Yuan Shikai entered the Emperor's private study and knew, with the chilling certainty of a man walking to his own execution, that his life was over. The usual protocol was gone. There was no eunuch announcing his title, no offer of tea. There was only a profound and heavy silence, a room thick with menace.
The Emperor was not seated on his throne. He was standing in the center of the room, a stark, imposing figure. Beside him, a silent specter in the corner, stood the Spymaster, Shen Ke. But it was the object in the Emperor's hand that seized all of Yuan's attention and turned the blood in his veins to ice. It was a sword. An ancient, straight-bladed jian, its bronze guard a coiled dragon, its dark blade seeming to absorb the light from the room. Yuan did not recognize the specific weapon, but he recognized its meaning. This was not a discussion. This was a final judgment.
He had spent the entire journey from his own office to the Emperor's chambers composing his defense, polishing the brilliant, audacious lie he would tell. Now, seeing the sword, he knew that words would be useless. He walked to the center of the room and performed a deep, formal bow, his mind racing, his face a perfect mask of calm composure. He would meet his end with the same control that had defined his life.
"Your Majesty summoned me," he said, his voice even.
"I did, Minister Yuan," the Emperor replied, his own voice quiet, almost conversational, which was more terrifying than any shout. He took a slow, deliberate step forward. "We have much to discuss. Let us begin with your Ministry's secret, off-ledger budgets, and the matter of several thousand tons of unaccounted-for imperial steel."
Yuan opened his mouth to speak, but the Emperor continued, his voice never rising, his pace never changing as he took another slow step. "Then, perhaps, we can move on to your relationship with a certain American asset. A former Marine, I believe. A demolition expert named Corporal Riley."
Another step. The Emperor was closer now. Yuan could see the intricate, ancient patterns on the sword's blade.
"We could discuss the man's recent employment history," the Emperor went on, his voice a soft, silken thread of menace. "Specifically, his work on a natural gas pipeline in a place called Pennsylvania."
Another step. They were now only a few feet apart.
"And we could conclude," the Emperor said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, "with the events of yesterday in Tianjin. Where your private army murdered two of my Ministry's agents in a filthy flophouse to cover your tracks."
With each methodical accusation, the Emperor had dismantled Yuan's defenses, leaving his treason exposed. Yuan, his mind reeling, fell back on his last, desperate defense. The lie.
"Your Majesty," he began, forcing a look of pained sincerity onto his face. "These are falsehoods, deceptions planted by our enemies to sow discord. The Americans, fearing our rise, seek to frame your most loyal…"
"Do not," the Emperor cut him off, the two words striking with the force of a physical blow. He moved with a speed that was startling, closing the final distance between them. The tip of the ancient sword came to rest on the soft flesh of Yuan's throat. The metal was not cold; it felt unnervingly warm, alive. "Lie to me, Yuan Shikai."
Yuan froze, his breath catching in his throat. He could feel the keen edge of the blade, a faint line of pressure that promised oblivion.
But the Emperor did not push the blade. He did something far more strange, and far more terrifying. He lowered the sword slightly, turning it so the flat of the ancient blade rested gently against Yuan's forehead.
"You believe I am merely a man," the Emperor whispered, his eyes boring into Yuan's. "You believe you can outmaneuver me. You cannot outmaneuver a god."
He closed his eyes. A tiny, precise flicker of his power, a controlled spark from the furnace of his soul, flowed through the ancient metal and into Yuan Shikai's mind. It was not an attack. It was not a wave of pain. It was a single, projected image, a forced psychic data-transfer.
For a fraction of a second, Yuan Shikai's world dissolved. He was no longer in the Emperor's study. He was looking at himself, but through the Emperor's own eyes. He saw himself not as a man, but as the monstrous, grotesque creature from Qin Shi Huang's distorted vision. He saw a colossus of brass gears and smoking pistons, a thing of soulless industry, devouring mountains of silver and excreting nothing but rust and ash, its furnace-heart burning with a cold, contemptible fire of pure ambition. He saw his own treasonous soul, stripped bare of all its justifications and rationalizations, and he saw it as his god-king saw it: ugly, monstrous, and pathetic.
The vision vanished. Yuan stumbled back with a choked gasp, his hands flying to his head, his carefully constructed composure shattering into a million pieces. The world swam back into focus. He stared at the Emperor, his mouth agape, his mind reeling from the psychic violation.
It was not the accusations that broke him. It was not the threat of the sword. It was the terrible, absolute certainty of what he had just experienced. The Emperor was not just a clever ruler. He was not just a man with strange abilities. He was something more. Something ancient and vast and utterly beyond his comprehension. And Yuan, in his supreme arrogance, had tried to play chess with a hurricane.
He fell to his knees. The mask of control was gone, his face a ruin of sweat and terror. The great Yuan Shikai, the master of industry, the secret kingmaker, was broken.
The Emperor lowered the sword, its purpose served. "I am not going to kill you, Minister Yuan," he said, his voice returning to its normal, cold tone. "Your death would be a satisfying, but ultimately inefficient, solution. You are far too useful to me alive."
He slid the ancient blade back into its scabbard with a soft, final shick.
"You have created a mess of international proportions," the Emperor stated. "You will therefore be the one to clean it up. Your pet, Corporal Riley, has thrown himself upon the mercy of the Americans. He has made your private war a public crisis."
He looked down at the trembling, kneeling man. "You will lead a special diplomatic delegation to the United States of America. You will attend their gaudy 'St. Louis World's Fair.' And while you are there, surrounded by our enemies, you will negotiate the return of Corporal Riley before he can do any more damage to this state. You will use all of your considerable cunning, all of your talent for lies and manipulation, to retrieve our 'property' from the Americans."
The Emperor leaned down, his voice dropping to a deadly whisper that was for Yuan's ears alone. "And you will succeed. Because if you do not, Minister Yuan, I assure you, I will not need this sword to unmake you."
Yuan Shikai, once the Emperor's greatest rival, was now nothing more than a leashed dog. And he was being sent on an impossible mission, directly into the heart of his enemy's territory, with his master's unspoken threat ringing in his ears. He was no longer playing his own game. He was now, and forever, just a pawn in the Emperor's.