After her brutal first battle, Zetian sleeps poorly, plagued by nightmares. The next morning, Qin Zheng broadcasts a stunning address: citing Zetian's performance as proof of female pilots' capability, he announces conscription will no longer discriminate by gender, drafting all girls aged twelve to twenty-four with spirit pressure over five hundred units, and instituting mandatory infantry service for all young adults. Zetian is horrified—she had only suggested voluntary recruitment—and flies back to Chang'an to confront him.

At the palace, she finds Qin Zheng now confined behind a massive glass quarantine wall installed in the throne room. Disheveled and exhausted, he gives her a heavily annotated copy of the Book of Laborism and demands she educate herself before further political debate. Unable to argue openly about the war, they agree to share a dream realm using adjoining quarantine beds, with opaque-glass partitions for privacy. Their banter turns crude and combative; Zetian licks the divider to provoke him before they fall asleep.

In the dream, Qin Zheng takes Zetian to Handan, his birthplace, which he later razed. Chrysalises battle as buildings burn. He reveals his mother was a war captive forced into prostitution, and Zetian glimpses fragmented memories of his past: child labor, brutal experimentation that unlocked unprecedented spirit pressure, his renaming as a son of Qin, his violent killing of a scientist, and his mentorship by a stern female pilot, General Mi, who introduced him to laborist revolution. He learned to read, wrote pamphlets, organized pilots, manifested the Yellow Dragon, and overthrew the old king.

Qin Zheng then furiously confronts Zetian for what he saw in her memories—her attempt to commune peacefully with Hunduns underwater. She argues the war is nonsensical and proposes minimizing combat until the gods can be defeated, questioning why he would expand conscription. Qin Zheng counters that more tribute is needed to maintain surprise, and that abandoning the war would betray every pilot who died for the dream of freedom. He summons phantoms of countless dead pilots and replays her death by Hunduns, warning that if she falters again, he will execute her for treason.