"In that case, I shall stand on no ceremony!"
Shen Gongbao curled his five fingers, and the seal of the National Preceptor landed squarely in his palm. In an instant, a vast surge of human destiny rushed through his meridians like a breached dam, surging straight toward his spirit. Before his eyes, the six-hundred-year rise and fall of the Yin-Shang flickered: the iron-clad cavalries of Cheng Tang establishing the nation, the homage of the masses when Pan Geng moved the capital to Yin, and the flags blocking out the sun during Wu Ding’s conquests... These scenes cycled like a flickering lantern, giving Shen Gongbao the fleeting illusion that his fate was intertwined with that of the empire.
But he quickly regained his clarity—the black bird-crested seal was the true nexus, and he and the Great Shang were, in the end, two separate entities. This sense of detachment actually suited him perfectly.
Chapter 49