The Ruler Of Darkness - Book 1
Chapter 00.
There was a meeting, at the very beginning
"Exit light, Enter night."
Metallica, Enter Sandman.
Part 1 - Prologue
The dark space, without even a speck of light, made one fall into the illusion that it stretched on infinitely.
The scholar vaguely knew that the space was not, in fact, so wide, but it did not matter.
He could not move anyway.
[Are you well.]
A voice suddenly rang out, from within the darkness.
There was no way anyone could be here.
And yet The scholar tried to answer. He was not in his right mind now.
His reason was gone.
Maintaining only the faintest shred of consciousness was all he could do.
"Cough, cough."
He wanted to ask, who are you, but that was physically impossible. There was no way he could reply.
The scholar gave a bitter smile.
[It is fine. I can hear your voice.]
'How?'
The scholar tried to form words, but the tongue that had been left as nothing but a stump, regrettably could not produce language with any proper clarity.
Only a grotesque sound, one no one could ever understand, leaked out in pain.
[Dear me, there is no need to force yourself to make a sound. I have been watching since the moment they tore your tongue out.]
The doubt, how are you reading my mind, did not even arise.
He was too broken for that kind of thought, mentally, physically.
[Hmm, it was not a sight one could bear to watch pleasantly. The tongs, heated red-hot, slid in and yanked your tongue right out. You shrieked, about something or other, then passed out.]
Unlike those words, the unknown voice was light, cheerful.
It did not sound as though it were savoring The scholar's suffering.
It simply seemed to be its usual manner of speaking.
'In front of me, I cannot see in front of me.'
The scholar turned his head toward where the voice seemed to come from, then realized he could not see anything ahead.
In truth, The scholar must have realized it several times before as well.
And several times, he must have forgotten that fact again.
The place he was in was a deep cave, yet enough light had been coming in. Only, that is...
[Have you forgotten? The two eyes of yours, once full of mysterious workings, were pierced through by a fire-heated iron skewer.]
'Was that...so?'
The scholar tried to raise a hand and feel around his eyes.
But he had no fingers.
In fact, his left hand was gone even past the wrist.
Puzzled, he asked the voice.
'By any chance, did you see where my hand went?'
The voice answered, still dignified, yet with a cheerful resonance.
[Your delicate fingers, that never knew hardship, were snipped off, snip-snipping, by shears. Do not worry. For your sake, they used shears heated red-hot.]
He could not understand what he was not supposed to worry about.
'Thank you for answering.'
The scholar tried to stagger up from where he lay.
But he had no legs.
After laboriously tilting his head, The scholar asked the voice.
'By any chance, what took my legs?'
[Your slender two legs were carried off by the chopping block. If I must tell you, for you do not remember, they cut from your toes, one, by one, carefully. Three days to sever to the ankles. Ten days for the knees. A full fifteen days to the thighs.]
'Was that so?'
The scholar tried to look back on his past memories, and felt a pain like his head was splitting open.
And yet the fortunate part was that he could revive the memories, however faintly.
'...I feel like I almost remember. Then, perhaps, do you know what became of my family?'
[Dear me. You were too busy being tortured to even hear news of your family. Come to think of it, it has been quite a long time since you started living in this prison.]
Now that he thought about it, he felt as though the memory of having been confined for an exceedingly long time would come back to him, however dimly.
As The scholar traced his thoughts in silence, the voice continued.
[Your eldest sister was beaten to death, by her husband's fists, until that lovely face became mush.]
'How could that...?!'
The scholar was shocked out of his wits.
'My brother-in-law is famed for his vicious temper, yes, but he is the head of a household renowned for being upright and aboveboard. How could such a man beat his own wife to death so horribly?'
The voice clicked its tongue.
[How foolish. If you, the eldest son of the family, claim you do not know, then who could possibly know the affairs of your household?]
The scholar hurriedly asked.
'Then, my younger sister, my younger sister, what happened to her?'
[She was raped by lecherous bandits, then bit off her tongue, and ended her own life.]
'What are you saying?'
The scholar could not understand.
'My second sister was a swordswoman, so outstanding among the rising talents that calling her second would be an insult. How could such a sister fall to mere lechers?'
[How foolish. How long has it been since her dantian was ruined, what use would a lifetime of inner power, and honed sword skill, be?]
The scholar shook his head roughly once more.
'And besides, my household? Even if my second sister lost her inner power, there is no way the family would not have protected her.'
He clung to the memories that rose with difficulty.
'My family was a great clan, unmatched by any in this Central Plains. How could the second daughter of such a clan be preyed upon by lechers at all?'
The voice did not so much as stir.
[How foolish. Do you truly not even know this. It has been long since your household was scattered to the winds, who would be left to protect her?]
'...Extermination?'
What did that mean. The scholar tried to clutch at his dizzy head.
But he had no hands.
'Though I am merely a bookish scholar, who lived finding pleasure in reading day by day shut away in a small room, my household had younger brothers whose great intellect, and splendid martial prowess, shook the entire continent. And there were eminent warriors who followed them like folding screens, so how in the world could such a thing happen?'
[Frustrating, truly frustrating. How do you pretend not to know, when you are the eldest son, about what happened after you left as a live-in son-in-law?]
The voice pressed The scholar harshly.
[Do you truly not know, that those younger brothers you praised, fought kin against kin, to seize the seat of the lord?]
'I did not know. I did not know at all.'
The scholar shook his head violently.
[Truly? You did not know?]
With a meaningful tone, the voice asked back.
The scholar could not understand.
He was nothing but an ordinary scholar.
All he did was spend his days reading books, in a small room, as a way to pass the time.
At times he tended the garden, or painted, or played an instrument, that was all the joy he had.
[Truly?]
The voice asked again, as though it did not agree with The scholar's thoughts in the slightest.
'...Of course.'
He did not even know why he had ended up imprisoned in a place like this.
And torture, at that.
He had lived making peace his virtue.
[Someone as gifted as you, are you saying you did not know what was happening in your household while you were there, and what would happen after you left, and in the end what outcome it would all lead to?]
Now the voice was openly mocking The scholar.
The scholar protested his injustice.
'I truly did not know. Truly. How could someone like me, no more than a common man, possibly know such things?'
Something felt as though it might come to mind, but it would not.
Who had he been.
What had he done, living his life.
Faint memories brushed past, but they were like phantoms that vanished the moment The scholar tried to grasp them.
With death already burrowed into his marrow, The scholar's mind no longer turned as keenly as it once had.
[Is that so?]
The voice fell low, cold.
As though it could see through The scholar telling lies, as though it could lay bare his entire life, the voice stubbornly, relentlessly, drove him into a corner.
[Is it truly so? You who, without even a far-seeing eye, looked out a thousand li. You who, without even divine power, gazed a thousand days ahead. Are you saying you truly did not know?]
'I did not know. I did not know. I'm telling you I did not know!'
The scholar was confused.
Who could possibly do such a thing.
Sitting in one place, seeing the world turning as though it were in the palm of one's hand.
Was that not an absurd ability.
A talent only some peerless genius of all ages, with the miraculous wit of a divine calculator, could possess.
The voice spoke again, quietly.
[And that was you.]
'Impossible. Have you mistaken me for someone like Zi Zhang, or Zhang Qing?'
Zi Zhang and Zhang Qing were the courtesy names of Sima Qian and Sun Wu, respectively.
[Zi Zhang and Zhang Qing?]
The voice laughed, heh heh.
[Compared to you, do you not know that Sima Qian and Sun Wu are no more than a mere historian, and a mere strategist?]
Hearing that, The scholar felt his mind go hazy for a moment.
Sima Qian was the man who left behind the 'Preface of the Grand Historian', called the Records of the Grand Historian, and was revered in this land of the Central Plains as the 'father of history'.
Sun Wu dominated the Spring and Autumn era, crushed the mighty state of Chu, and raised the horizons of those who wield the art of war by an entire level.
Perhaps because it had been so long since he last spoke with anyone.
'He would place me higher, than such great men, though I am nothing but a commoner?'
The scholar's mind was slowly clearing.
[Let me ask you.]
With each exchange, little by little.
[When was it, that you helped your mother organize and condense hundreds of medical texts, and publish them at the age of twenty-five?]
The scholar calmly recalled.
'...If I remember, that was when I was four.'
[When was it, that you remonstrated to the Emperor with pen and paper, and made him promulgate a new method of farming?]
'That was when I was five.'
[When was it, that you read the heavens and observed the weather, predicted a great drought, and had grain stockpiled in advance for relief, preventing the starvation of millions of common folk?]
'That was when I was six.'
As the conversation continued, The scholar's faint memories began to return, and as time passed, those memories grew clearer.
After a long while, the voice asked once more.
[Do you remember now?]
The scholar admitted it.
'Yes.'
In truth, he, knew everything.
After leaving his main house as a live-in son-in-law, he had never once lent an ear to news of his family.
And yet he knew it all, as though he were looking into his own palm.
Ordinary men knew that kin would turn on kin, but they did not know the outcome.
But he knew the outcome, all of it.
All, in full detail.
Without a single thing missing.
That everyone would meet a miserable end, too.
That the vast, powerful household would collapse.
He knew all of it, and yet, he left it all alone.