Chapter 2

Chapter 2: What Kind of Crappy Meteor Is This?

The moon hung dim and pale. The stars were thin and scattered.

Night pressed down like old ink—heavy, silent, suffocating.

The prisoners had marched all day under the sun with cangues on their necks. Bodies wrecked, minds wrung dry. That small, sour cake—stale and reeking—had still felt like a feast.

After eating, they collapsed. Snoring rose in waves. The fire snapped and crackled.

The constables ringed the flames, passing wineskins like they were celebrating.

In the clay pot, the jerky had softened. Someone sprinkled in spices, and the scent turned rich and brutal, curling through the camp and hooking into empty stomachs.

Shen Tang heard throats bob as prisoners swallowed hard. Bellies rumbled. She pressed a hand to her own flat stomach and breathed out slowly.

She was starving too.

“Want some?”

A constable ladled himself a bowl of soup, blew on it, and was about to drink when he caught the hungry stares fixed on him. His mouth twisted into a grin.

“This meat soup isn’t free,” he said. “If you want it, you trade for it.”

The camp went still.

Shen Tang lifted her eyes, face blank. Anger flickered under the calm.

She understood him perfectly. These women were headed to the Music Bureau. Any silver they’d hidden would’ve been searched out long ago.

So what could they trade?

The answer was written all over his face.

He looked the female prisoners over like he was browsing a market stall, savoring the shame and fear on their faces.

Another constable laughed and smacked the back of his head.

“Go piss and look at yourself first,” he said. “You think you’re worthy of climbing into their beds? These are Madam Gong’s ‘nobles.’”

He dragged out the last word until it curdled into a sneer.

“‘Nobles’?” the first constable scoffed loudly. “What kind of nobles are they now?”

He raised his voice on purpose. “Nobles who are about to go to the Music Bureau and serve nobles?”

“Exactly!” a third chimed in, drunk and shameless. “The Music Bureau’s where you go if you’ve got silver to burn, right?”

He cackled. “We brothers can afford dirty money. If one man can’t pay, we pool it. If we can’t buy a whole night, we buy half. You get half a stick of incense, I get half—”

“Shut up,” someone snapped, laughing. “Anyone who lasts only half a stick is a useless bastard.”

“Sooner or later they’ll have to start,” the drunk kept going, voice thick with booze. “What’s the difference between starting here and starting once they get there?”

The male prisoners burned with rage but didn’t dare speak. The prettier women went gray with fear, eyes wide and dead.

The lead constable finally cut in, voice sharp.

“Enough. Shut up.”

He glared at them like they were idiots. “When the job’s done, go to whatever Music Bureau you want and find courtesans to amuse yourselves. Why fixate on these?”

His eyes swept the line of prisoners. “Watch them properly. Orders came down from above—if even one of them escapes, every one of us pays for it.”

The constables quieted down.

After a moment, one muttered, almost dismissive, “Their literary heart’s been shattered and their martial gall split. How are they supposed to run?”

Literary heart?

Martial gall?

Shen Tang’s attention snapped to the terms.

Without warning, a blade of pain stabbed deep into her mind. She clenched her teeth and forced herself to stay still as cold sweat broke out across her forehead.

She heard another constable sidle up to the leader, voice oily with flattery.

“These prisoners from Madam Gong—whatever glory they had was in the past. We brothers are only bottom-tier Presented Scholar Rank, but you’re a third-grade Hairpin-Bird Rank.”

Others chimed in at once.

“That’s right, boss.”

“They’re either women or crippled useless men. How could they escape?”

Presented Scholar Rank? Hairpin-Bird Rank?

What the hell were those?

The pain surged again, harder. Shen Tang pressed a hand to her temple, fighting to keep her breathing steady.

The filthy woman beside her cracked an eyelid open, glanced at Shen Tang’s strained expression, and snorted. Then she rolled over and turned her back.

“Crazy…”

Shen Tang barely heard her.

Something in her mind crossed a line—and then the pain receded like a tide.

She let out a shaky breath, eyes unfocused.

When her thoughts cleared, something new sat in her skull: a broken, unfamiliar memory, like someone had jammed it in there by force.

She closed her eyes and pieced it together.

Two hundred years ago, when the realm was on the verge of unifying, stars fell like rain.

Among them was one different from the rest—a Thief Star, blazing with eerie purple light that dyed the entire sky.

That meteor shower didn’t just twist the outcome of a war. It toppled a would-be conqueror who’d been one step from the throne.

And it changed the world.

With no single ruler, warlords and feudal lords rose everywhere, hoarding armies and carving out their own domains. The realm split into Hundred States that fought without end.

People starved. They died in droves. And in the middle of that misery, someone discovered something strange.

The human body had changed.

At the Dan Palace Stage, people split into civil and military officials. If you could condense heaven-and-earth qi into a core, you formed either a Literary Heart or a Martial Gall—each with its own strengths.

As more people explored it, the system became clearer.

A Literary Heart had nine grades. Words could become reality. You could create something from nothing, marshal troops and formations, and decide a battle from a thousand li away with a few casual lines.

A Martial Gall had twenty ranks. One person could hold a pass against ten thousand, and even facing an army, you could carve a path through and come out the other side again and again.

Presented Scholar Rank and Hairpin-Bird Rank were Martial Gall titles—bottom-tier and third grade. The highest Martial Gall rank was Marquis.

Since the Thief Star fell, only three people had ever reached Marquis. Each was a pillar strong enough to hold up a nation.

Shen Tang opened her eyes, stunned—and then her expression went flat.

A moment ago, she’d been hoping this body might have a Literary Heart or a Martial Gall. Even crippled, she’d be tougher than a normal person. Maybe she could use that to escape.

Then a single line of knowledge surfaced and crushed the hope before it could breathe.

She was female.

In this world, a woman’s body was like a torn sack. You could sense heaven-and-earth qi, but you couldn’t gather it at the Dan Palace Stage. You could never form a Literary Heart or Martial Gall.

Shen Tang’s jaw tightened.

“…Fuck.”

So even the meteor had gender bias?

Before she could stew, the lead constable spoke again, voice clipped as he warned his men.

“What do you brutes know?”

He sounded pleased with the flattery, but he hadn’t forgotten caution.

“Madam Gong’s household was confiscated,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean we caught everyone. I heard there’s a Fifth Dafu Rank still on the run. If we run into him…”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

A third-grade Hairpin-Bird Rank could bully their whole group of bottom-tier Presented Scholar Rank. A Fifth Dafu Rank was ninth rank—strong enough to crush a Hairpin-Bird Rank like a grandfather smacking down a grandson.

If someone like that came to rescue them, they’d be lucky to run at all.

The lewd talk died instantly. The constables sobered in a hurry.

The night settled into uneasy quiet.

Shen Tang lay there, staring into darkness, feeling hollow, when the rope at her waist shifted.

A small stone rolled, as if someone had tossed it.

A constable strode over, voice low and warning. “What are you doing?”

The filthy woman swallowed and asked, “Young Lord, is there any meat soup left?”

Shen Tang’s brow twitched as she kept pretending to sleep.