Darkness. Then pain—dull and distant, a memory from a past life.
Jin attempted to open his eyes, but there was something covering his face. A cloth, cold and wet on his face. He could hear voices, unfamiliar and urgent, and a lthat sounded like Mandarin but older, more formal than anything he'd ever heard in his parents' homeland when they'd visited his grandparents.
"The Emperor lives! Praise the heavens!"
"Silence, fool! The assassins might still be near."
Jin felt rough hands gently removing the cloth from his face. Sunlight assaulted his eyes, and he blinked rapidly, the world slowly coming into focus.
Men in clad in armor surrounded him, their faces etched with concern and relief. Behind them, silk banners fluttered in the breeze, emblazoned with characters Jin recognized but couldn't read. In the distance, horses whinnied and metal clanged against metal.
One of them kneeled beside him, his armor more decorated than the others. A general, perhaps.
"My Emperor, are you injured? Can you stand?"
Jin stared blankly. Emperor? He tried to sit up, groaning as pain coursed through his body.
"Where am I?" he said, surprised to hear the foreign language flowing naturally from his lips. "Who am I?"
The general exchanged worried glances with a man in a robe—a physician, by the herbs and bags attached to his belt.
"The blow to his head must have blur his memory," the physician said.
"Your Majesty, you are Emperor Tao of the Xingyan Empire, Ruler of the Four Mountains and Six Rivers, Dragon of the Eastern Realms. We were ambushed while returning from your summer palace." said the general
Jin—or Tao, apparently—looked down at himself. He wore robes of imperial yellow, now stained with dirt and what looked
horribly like blood. His hands were different—callused in places, bearing a fine scar along the right palm. Not his hands. Not Jin Park's hands.
"How old am I?" he asked, his mind trying to gain purchase in this impossible situation.
The general replied, "Eighteen, Your Majesty. The youngest emperor to ascend the Dragon Throne in three centuries."
Eighteen. A year younger than Jin had been when he. died? Was that it? Had died on the ground outside his school and somehow woken up in another world, another body?
"And my parents?" Jin asked, though he already suspected the answer.
The general's face dark. "The late Emperor Ruogang and Empress Mei-Lin are watching over you from the heavenly palace, Your Majesty. They have passed away these two years."
An orphan emperor in a strange land. Perfect.
The physician offered a cup of bitter-smelling liquid. "Drink, Your Majesty. It will clear your head."
Jin took the cup, smelling it suspiciously. "And what if I think you're going to poison me?"
The men around him stiffened. The general's hand moved to his sword.
"A joke," Jin replied quickly, trying to smile. "I guess my sense of humor survived whatever happened to my memory."
The tension eased a bit, but the general's eyes did not stray from Jin's face as he swallowed the medicine. It was as bitter-tasting as it smelled like grass clippings in vinegar.
"General Zhou," Jin said, the name coming to him unknown—a fragment of Emperor Tao's memory surfacing. "Help me up. If I am emperor, I should not be lying in the dirt like a common peasant."
General Zhou looked relieved to hear his name recognized. He and another soldier carefully helped Jin to his feet. Standing, Jin found that he was taller now than he had been when he was Jin Park—not the shortest boy in his class anymore.
"What of the ambush?" Jin asked, attempting to reconstruct the course of events. "My. imperial guard?"
General Zhou's jaw tightened. "Eight dead, Your Majesty. The assassins wore no colors, but their accents betrayed them as men of Qiushan."
"Qiushan," Jin repeated, another memory fragment forming the puzzle. A rival kingdom to the west. "And what of the assassins?"
"All dead, Your Majesty," the general replied with grim satisfaction. "Though one survives long enough to be questioned, if you would care to watch."
Jin felt his stomach roiled at the suggestion. The general was asking if he wanted to watch a man be tortured.
"That won't be necessary," Jin managed. "I trust your methods, General Zhou."
"Very well. We should move quickly, Your Majesty. We are still exposed here, and Luoyang is only a half-day's ride."
Luoyang. The capital of the empire, Jin somehow knew. Home to the Forbidden Palace and over a million subjects loyal to the Dragon Throne. To him.
As soldiers rushed to ready his imperial palanquin, Jin took stock of his impossible situation. He had died—he was sure of it. The concrete rushing up to greet him wasn't the sort he could have survived. Somehow, his consciousness had transferred to this body—the body of a young emperor in what appeared to be ancient China, or some fantasy world version of it.
Part of him wanted to laugh at the absurdity. Was this not the plot of every other webnovels and anime? The boy who was bullied dies and was reincarnated as a powerful person in another world. A trope used so often it was practically a cliché.
Except this wasn't fiction. The pain in his body was real. The smell of blood and horses and incense was real. The weight of the imperial seal hanging at his waist was real.
Jin Park, average high school senior with perfect grades and zero social life to speak of, was dead.
Emperor Tao of the Xingyan Empire, eighteen-year-old ruler of millions, lived.
As General Zhou helped him into the luxurious palanquin, Jin made a silent vow. He had been so powerless in his previous life- a victim until his final death. In this life with the power of an emperor at his command, he would never be powerless again.
And perhaps, if he was clever enough, he might even discover why he was here in the first place.
The bearers lifted the palanquin. Jin caught a last glance through the silk curtains of the ambush site—bodies being loaded onto carts, blood soaking into the dirt road. A butterfly, unexpectedly beautiful, landed on one of the corpses before fluttering away.
Jin dropped the curtain. Emperor Tao had almost lost his life today. Jin Park had not been so lucky. Or perhaps, as the palanquin began its journey to Luoyang and whatever awaited him there, he had been the lucky one after all.