Burning Heart [Locking the Golden Branch] is an epic work that perfectly fuses classical Eastern aesthetics with Cyberpunk. Set amid a millennia-spanning mystery in Dunhuang, it depicts, in gripping prose, an ultimate struggle of love and salvation, destruction and rebirth.
When cultural relic restorer Shen Tingyun reunites with Interpol officer Jiang Yanzhi before a gilded coffin, the gears of fate begin to turn in reverse. The codes carved into crazed-glaze porcelain, the love poems flowing through binary Buddhist scriptures, and the mandalas blooming above Quantum Dunhuang all tell a poignant tale of forbidden love.
This is a suspense masterpiece that will leave you breathless. Every relic is a deadly puzzle, and every crack in the glaze conceals a threat. From the murals of the Mogao Caves to the auction at Xuanyuange, from the underground palace of Dunhuang to Quantum Dunhuang, the author conjures a dazzling Cyber-Buddhist realm with a wondrous imagination.
Here, love is both the most dangerous virus and the most powerful antibody; memory is both the deadliest weapon and the most precious offering. When the bells of doomsday ring, when rain of celadon pours down, and when cracks in the glaze grow into a bodhi tree in the quantum vacuum, you will witness an ultimate salvation that spans time and space.
The story unfolds in Jiangcheng, home to an underground auction house for illicit cultural relics and antique restoration studios scattered throughout the city.
A millennia-old capital conceals a criminal network dealing in cultural relics, while two powerful factions wage a covert struggle. On the surface, it is antique trading; in truth, it is a battle over relic preservation and a transnational crime syndicate.
