A Storyteller in the Republic of China

In the long night of the Republic of China, smoke rises across Beiping. The world is in turmoil, and hearts are uneasy. At Tingchao House in the south of the city, Shen Ci, a storyteller in plain clothes, takes his seat every day to recount old tales and chat about five thousand years of history, drawing crowds of ordinary people, nobles, and scholars eager to listen.

Everyone considers him perceptive, clever, and learned in the past and present, but no one knows that he is an immortal who has transcended reincarnation and endured through the ages. From ancient dynasties to the tumultuous Qin and Han, from the misty Tang and Song to the fall of the Ming and Qing, the changing landscapes, the rise and fall of dynasties, and the loves and farewells of five thousand years are all events he witnessed firsthand. History books delight in embellishing sages, glorifying emperors, and making losers into tragic figures, turning political scheming into timeless righteousness and human greed and obsession into legends. Shen Ci, however, uses the plainspoken language of everyday people in the Republic of China to strip away history's layers of embellishment, dismantle its fixed narratives of sages, and restore history's most authentic cruelty, absurdity, and warmth.

He has lived through countless dynasties and experienced a love so profound it cut to the bone. They could not stay together, and their parting became eternal. He has watched old friends return to dust and landscapes transform. The one obsession that has endured in his heart for a thousand years is waiting for Mu Shuni, the old friend he parted from amid the vast seas in the pre-Qin era, never to hear from again.

Amidst a chaotic world, he watches the rise and fall of past and present.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.