A Single Envious Stroke

In 1777, a scholar's dictionary ignited an imperial fury that executed his family. Forty years later, the last exiled survivor returns as an old man, determined to unravel the conspiracy behind the literary inquisition. What he discovers is a tragedy born not from grand ideology, but from a neighbor's rejected marriage proposal and an official's hunger for promotion—proving that the most catastrophic sins often sprout from the pettiest of human desires.