Chapter 1: Prologue

It was noon, and the sun hung high overhead.

Beneath the fierce sunlight, snow on the mountaintops flashed so brightly it hurt to look at. The world below was desolate: no forests, no animals, only bare earth.

Things had been this way four hundred years ago—even four thousand. By now, people had forgotten what this place was called. Some said it had once been known as the Pamir Plateau; others claimed that books called it the Congling Mountains. Time had carried away many names, and countless stories with them.

Once, humanity had ruled the entire Earth. People had claimed the world as their own and boldly ventured into space. Their brilliant minds had put every resource to use, sending civilization hurtling forward.

Every day, countless planes crossed the sky, battling the pull of Earth’s gravity and the turning of the planet. Electricity banished darkness from the cities; the dazzling lights could be seen even from the Moon.

Then, five hundred years ago, a common cold gave way to a terrible flu. It swept across the world at lightning speed, spreading so fast that a single sneeze could threaten the health of everyone in an entire building.

Fear of the unknown had long been written into human nature. The virus threw society into a panic, and panic gave way to riots. The riots brought death without end. Even the military was ravaged by infection, and no government could do anything to stop it.

Death treated everyone equally, whether they were a commoner or a president, a beggar or a millionaire.

By the hundredth day after the virus appeared, less than seven percent of the world’s population remained—a number comparable to the population of the sixteenth century.

People liked to say that history always moved forward. But as the population dwindled, history began to run in reverse. Productivity collapsed, resources were distributed wildly unevenly, and society seemed to have fallen back to the sixteenth century.

Cold weapons became the norm. Metallurgy and handicrafts once more drew great attention.

Political power and territory were divided anew. Some declared themselves emperors, others became kings, and a few still upheld the trappings of modern civilization, styling themselves presidents. Whatever form their rule took, the powerful always kept someone close to handle their dirty work. Such people were called Dukes and Duchesses.

“Your Grace, we’ll be landing in ten minutes.”

A soldier stepped out of the cockpit. He wore a black uniform with a silver flower-shaped button at the collar and polished black boots that clacked against the floor. Other than that cold, steady sound, the cabin was silent.

The woman called the Duchess wore the same black uniform, though she hadn’t bothered to dress as neatly as the others. One button at her chest was undone, revealing a white undershirt. Her tie had been tossed aside, along with her black military cap.

For all her casualness, she carried herself with unmistakable elegance. Her face was beautiful enough to linger in the memory—not breathtaking, but certainly striking. What drew the eye most were her black irises, dark as a bottomless lake. It seemed that if you crossed those waters, you might find yourself staring into the vastness of space.

It was hard to believe that such a young woman was the Duchess of the Lingyun Lands: Luo Yin.

At the soldier’s report, Luo Yin didn’t hurry. She calmly picked up a pair of black sunglasses from the coffee table and put them on, then lifted the curtain beside the sofa just a crack. The fierce sunlight stabbed into the cabin like an arrow, lighting one patch of floor until it gleamed like gold.

Luo Yin tilted her head and looked down through the window. Amid the endless white mountains lay a small cluster of red buildings. She knew that was their destination.

She drew the curtain shut and took off her sunglasses, still as unhurried as before. “There’s no need to land yet. Circle for a while.”

The soldier blinked at her words, but a Duchess’s orders couldn’t be questioned. He immediately turned and passed the command along.

“Heh. Your Grace, are you planning to spare their lives again?” A woman in the corner broke the silence. She wore a vivid red fur coat, its thick fur running from the collar all the way to the hem. Next to Luo Yin’s casual elegance, she seemed entirely out of place.

“Young Lady, they’re still your family’s subjects. I doubt even the president wants them killed for no reason.” Luo Yin finally roused herself from her languor. She stared straight at the woman in red, her gaze edged with contempt.

“In some backwater like this, they may never have seen a plane. Their annual tax revenue couldn’t cover the cost of keeping the capital lit for a single night.”

The woman lowered her voice and turned her hand to inspect her ring. She no longer met Luo Yin’s eyes.

The woman in red was right. This place was remote, surrounded by snow and deep mountains. No one wanted to go in, and few could easily get out.

It lay within the Lingyun Lands, yet even reaching the capital was out of the question. The nearest city was a ten- or fifteen-day journey away. There were no trains, and a person could live here half a lifetime without seeing more than a handful of cars.

Luo Yin knew all this. That was why she had kept the plane circling low, making sure the villagers could see it.

Of course, it wasn’t until after the plane had landed that Luo Yin realized her show of force had been useless. People who didn’t know what weapons were had no way of knowing they were made to kill.

“Welcome! Welcome! A warm welcome! Welcome! Welcome! A warm welcome!”

Luo Yin had visited many places on the president’s behalf. The welcomes had all been different, but she had never before been greeted by a line of children in ragged school uniforms, waving dried grass and wildflowers.

She swept her gaze across them. The children stood at the front, their sun-reddened faces lit by dazzling smiles. They could barely contain their excitement as they watched Luo Yin’s plane. Behind them stood adults with blank expressions. They didn’t look curious, much less happy. They simply had no idea what Luo Yin’s world was like.

They lived on the same land. How could their lives be so different?

“What kind of place is this?”

The woman in red muttered a complaint and hurried back into the cabin without looking behind her.

“Young Lady…?” The young soldier watched her go, uncertain what to do.

“Leave her.”

Luo Yin hadn’t looked at the woman in red once, from beginning to end.

She had come on official business, and she couldn’t let it show that she was taking things lightly. She put on her cap, fastened the buttons of her uniform, and led the soldiers toward the center of the village. That was where the person they had come to find was waiting.

“Eagle of the Empire, Hound of the Sovereign, eternal… eternal…”

The old man knelt on one knee. His right hand rested over his heart, while his left was raised high, palm exposed to show that he meant no harm and would submit. He mumbled the words the town chief had given him three days earlier. The old fellow was nearly eighty and had few teeth left. He could barely manage a normal sentence, let alone recite something so long.

“Eternal guardian of the nation, gatekeeper of hell, the people’s great and selfless Duchess.”

Luo Yin recited the rest of the honorific, which she had heard tens of thousands of times. In the Lingyun Lands, even a child could recite it.

“Village Chief, do you know why I’ve come?” Luo Yin stood before the old man and let him remain on his knees.

In a simple, rustic place like this, respecting one’s elders was basic decency. Luo Yin’s rudeness drew murmurs from the crowd and resentful glances.

“This old man… does not know.”

The old man bowed his head, but he kept his left arm raised with all his strength. The town chief had told him that if Luo Yin didn’t pat his hand, he would have to stay on his knees.

Luo Yin ignored his frail, outstretched arm. She walked past him, then slowly circled around him once.

“Village Chief, give me the flower, and your people can settle in a nearby city instead of living in the snow and ice.”

Luo Yin spoke sincerely, but her natural coolness made her offer sound more like a threat.

“My lady, the flower is only a legend passed down in our village. This old man truly doesn’t know anything about it.”

The old man refused her again.

“That’s right! Our Village Chief said he doesn’t know anything about it! You—”

A tall man stepped halfway forward, but before he could finish, a black-uniformed soldier struck him hard in the face with the butt of his rifle. The other soldiers raised their guns.

“You see, Village Chief?”

Luo Yin crouched to meet the old man’s eyes. “Give me the flower and no one else will get hurt.”

“My lady, the flower is just a legend passed down through generations. I’ve lived here for eighty years and never even seen what it looks like.” Seeing Luo Yin’s people resort to violence, the old man couldn’t hide his alarm. He no longer cared whether Luo Yin would let him stand. He planted both hands on the ground and bowed again and again. “Please, my lady…”

“I believe you don’t know anything about it. But the flower is somewhere in these mountains.” Luo Yin looked toward the distant peaks. Snow covered everything, snow that had accumulated for centuries. Who knew how many people could enter those mountains and make it back out? “If you can’t give it to me, then I’ll have the people in your village help me look…”

She hadn’t finished speaking when the ground began to tremble.

The distant mountains still seemed blanketed in white, but something was changing. Waves appeared to ripple across the slopes. The shaking grew stronger, and the white peaks seemed to churn. Then snow poured down the mountainsides as if a dam had burst. The tremors grew and grew, until the avalanche roared down with the force of a thousand armies.

“An avalanche!”

Someone in the crowd shouted. Everyone understood at once. The villagers, who had held back out of fear of the soldiers’ guns, suddenly scattered. Faced with such a disaster, even the soldiers who had stood at attention could no longer hold their positions. Shouts and cries erupted throughout the little village.

“Run!”

“Protect the Duchess! Fall back! Fall back!”

“Find somewhere to hide! Hurry!”

“Get the Duchess to the plane!”

“God, the mountain’s coming down!”

Whether Luo Yin ever made it onto the plane didn’t matter. What mattered was that no plane ever flew out of Meiduo Village that day. Or, rather, Meiduo Village vanished from the map of the Lingyun Lands.

The place had no forests, no animals, only bare earth. It looked as though nothing had happened at all. It was no different from how it had been four hundred years ago—or four thousand.