In the fourteenth year of Tianbao, the Tang dynasty stands at the height of its glory, and on the brink of ruin.
At the birthday banquet for the imperial consort, lychee honey from Lingnan arrives under an urgent, eight-hundred-mile dispatch. A beauty savors it, and a blood-soaked arena is set. In a fleeting moment, her radiance fades, and the sweet fragrance of the imperial gardens is drenched in blood. Li Shier, a low-ranking constable in Chang’an, is thrust onto this altar of certain death: he has three days to uncover the truth behind the imperial consort’s “poisoning,” or his entire family will be buried with her!
His only clue is a lychee pit that rolls from the imperial consort’s lips. Deep in its crack, a dark red creature stirs silently.
The trail leads straight to the Lingnan regional office, but a bloody hell awaits him. Everyone who knew anything dies overnight in strange and gruesome ways, their heads swollen and split, shadows of insects crawling within. All that remains is a lychee pit pried open, its tiny white parasite, finer than a strand of hair, writhing in the pulsing, dark red gel.
The finery of a glorious age is stained with blood, and a parasite lurks inside a lychee pit. How can an insignificant man expose a world-shaking conspiracy and save a dynasty on the verge of collapse, caught between a plague of insects and the rebel army’s crushing assault? The Gu Parasite of Chang’an is an epic fusion of High Tang splendor, a historical mystery, and the horror of a parasitic calamity. Join us for this desperate journey through blood and fire!
