In the Heavens and On the Earth

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The Dragon of China heard the bray of a trumpet from afar. It was harsher than those played by the people who were his bone and muscle—it was piercing, and seemed off-pitch. In irritation, he lifted his head from his claws—he had been uncommonly weary lately; his blood had seemed to grow thin. Those barbarians from the steppe had been spicy indeed, and had invigorated him long after he had digested them and spat them out—but after a century and a half, that surge of energy had dwindled, and he had become sleepy, very sleepy, scarcely able to waken to greet the sun each morning before he lapsed back into torpor. He had roused himself briefly so that his people could fight those wild men from the north, those Manchus, but he had fallen into lethargy again quite quickly, and began the work of digesting them, absorbing them into his bone and blood. "Conquerors" they called themselves; fodder, he found them.

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