The summer winds of Chengdu were heavy with dust and the scent of burning incense. The halls of the Phoenix Palace stood quiet, shrouded in mourning robes and solemn whispers. The banners of Shu fluttered not in triumph, but in grief.
Liu Bei, the great founder of Shu, sworn brother of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei, the man who had carved a kingdom with blood and tears, was dead on his death bed.
And upon his death, the crown will be passed to a boy barely fifteen years of age. A child born in flight, raised among warhorses and chaos, is now called to wear the Jade Seal of emperors.
That boy was me.
And I was not him.
***
(24 hours prior, Modern Day)
It was raining the day we discussed Liu Shan in the University of Jakarta.
The windows of the lecture hall were fogged with the breath of two hundred students.
Rain tapped against the glass in rhythm with the old professor's chalk, scratching ideograms across the blackboard:
「劉禪:亡國之君」Liu Shan: The Last Emperor of Shu Han
The classroom rustled with low murmurs—half bored, half amused.
"The textbook calls him a weak ruler. The one who surrendered. The boy who could not be raised." The professor breaks the silence after he finishes writing.
"Liu Shan took the throne at fifteen. He inherited the empire not in very ideal state. His father, Liu Bei, had burned through half the state's wealth in failed campaigns to avenge his brother, Guan Yu. Shu's land was mountainous, its people were tired, its coffers were strained. Surrounding him—wolves. Wei to the north. Wu to the east. Hungry generals, crumbling loyalty. No room for mistakes."
I listened to the professor's lecture quite interested.
"When Shu was finally defeated by Wei in 263, Liu Shan chose to surrender, despite all the people's expectation to fight until the last blood, sweat, and breath."
"For this, history calls him a weak ruler," he said. "The boy emperor who surrendered. The child who could not be raised."
Professor adds a short pause.
"History remembers him as a coward."
His voice echoed slightly in the high-ceilinged lecture halls.
***
The bell rang suddenly and jarringly.
Students gathered their things. Some laughed again. The girl next to me nudged her friend and whispered, "Still a loser, though."
I stayed behind.
I hesitated. "But what if someone like Liu Shan… had the right mind? The right ideas? The right knowledge...?"
That night, I walked home alone beneath the rain.
I kept thinking about him, Liu Shan. The boy emperor. Mocked by history, shaped by loss, chained by his father's legend.
What would I have done in his place?
Could I have saved Shu?
A flash of headlights.
A horn sounds.
A scream.
My scream
And then— Silence.
***
When I opened my eyes, the sky above was no longer pale gray.
It was draped in red silk banners and framed by the gilded tiles of a palace ceiling.
The air was thick with the scent of sandalwood, ink, and old wood—foreign, yet oddly grounding.
My hands were smaller. My voice… unfamiliar.
Footsteps approached down the corridor.
"Your Highness…" came a soft, trembling whisper, choked by tears. "His Majesty, Lord Liu Bei, is gone. The court awaits your presence at first light."
It was a woman's voice, distant but gentle, calling through the door. Her silhouette flickered against the paper screen like a ghost of grief.
"The ministers have decreed—Your Highness must ascend the throne at dawn. The empire cannot go a night without its sovereign."
My lips parted before I could think.
"What… did she say?"
I staggered toward a polished bronze mirror.
A boy stared back at me—round-cheeked, wide-eyed, hair tied in a prince's topknot. A face both noble and soft.
A stranger.
"What in Heaven— I'm… Liu Shan?"
***
The palace had gone still.
In the wake of my father's death, it breathed like a wounded creature—too quiet, too slow, as if mourning had sunk into its very walls. Outside, paper lanterns trembled in the wind, their pale light flickering across wet stone. I walked alone, each step echoing through the corridors. The guards bowed silently as I passed.
I stopped before a plain wooden door. No guards stood watch. No scribes waited.
This was the sanctum of the most revered mind in all of Shu—Zhuge Liang, the Crouching Dragon. The empire's spine. My father's closest confidant. My mentor.
The one man I could trust never to betray Shu…And the one I feared most if I ever failed to earn his respect.
I raised a hand to knock—then hesitated.
He hadn't summoned me.
But I needed to see him.
I knocked once.
"Enter," came the calm reply.
The room was warm and dim, lit only by the glow of candlelight. Scrolls lined the walls in precise rows. At the center, a large table bore maps, sealed documents, and a half-dried inkstone. The war room of a mind always turning.
He looked up as I entered—surprised, but not unwelcoming.
"Your Majesty."
He rose to his feet.
And bowed.
A deep, deliberate bow. No hint of hesitation.
He wore mourning white—simple, dignified, untouched by vanity. His fan rested in his hand, unmoving. In the soft light, I noticed how much thinner he looked. Worn, not by age, but by the years spent carrying an empire alone.
I stepped forward instinctively, startled.
"Chancellor—there's no need—"
"There is," he replied, straightening. His voice held the quiet weight of ritual. "His Majesty Liu Bei is gone. And now, the Mandate of Heaven rests with you. Tradition must endure, even in sorrow."
His gaze did not soften.
It held no flattery.Only duty.And beneath that—grief.
"He was my sovereign," he said quietly. "And my friend. Imperfect, perhaps—but sincere. He believed in virtue. In people. In Shu. And most of all…"
A pause.
"He believed in you."
The words struck harder than I expected. I felt them settle in my chest, heavier than the robes I wore.
He continued, voice gentler now:
"And now, all that remains of his vision rests on your shoulders."
I swallowed hard before answering.
"It feels heavier than I imagined."
He nodded once.
"It should."
A long silence stretched between us—not awkward, but solemn. The weight of history pressing into the quiet.
Then, with a soft flick of his fan, Zhuge Liang turned toward the table and gestured.
"The court readies your coronation. The ministers will sharpen their speeches—and perhaps their daggers. But before the ceremony drowns us in formality, there remains one final space for truth. Let us not waste it."
He stepped aside, revealing the table behind him, covered in scrolls. Maps of the northern front, troop deployments, grain inventories… The wounds of Shu lay bare in ink and brushstroke.
I approached slowly. The weight of it was familiar. Real.
He gestured to the spread before us.
"We stand at a critical juncture. Wei fortifies its hold in the north. Wu grows impatient. And the south… Nanzhong seethes with unrest. What would Your Majesty have me do?"
But this was no plea for advice.
This was a trial.
***
A silent judgment on whether I was worthy to wear the crown.
I stepped to the table, my eyes scanning the maps. No satellites. No screens. But the essentials were there: movement, supply lines, terrain, morale.
I recalled long lectures in university halls. Books, simulations, strategy games.
From Napoleon's march to Moscow, to Cao Cao's campaigns across the Han River—the principles never changed.
Victory was not just steel and numbers.
Logistics was the pivotal point. Morale was the soul. Overreach without supply? Suicide.
First—secure the heart.
I placed my finger on Hanzhong which served as a natural fortress and strategic buffer zone.
Losing Hanzhong would expose the core of Shu empire to invasion from the north.
"This remains our shield," I said. "The west is a temptation—glory and expansion—but overextend here, and Wei will strike directly through our center."
He said nothing. But I could feel his fan slowing, slightly.
I continued.
"Wu is unstable, but they fear Wei more than they dislike us. Don't anchor our hopes in formal alliance—use diplomacy to keep them just close enough. A caged beast facing the same hunter...."
That fan paused again. Barely.
"As for Nanzhong…"
I traced the map gently southward, toward the tangled lands beneath Yizhou—jungles, hills, and scattered tribal territories. Nanzhong was never truly ours. It was seized through conquest—its leaders displaced, its people embittered.
I felt the shift in the room the moment I said the word. Even in this place, the name was wrapped in tension.
"It's bleeding us dry. Suppression can't last forever. It burns coins and men. But if we grant local leaders land, limited autonomy, and a stake in Shu's survival… they'll protect it as their own. We move from occupation to integration."
I didn't look at him yet.
"Call it benevolence, if we must. I call it cost-efficiency."
Now the fan has stopped.
"You would offer the southern tribes a voice within the Empire?"
His voice was level, but there was something behind it now—like a bowstring tightening.
I didn't blink.
"Within reason. So long as they pay tribute, respect order, and send grain, we gain allies without drawing our swords."
Silence.
A long, thick silence. The air between us hung like a blade suspended over uncertain ground.
Then, for the first time, he turned to face me fully. His eyes met mine—not as a regent evaluating a child, but as a strategist meeting another mind.
"And who," he asked quietly, "taught you to speak of hearts and supply lines in the same breath, Your Majesty?"
I met his gaze evenly.
"A long journey," I said. "And many mistakes."
And none of them in this world.
He studied me for a breath longer, then slowly turned. I sat, the faint creak of wood beneath me the only sound in the chamber.
"Forgive me," he said at last, voice gentler now. "But when I left Baidicheng, I expected to return to a boy still grieving, still lost. I did not expect… this."
He gestured vaguely—at me, at the plans, at the quiet steel in my voice.
"Even when your father lay on his final bed, he feared whether you could carry his burden. And now, here you sit, speaking as though the weight has always been yours. You speak of strategy. Reform. Court politics. Integration."
"This change… is no small thing."
I nodded. Slowly. Thoughtfully.
"Perhaps I was a boy," I said, "while he lived. Perhaps I depended on him too much, hid in his shadow too long. But when I heard he was gone... something broke."
I looked down at my hands—the hands of Liu Shan, but no longer just his.
"There was no one left to stand between me and the throne. And I realized—if I don't rise now, I'll be swallowed whole."
Zhuge Liang watched in silence.
"Grief clears the illusions," I continued. "I thought I had time to learn slowly. But death doesn't wait. Nor do kingdoms. I spent the night not in tears, but in thought."
I looked up and met his eyes.
"I may not have my father's charisma, nor his battlefield scars. But I have eyes. I have ears. And I've been watching, listening, for longer than people thought."
He was still. But I caught it—the slight shift of his stance. The faint tightening around his eyes. Not distrust.
A quiet, dawning respect.
"You've grown," he said softly. "Or become someone new."
He stepped toward the table again, fan whispering through the still air.
Zhuge Liang spoke again—lower this time, like the whisper of a blade drawn in darkness.
"Your insight is sharp. Perhaps too sharp."
He moved a scroll aside, revealing a simple ink sketch of the court's current structure—families, factions, allegiances. A spider's web of titles and ambition.
"You speak of war, of land, of integration. But this palace… is a battlefield all its own."
He tapped the center of the diagram.
"Some here serve Shu. Some serve only themselves. Others still mourn your father and wait for you to fail, so they may rise in his shadow. You will find loyalists, yes—but you will also find flatterers, opportunists, and men who mistake the absence of age for the absence of authority."
He turned toward me again, slower this time.
"You must not mistake silence for agreement. Nor smiles for loyalty. This court bows with one knee and schemes with the other. If you are to lead it, you must see through more than maps."
The flick of his fan returned, gentle, rhythmic.
"Can you do that, Your Majesty? Not just speak wisely—but move wisely? Judge not only the battlefield, but the men who pretend to fight for you?"
I took a breath. The candlelight cast his face in long shadows—but his eyes burned with clear fire.
"I intend to," I answered.
He nodded—once.
"Then tomorrow, when you are crowned… do not accept their flattery."
He looked at me one last time—this time not with suspicion, but with the faintest glimmer of belief.
"Earn their fear first. Then their respect."
His voice dropped lower.
"Your mind is clear. But your back is still exposed. If you mean to rule, Your Majesty, you must know not just how to fight—but how to be feared. At least… until you are understood."
I gave a single nod.
"I will give them fear, then I will give them clarity. Starting tomorrow."
Zhuge Liang regarded me for a long moment. Then, finally, he said:
"You speak no longer like the boy I once knew."
"Then I will not be treated like one."
Chapter 1 Finish