The Propaganda Dissection

In the State of Qi, after a tyrannical duke is assassinated by men he wronged, a shadowy network of scholars and merchants seizes control of the narrative. Through ballads, chronicles, and whispered rumors, they sculpt the murderers into paragons of filial vengeance and bury the slain ruler under a mountain of fabricated depravity. An embittered court physician, ordered to examine the duke’s mutilated corpse, uncovers scars that contradict the official story—only to find himself trapped in a machine that trades truth for power. Every incision into the dead body of the ruler becomes a scalpel that cuts away the illusion of innate human goodness.