A Fleeting Life, A Dream

Introduction:

The novel tells the story of the Mei family of Tongcheng, Anqing Prefecture, in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. The Mei family was a distinguished lineage of imperial examination candidates, with ancestors who had earned the title of top scholar and other degrees. But as time passed, this once illustrious family gradually declined. In the generations that followed, their descendants repeatedly failed the exams, and the family fortunes steadily dwindled. Yet in an era when all other pursuits were considered inferior to reading, studying was the young people's only way forward. When a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, were born into the Mei family, these extraordinarily bright children brought hope of restoring its reputation as a family of scholars.

The arrival of these prodigies turned things around for the four-generation household. Both children were exceptionally gifted, but the boy, Mei Shu, preferred the study of the Book of Changes and ingenious, unusual techniques, while the girl, Mei Hua, had a photographic memory and excelled at the Four Books and Five Classics. For the sake of reviving the family, and to avoid attracting attention, the Matriarch moved to Jiangnan, where the girl disguised herself as a boy. To broaden their knowledge and experience, the Mei family's second-generation head, Master Mei, personally tutored them and took his two grandchildren on a journey of thousands of miles, traveling through...

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