The Frozen Streets of a Divided City

On a bitterly cold night where breath turned to frost, even Xianyang’s normally bustling merchant quarter lay still and silent. The southwestern corner of Qin’s capital housed a unique crossroads of cultures – merchants from the six eastern states mingled with local traders, creating a vibrant yet transient population centered around two main thoroughfares: Taibai Road running north-south and Zhufeng Road stretching east-west. These streets, named after Qin’s celestial star and auspicious phoenix respectively, symbolized the state’s hopes for prosperous commerce under heaven’s blessing.

Amid this commercial vitality stood an anomaly – a large, isolated compound at the northeast corner of the crossroads. Its high walls stood separate from neighboring buildings, its once-grand entrance now bricked up, presenting a mysterious fortress-like presence in the heart of the merchant district. This architectural oddity, neither opulent like foreign merchants’ residences nor modest like local traders’ homes, had stood undisturbed since Xianyang’s early days, its secrets buried beneath layers of urban growth and collective indifference.

The Midnight Visitor and the Veiled Sage

At the third watch, a shadowy figure leaped from a tree outside the compound’s walls, landing silently on a rooftop within. In the central chamber, illuminated only by a dim bronze lamp, sat a motionless figure draped in black gauze, his white hair cascading over his shoulders like stone carving. Despite the freezing temperature, no fire warmed the austere room.

When the door creaked open in the howling wind, the statue-like figure spoke without moving: “What friend comes? Enter and converse.”

The gray shadow appeared instantly at the low table across from him, drinking deeply from an earthen jug before gasping: “Master Zuo, you remain unchanged.”

After a long silence, the veiled man responded: “Master You too remains unchanged.”

Their cryptic exchange revealed two figures bound by history – the veiled “Left Tutor” and his unexpected nocturnal visitor, the “Right Tutor” Gongsun Jia, a man supposedly exiled to Qin’s western frontier for grave crimes.

A Tale of Exile and Transformation

Gongsun Jia recounted his incredible journey from political exile to avenging spirit. Sent to Longxi – Qin’s desolate western frontier with its mix of deserts, grasslands, and mountains – he faced near-impossible survival conditions: a thatched hut, coarse clothing, grain seeds, and an iron shovel as his only possessions. The state expected exiles to perish quietly in these harsh lands.

But Gongsun Jia, burning with resentment against the legalist reformer Shang Yang who had orchestrated his downfall, refused this fate. Using medical knowledge from his scholar days, he foraged medicinal herbs both for sustenance and to survey escape routes. After months of hopeless reconnaissance, chance led him to a hunter’s family where his healing skills saved two dying elders. In gratitude, the hunter’s son swore blood brotherhood and ultimately helped Gongsun escape by taking his place – a substitution facilitated by drugging his unsuspecting savior.

The Forge of Rebirth

Gongsun’s journey took him eastward through treacherous terrain to Chu’s remote mountains, where he sought to reinvent himself as a swordsman. His path led to a mysterious valley resonating with strange sounds and glowing red at night – the secret stronghold of Feng Hu Zi, successor to legendary swordsmiths Ou Yezi and Gan Jiang.

After being captured by the “Wind Sect” swordsmiths, Gongsun endured unimaginable trials: days submerged in icy water, hours bound before blistering forges, and chemical treatments that literally remade his face. The transformation left him unrecognizable – red-haired, blue-skinned, with yellow-eyed and black pupils – a monstrous visage perfect for his new identity. Feng Hu Zi trained him in swordcraft and gifted him a renowned blade, completing his metamorphosis from exiled scholar to lethal instrument of vengeance.

The Philosophy of Revenge

When Gongsun revealed his plan to assassinate Shang Yang, the veiled Left Tutor recoiled in disgust. “You remain small-minded,” he chided. True revenge against their nemesis required more than murder – it demanded Shang Yang’s complete political destruction and legal condemnation. Only by overturning his reforms and seeing him executed under the very laws he created could they achieve proper vengeance.

This philosophical divide highlighted contrasting approaches to justice in Warring States China: personal vengeance versus systemic overthrow. The Left Tutor’s vision reflected deeper understanding of Qin’s legalist framework – that destroying Shang Yang’s legacy would prove more devastating than any blade.

Legacy of the Phantom Avenger

This nocturnal encounter encapsulates pivotal tensions in pre-unification Qin: between old aristocratic values and new legalist order, between personal honor and state power, between physical might and intellectual strategy. Gongsun Jia’s transformation from scholar to monster mirrored Qin’s own metamorphosis from western frontier state to unified empire – a process often brutal yet undeniably effective.

The tale endures as a meditation on revenge’s corrupting power and the high cost of political vendettas. While Gongsun achieved physical transformation, he failed to transcend his limited worldview – unlike the Left Tutor who understood that in Qin’s emerging bureaucratic state, true power lay not in swords but in laws, not in individual acts but in systemic change. Their story foreshadowed Qin’s coming dominance – a realm where even vengeance had to be pursued through proper legal channels, where personal grudges became matters of state policy, and where identity itself could be remade in service of greater ambitions.