Shattock wakes as Emperor Ling of Great Xia, a ruler everyone has already written off. The Empress Dowager holds the court, his allies are gone, and history says he starves in a cell before being executed piece by piece.
He refuses that script. A system gives him an edge, and he uses it to chip away at the Empress Dowager's grip, one ally and one conspiracy at a time. Along the way the Empress takes his side, and his quiet rise turns into open confrontation. The court has tried to kill him once already, and this time he is the one hunting.
