The throne room was silent save for the soft, rhythmic clicking of the golden abacus around Liang Zhao's neck. The beads moved on their own, recording the seconds, the minutes, the hours of a life that was not truly being lived. The emperor sat motionless, his pale, translucent hands resting on the arms of the golden throne, his clouded eyes fixed on the white-haired figure before him.
Gu Yao stood at the foot of the dais, his hammer planted beside him, his broken leg dragging behind him. He had heard the emperor's words. He had understood them. But he needed to hear more. He needed to understand what he was truly fighting against.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me everything.”
Liang Zhao closed his eyes, and for a moment, he looked like what he was—a corpse that had forgotten how to die. When he spoke again, his voice was thin and distant, as if he were speaking from a great distance, or from a time long past.
“I was not always like this,” he said. “I was young once. I was strong. I was the heir to the throne of Liang, and I was the pride of my father's court. I had everything—wealth, power, women, the adoration of the people. I had the golden abacus, and it was bright. It was always bright.”
He paused, his thin fingers tracing the beads around his neck. “And then I learned the truth.”
“What truth?” Gu Yao asked.
Liang Zhao opened his eyes, and for a moment, there was something in them—something sharp, something fierce, something that had been buried for three hundred years. “The truth about the Immortal Court,” he said. “The truth about the Sects. The truth about the machine.”
He leaned forward, his chains rattling, his voice dropping to a whisper.
“I was told, when I was young, that the Sects were the masters of the world. I was told that the cultivators were the ones who held the power—the ones who controlled the flow of Rhyme, the ones who decided who lived and who died. I believed it. Everyone believed it. It was the only truth we knew.”
He smiled—a thin, bitter smile. “And then I met a man. A man who had been to the sky. A man who had seen the Immortal Court with his own eyes. And he told me something that changed my life.”
“What did he tell you?”
“He told me that the Sects are not the masters. They are not the ones who hold the power. They are not the ones who control the flow of Rhyme. They are just the middlemen. The managers. The landlords.”
Gu Yao felt a chill run down his spine. He had heard this before—from the old man in the bone field, from the Keeper in the City of Eternal Prosperity, from the whispers of the dead that haunted his dreams. But he had never heard it spoken with such certainty. He had never heard it spoken by a man who had seen the truth with his own eyes.
“The Sects collect the Rhyme,” Liang Zhao continued. “They drain it from the people, from the land, from the very bones of the earth. They gather it in the supply pipes, and they send it to the sky—to the Immortal Court. And the Immortal Court takes what they collect, and they use it to fuel their eternal lives. They have been doing this for three thousand years. They have been feeding on the Great Desolation for three thousand years. And they will continue to feed on it until there is nothing left to take.”
Gu Yao was silent for a long moment. He was thinking about the cages beneath the Ascension Platform, about the thousands of mortals whose lives had been sacrificed so that the Sects could grow more powerful. He was thinking about the needles and the tubes and the endless, grinding misery of the Blood Road. He was thinking about the Living Pillars standing in the river, holding up the weight of the world with their bodies.
“And what happens to the people?” he asked. “What happens to the ones who are drained?”
Liang Zhao's smile faded. “They die,” he said. “They die slowly, over decades, over centuries. They die without ever knowing why. They die believing that their suffering is necessary, that their sacrifice is noble, that the Sects are protecting them from the chaos that would consume the world without them.”
“And the Sects?” Gu Yao asked. “What do they get?”
“Power,” Liang Zhao said. “They get power. The Immortal Court grants them authority over the mortal realms. They get to rule. They get to decide who lives and who dies. They get to wear the golden abaci around their necks and pretend that they are the masters of the world.”
He laughed—a dry, brittle sound. “But they are not the masters. They are just the landlords. The ones who collect the rent. The ones who evict the tenants when they cannot pay. The ones who make sure that the machine keeps running, that the Rhyme keeps flowing, that the Immortal Court keeps feeding.”
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Gu Yao looked at the emperor—at his pale skin, his hollow cheeks, his clouded eyes. He looked at the tubes in his neck, at the abacus around his throat, at the chains that bound his wrists and ankles to the golden throne. He looked at the man who had been kept alive by the Sects for three hundred years, not out of mercy, but because he was useful.
“And you,” he said. “What are you? What is your role in this machine?”
Liang Zhao closed his eyes. “I am the battery,” he said. “I am the conduit. I am the one who collects the Rhyme from the people of Liang and sends it to the sky. I am the one who keeps the supply pipes flowing. I am the one who makes sure that the Immortal Court never goes hungry.”
He opened his eyes, and for a moment, there was something in them—something sharp, something fierce, something that had been buried for three hundred years. “And I have been doing this for three hundred years,” he said. “Three hundred years of being drained. Three hundred years of being used. Three hundred years of watching the people I was supposed to protect die, one by one, while I sat on this throne and pretended that everything was all right.”
Gu Yao felt the weight of the emperor's words pressing down on him, the weight of the truth that he had been trying to ignore. The Sects were not the enemy. The Sects were just the middlemen. The real enemy was something else—something older, something darker, something that had been living in the sky for three thousand years, feeding on the lives of the people below.
“And what about the Blood Covenant?” Gu Yao asked. “The one that the Keeper of the Ledgers used to bind the people to the system?”
Liang Zhao smiled. It was a thin, tired smile, the smile of a man who had been waiting three hundred years to tell this story. “The Blood Covenant is a tool,” he said. “It is a way to make sure that the people do not rebel. It is a way to make sure that they keep paying their debts, keep following the Rites, keep feeding the machine. It is a way to make sure that they never learn the truth.”
“The truth,” Gu Yao repeated. “The truth about the Immortal Court.”
“Yes,” Liang Zhao said. “The truth about the Immortal Court. The truth about the supply pipes. The truth about the machine. The truth that I have been trying to tell for three hundred years, but no one would listen.”
He leaned forward, his chains rattling, his clouded eyes fixed on Gu Yao's face. “But you are listening,” he said. “You are listening, and you are going to do something about it.”
Gu Yao nodded slowly. He was thinking about the supply pipes that ran beneath the earth, the tubes that carried the Rhyme to the Immortal Court. He was thinking about the junction beneath the palace, the place where all the pipes converged, the place where the machine could be broken.
“I'm going to cut them,” he said. “I'm going to cut the supply pipes. I'm going to break the machine. I'm going to cut the strings that connect the sky to the earth.”
Liang Zhao leaned back on his throne, his eyes closed, his body still. “Finally,” he whispered. “Finally, someone is going to finish what I could not.”
Gu Yao turned to look at Chen Tie. The one-eyed man was standing at the edge of the chamber, his saw in his hands, his face pale. He had heard every word. He had understood every word. And he was ready.
“We need to go,” Gu Yao said. “We need to find the junction. We need to cut the pipes.”
Chen Tie nodded. “I know the way,” he said. “My father showed me, before he died. The junction is beneath the palace, in the old tunnels. It's guarded, but we can get through.”
Gu Yao turned back to the emperor. “What about you?” he asked. “What will you do?”
Liang Zhao smiled. It was a thin, tired smile, the smile of a man who had been waiting three hundred years to be free. “I will wait,” he said. “I will wait for you to finish what you started. And then I will finally die.”
Gu Yao looked at him for a long moment. He was thinking about the three hundred years the emperor had spent on this throne, about the three hundred years he had spent being drained, being used, being forgotten. He was thinking about the man who had once been young, once been strong, once been the pride of his father's court.
“You don't have to die,” Gu Yao said. “You can come with us. You can help us fight.”
Liang Zhao shook his head. “I am too old,” he said. “I am too broken. I have been on this throne for three hundred years. I have forgotten how to walk. I have forgotten how to fight. I have forgotten how to be a man.”
“You can learn,” Gu Yao said. “You can learn again.”
Liang Zhao looked at him, his clouded eyes searching Gu Yao's face for something—reassurance, perhaps, or a sign that everything would be all right. He found neither. He found only the cold, hard determination of a man who had been fighting for fifty years and was not about to stop now.
“No,” he said. “I cannot come with you. But I can give you something.”
He reached up with his thin, twisted hands and unclasped the golden abacus from around his neck. The beads clicked softly, their milky light pulsing with the rhythm of a heartbeat that was slowly fading. He held it out to Gu Yao.
“Take it,” he said. “Take it to the junction. It is the key. It will open the pipes. It will let you cut them.”
Gu Yao took the abacus. It was cold and heavy in his hand, its golden surface gleaming in the pale light. He could feel the power pulsing inside it—the power of three hundred years of collected Rhyme, the power of a lifetime of suffering, the power of a man who had been waiting three hundred years to be free.
“Thank you,” he said.
Liang Zhao leaned back on his throne, his eyes closed, his body still. “Go,” he whispered. “Go and finish what I could not. Go and break the machine. Go and cut the strings that connect the sky to the earth.”
Gu Yao nodded. He turned and walked out of the chamber, his hammer scraping against the floor, his broken leg dragging behind him. Chen Tie followed, his saw in his hands, his one eye fixed on the darkness ahead.
Behind them, the emperor sat on his throne, his golden abacus gone, his neck bare, his body still. For the first time in three hundred years, he was free.