Chapter 1

My mind was a fog.

All I had done was open a window. How had I ended up in the wrong house?

I rubbed my eyes and noticed a stand nearby.

A top scholar’s court robe hung on it, embroidered all over with pearls.

So my window opened onto a world three years in the past…

The thirty-seventh year of Qingning.

That was when I first saw Song Shan, on the busiest street in the capital.

He had been wearing that very red robe, dazzling in the sunlight.

I had never seen anyone so beautiful.

The whole street seethed with people.

Sleeves waved for him. Loud congratulations rang out for him.

He rode through a profusion of flowers like a god receiving worship.

Meanwhile, I was being squeezed against a wall, holding up a sheet of white paper that said, “Selling myself to bury my father.”

But that day, someone gave me a large sum of silver.

I was curious.

Who could be so easily fooled?

I followed the man who had delivered it all the way back and watched him enter the top scholar’s residence.

Now I understood.

Song Shan probably thought I really had sold myself into his household and come to repay him with my body.

Wasn’t the top scholar supposed to be the cleverest man in the realm?

He seemed awfully easy to fool.

I had been homeless since childhood. What father did I have to bury?

I simply roamed the streets, swindling a little spending money.

When I said nothing, Song Shan went to open the door and send me away.

Then he stopped dead.

“What’s outside that window?”

I hurried over and followed his gaze.

His window opened onto a world three years in the future.

My room at Spring Breeze House…

The tenth day of the eighth month in Qingning’s fortieth year. The day he died.

Over the next few days, we went back and forth between our rooms.

Eventually, we worked out how the passage operated.

For just one two-hour period each day, it would appear if both our windows were open.

I could enter his room, and he could enter mine.

But neither of us could venture into the world beyond the other person’s room.

When the passage vanished, we each returned to our own time.

If a third person was present, the passage either failed to appear or vanished at once.

It felt rather like visiting a prisoner.

Song Shan asked what Ning was like three years from now.

I advised him to worry about himself first.

“Song Shan, three years from now, you die horribly.”

“On the tenth day of the eighth month, in Qingning’s fortieth year.”

“At the marketplace execution ground. By slow slicing.”

A flicker of surprise crossed his eyes, but he didn’t panic.

“Oh? For what crime?”

What crime?

His crimes were too many to count.

Counting on my fingers, I told him everything I had heard at the execution ground and at Spring Breeze House.

“You were utterly ignorant, yet somehow came first in the imperial examinations.”

“You took bribes, lived in luxury, and preyed on ordinary people.”

“But that was nothing. You were sentenced to slow slicing for treason.”

Song Shan laughed.

“Treason? Did I defect to Northern Liang?”

I nodded.

That was what the list of charges read out at the execution ground had said.

Song Shan fell silent, deep in thought.

He looked as unshakable as a mountain, just as he had at the marketplace.

Each cut of the executioner’s blade drew blood.

Some people cried out. Others covered their eyes.

He made no sound.

He was like a piece of jade, bleeding and about to shatter.

I struggled to push the sight of his execution from my mind.

Something about his open, clear-browed face gave me a fierce urge.

“Song Shan, I can help you.”

“You?”

“Yes. I can save your life.”

This time, I wasn’t going to trick him.