The Head of My Beloved

The Beloved's Head contains nineteen novellas and short stories from Cai Jun's early career. In the labyrinths of time and space, the author searches for eternal love. Yet love blooms only in its season, and humanity is doomed to carry sorrows that can never be resolved. The Beloved's Head remains imperishable for a thousand years, with a soul dwelling within it. For all those years, he loves only one woman. She stays by the Beloved's Head until she enters the grave, having loved with all her heart in this life. A mysterious white cat transforms into a beauty and visits every night. Can one who loves cats lay down the butcher's knife of Monk Nanquan? Amid the flames of war, a letter home travels safely, though the people it connects have already been parted by life and death. A woman in white slips past the guards and walks up to the city gate. She reaches the high battlements, where the entire city and the imposing palace at its center lie before her. Follow the long stretch of city wall, and you will see her slowly pull the rope suspending a human head, until she cradles it in her arms. The Beloved's Head is a feast of novellas and short stories from the author's literary youth. It reveals the magic of his prose beyond his full-length suspense novels, using a languid, sumptuous style to tell a legendary love story for the ages.