of virtue or merit. It was a matter of knowing where not to look.
The Third Taboo of the Forbidden City was total and merciless: Never look up at the coiling shadow above the Golden Throne.
For three hundred years, every grand high judge, veteran general, and foreign tributary prince who knelt before the jade dais had kept his forehead pressed firmly against the polished gold bricks.
Those who dared lift their gaze toward the vaulted rafters never walked out of the Meridian Gate.
The moment mortal eyes met the ancient spirit shadow coiled in the dark, their souls were snapped from their spines by the dynastic earth-vein curse.
Their living flesh was dragged into the ceiling, dissected by invisible spectral talons, and stitched into the rotting stonework of the throne to serve as unending fuel for the sovereign’s longevity.
Lu Chen kept his gaze leveled forward.
His dark, unblinking eyes remained anchored exactly upon the center of the Great Yong Emperor’s chest bone.
