Most of the time, Murong Yanzhao was muddled, but in rare moments of clarity, strange figures would flicker before his eyes.
A youth riding freely with old friends, a high-spirited soldier, a general who'd conquered battlefields, a courtier pleading tirelessly, a persistent old friend begging him to stop, and a sinner who'd slain a friend.
Oddly, though they wore different clothes and bore different expressions, every face looked strikingly alike, hauntingly familiar.
Who were they? He couldn't recall.
Finally, he looked down at his own aged, withered hands, no longer those of a general, nor of a man in his prime.
This was the present him.
Those were the past hims.
He rattled the chains on his wrists and ankles. Sometimes the harsh clatter unlocked clarity. Other times, it opened the door to delirium. Why was he here? He forgot, then remembered, as the phantoms paced before him, speaking with his own voice:
"You were neither loyal enough nor a true friend, thus you fall to this."
"You were neither brave enough nor fearful enough, thus every step was a mistake."
"If you killed him, you should not cling to him, thus your illness lingers."
"If you choose to submit to the Song court, you should not plead for your friend. If you chose your friend, you should not have submitted."
"You chained yourself here."
He recognized the voice. So this was his fate!
He had done this to himself!
Seated in his wheelchair, tears trickled from a body that had once shed only blood on the battlefield.
