A young man in torn up, dirty white robes made his way across a desolate town. Most buildings looked vacant, and the streets were littered with debris. From broken pieces of wood, to torn up clothing and rotten fruit, life seemed to have halted to a stop in what was once the bustling city of Qi An.

Xue Xiangsi, looked at the dismal scene with vacant eyes, trying to remember what the city looked like before he and the Blood Moon sect fell upon it. Trying to recall the image of colourful lanterns, noisy sellers trying to peddle their wares to anyone who’d stand still long enough, and of walking these cobbled streets before they ran red with blood. Trying to recall the time when he was a young disciple going on what felt like a gallant adventure to rescue a missing beauty.

The corpses of the city’s residents had all been burnt by Blood Moon disciples, and nothing remained but the sorrowful reminders of their past lives. As he made his way through the town he helped destroy, he couldn’t help the onslaught of memories. That ramshackle building was the brothel where he had wine for the first time, the smouldering ruin was the pension where he took up rooms; that day the meal he and his companions shared on the first floor had been filled with laughter.

The Blood Moon sect descended and chaos fell, no laughter left, and no survivors to tell the tale, their qi harnessed to fuel the powers that allowed them to wreak destruction upon the helpless, and continue the cycle. Xue Xiangsi had once been one of the heroes who fought against them, now he filled their ranks, the “Ghost in the Blizzard” who apologized before killing his victims.

He clutched at the bleeding wound in his middle as he made his way across the wreck of Qi An. If he could just make it out of the town, he knew there would be people from the Snowfall Peak sect waiting outside to ambush him. He wanted to reach them before he died.

He needed to find his former older sect sister, who he hadn’t seen in five years. Maybe she could be persuaded not to kill him for a little while longer.

Each step was a battle, his sword, Heavenly Frost, trembled in his hand; he tightened his fingers around the scabbard.

At last he saw the town gates as his vision was beginning to dim, he crossed the wide gates and was immediately hit by an arrow. The impact on his shoulder made him stumble and fall to his knees.

“Liu Zhuyu,” he shouted, using the last of his strength to make himself heard. “You will not kill me before hearing what I have to say.”

A beautiful young woman wearing silver and white robes, delicately embroidered with mountains that rose up from the hems all the way up to her waist, crossed her arms with a sneer, the gesture made the peach blossom branches on her wide sleeves obscure the snow covered peaks; they swayed as she made her way to the front of the Snowfall Peak disciples. Liu Zhuyu was beautiful, but in five years her beauty had become sharper, more dangerous. Her plush upper lip, which was one of her most charming features, was pulled tight in anger, she had also drawn the points of her eyebrows up towards her temples making her expression more severe. Deliriously he thought he might be seeing her aunt.

“I don’t take orders from traitors.” Her tender doe eyes shone with the same cold glare as her silver headpiece.

“There’s something I need to tell Zhu Chunlai.”

Liu Zhuyu scoffed. “Haven’t you hurt that poor fool enough?”

“He will want to hear what I have to say,” Xue Xiangsi said, closing his eyes against the truth of her words.

“I think the only thing he wants from you is revenge” she said. “I’m unlucky to have called you shidi one day, but he almost called you husband.”

Liu Zhuyu smiled humourlessly. “Tell me, traitor, which one of us has more reason to kill you?”

Xue Xiangsi smirked and wiped the blood running down his lips. Even in his current state he still had the cold, dignified appearance that made him so immediately recognizable to all other sect members. Keen phoenix eyes, with a cinnabar beauty mark below his left eye, a straight, sharp nose with the barest upwards tilt, and red lips like twin petals. ‘Lips made to shape smiles’, someone he loved once said.

Who would have thought that the smiling snow fox of Snowfall Peak would one day betray all of Jianghu by allying himself with its biggest threat?

“Both of you can take turns killing me, after Zhu Chunlai hears what I have to say” Xue Xiangsi said.

Liu Zhuyu’s eyes narrowed, she hadn’t seen Xue Xiangsi in years but she hadn't forgotten all his schemes, they were close as blood siblings once, but now she was willing to give him the rope he would hang himself with. “Very well, I will hear you.”

Xue Xiangsi raised his head and smiled softly at Liu Zhuyu, who almost recoiled at that familiar look from such a monster. “My words are for Zhu Chunlai’s ears only.” 

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Hi, I'm the author, and I hope this prologue has sufficiently whetted your appetite because we're going back to the past in the next chapter and staying there for now.

First things first: English isn't my native language, and neither is Mandarin, but I love reading wuxia and xianxia novels, and watching the inevitable c-drama adaptations. I've gone with the policy of leaving the original pinyin for anything that can't be translated, or would take several words to translate, and will add footnotes explaining the definitions, even though they should be common knowledge for anyone familiar with xianxia and wuxia settings.

Chinese names are notoriously hard to get right by westerners, but I did my best, I hope. I have a tool to check the gender of the names, so hopefully that saves me from any blunders. I'll add the characters for every name in the character list. If you speak Mandarin and notice anything completely wrong, or ridiculous sounding about the names, please let me know and I'll change them.

To everyone who doesn't know, in chinese the surname comes first, and excluding rare exceptions the person is referred to in the narrative (especially considering this is set in fantasy ancient china) by both the surname and first name. That won't change through the course of the novel, just remember the word you see first is the character's surname/ family name. You'll get used to this very fast.

Also on the topic of names, I'm writing them according to the official pinyin guidelines, which advise not capitalizing first name elements (Xiangsi, and not XiangSi) hyphenating them (Xiang-si), or separating them (Xiang Si). These other forms of writing chinese names are also very common, and I'm not saying they're wrong but I prefer following the pinyin guidelines, because, well, they're official, and more aesthetically pleasing in my opinion. I've omitted the tone markers, because only two of them exist in my keyboard, and they are pretty much useless to anyone who isn't already familiar with chinese tones. But do please check out the characters on yabla chinese dictionary, to learn how to properly pronounce names in the this story and their (intended) meanings.

I promise future author notes won't be this long, feel free to ask me any questions in the comments, and I'll do my best to answer them.