Shattered Star Pavilion

Historical wuxia + Song-Xia power struggles + jianghu intrigue + meticulous historical research + local customs and culture. Fast-paced. The first volume begins from the perspective of a young beggar named Yadane. The story travels through a series of richly varied settings, including eastern Longdong, Western Xia, Kunlun, Tubo, Hengshan, and Bianjing, seeking to paint a finely detailed portrait of people from all walks of life and a sweeping tale of chivalry in the jianghu.

Some passages use classical Chinese phrasing to recapture the flavor of the era, so there may be more information than the word count suggests. I hope the length won’t put you off.

In the third year of Xining, the Tanguts repeatedly probed the border, while reform debates raged at court. Ten years earlier, strange celestial signs had appeared: the Big Dipper split into four, and Tianji and Yuheng vanished into the dark sky. The Imperial Astronomical Bureau declared, “The rift in the stars is an omen. The heavens must be mended with hidden veins.” A secret edict was buried deep within the Privy Council, and the jianghu organization Shattered Star Pavilion was born. Its agents, charged with a mission, wield darkness as a blade and carve their way into the heart of a troubled age.

As Wang Anshi’s reforms prove as unyielding as bent iron, conservatives collude with the Tanguts to gnaw away at the borderlands. In the shadows, Shattered Star Pavilion fills the gaps in the realm’s governance, using intelligence to unravel political schemes. The rift in the stars is no ill omen, but the key to breaking the deadlock.

The hooves of the Iron Kites shatter the ice on the Yellow River. How will the young members of Shattered Star Pavilion wield their blades amid the undercurrents? When personal fates overlap with the paths of the stars, who can truly mend the fractured heavens?