The chilling mist of the Wangchuan River crept along Pi Yanlin’s collar toward the back of his neck, yet he did not feel the slightest bit cold.
The unfolded remnant page of the Book of Life and Death grew hot in his palm. The handwriting on the yellowish paper was writhing like living things—it was the karmic trajectory of Li Chongguang. It traced him from a wrinkled imperial infant in swaddling clothes, to a down-and-out royal kinsman kneeling in the ancestral temple while his legitimate older brother trampled his crown, and finally to that blood-red moon night twenty-three years ago.
"So he bought his Mandate of Heaven with the grievances of a million people," Pi Yanlin murmured softly, his thumb pressing over a line of text soaked through with bloodstains.
Chapter 130