(The Emperor Weeps in Deep Guilt for the Civil War)
The weight of sixty years of royal sovereignty seemed to crumble beneath the quiet flicker of the bedchamber candles.
Emperor Zhao Tai sat upright on the edge of the massive sandalwood dragon bed. His weathered hands shook against the gold-stitched brocade duvet. Every word spoken by Grand Marshal Wu Zhan and Crown Prince Zhao Lie had fallen like leaden weights upon the aged monarch’s heart.
One hundred thousand peasant families driven from their old family farmsteads in the dead of winter. Countless granaries emptied by royal supply order squads to feed an aggressive war machine. Frontier counties set ablaze, their fertile terraces trampled by two hundred thousand armored iron boots. And worst of all, the proud legions of the Golden Sun marching toward the Desolate Spirit Forest with forbidden demonic ordnance, intent on massacring innocent refugees under the guise of dynastic glory.
“One hundred thousand mortals...” Emperor Zhao Tai whispered, his voice cracking with unbearable anguish. “Fleeing into the snowstorms... Carrying their infants on their backs because their own emperor’s banners brought them starvation...”
A heavy, choking silence gripped the bedchamber.
Beside the bed, Crown Prince Zhao Lie kept his forehead pressed against the cold marble floorboards, sobbing so wildly that his golden dragon pauldrons rattled against each other like loose roof tiles. Down the hall, Grand Marshal Wu Zhan remained on one knee, his head bowed low in shared military shame.
