Tian Hao’s estate was no home—it was a mausoleum sculpted from pride, paranoia, and the illusion of permanence. Towering pillars of Carrara marble loomed like silent witnesses to a life forged in conquest and calcified in fear. Every echo that danced along the corridor carried with it a memory, though most had long since turned to dust. The air was still, stale, yet heavy with the weight of untold histories.
Along the gallery walls, his legacy was preserved like sacred scripture: swords from extinct armies, brittle and ceremonial; ledgers inscribed in ink that once dictated the fates of nations; portraits of emperors with hollow eyes and forgotten names, their painted smiles mocking him now. Time had stripped them of relevance. Even victory, it seemed, could not outlive decay.