The body he wakes in is not his.
He knows this before he opens his eyes. The hands are wrong — knuckle-thick, scarred, built for something heavier than a drafting pen. The shoulders carry a different weight. Something in the chest sits low and tight, a posture learned through repetition, the way a man holds himself when the world has taught him to expect a fight.
He opens his eyes.
An elderly woman is watching him from across the room. She does not speak immediately. She studies him the way someone studies a familiar house where the light has shifted — everything in its place, and yet.
“You’re different,” she says, at last.
He does not deny it.
Outside, news is arriving. Officials have been asking for the man whose name this body carries. The man known in Jiuyuan for his spear, his temper, and his willingness to use both.
Lü Yueguang has spent his career reading what men like that left behind — the records, the ruins, the verdicts of people who were not there. He has never had to wear one.
The old woman is still watching.
He straightens. He keeps his voice even. He does what historians have always done when the source turns out to be more complicated than expected.
He begins to read the room.
Chapter Two of Tales of Alive — 纪真然 is now live on WebNovel and Royal Road.
He knows the shape of the man this body belonged to. He does not yet know how long he can pretend.
About this chapter
The title names both a man and a problem. Wei Měng — the body Lü Yueguang now inhabits — was known in Jiuyuan for his spear, his temper, and his willingness to use both. The reputation arrived before Yueguang did. Now it must be answered.
Chapter Two is a study in historical method under duress: a researcher who has spent twelve years reading primary sources must now perform as one, without access to the footnotes. The elderly woman watching from across the room is an archive he cannot cite. The officials arriving on the road are a deadline he did not negotiate.
The Vessel of Wrath is the second chapter of Book One. It asks whether a historian can operate without distance — and what it means to carry another man’s reputation when the original occupant’s promises are still in circulation.
About Tales of Alive
Tales of Alive — 纪真然 is a historical novel by 吕恩豪, set between contemporary Shenzhen and Han Dynasty China. Book One follows a man trained to read the past who finds himself forced to live inside it. New chapters publish every Sunday on WebNovel and Royal Road. Every court session, every meal, every execution has a source. What the author cannot prove is marked clearly. The rest, they will stand behind.