Star Chart of Primordial Qi

In 2189, the solar system was divided among three powers: the Xuanzhou Alliance, the Floating World Chamber of Commerce, and the Mohist Remnants. Humanity rebuilt its energy system around the Daoist concept of primordial qi, combining quantum technology with traditional Eastern crafts such as mortise-and-tenon joinery, ink painting, and talisman-making. Neon cables wind beneath the flying eaves and elaborate brackets of Shanghai’s floating city; paper-cut shadow puppets project holographic intelligence in Tokyo’s underground black market; and AI cores run inside the bronze vessels of Mars’s Kunlun Ruins.

Scavenger Chen Yan discovers a “core” engraved with trigrams from the Book of Changes inside an abandoned mecha, accidentally becoming entangled in Xuanzhou’s scheme to monopolize the ancient “Nuwa Project.” Alongside Su Mo, a young woman who commands holographic technology based on movable-type printing, and Zhao Cheng, a veteran with a prosthetic body modified using the principles of the Qimen Dunjia, he navigates the space between technology and tradition. They must evade Xuanzhou’s Zhenyue mecha legion, deal with assassination orders transmitted through washi-paper ciphers by the Floating World Chamber of Commerce, and persuade the Mohists to hand over the Mozi wooden kite, which can reverse the chaos in primordial qi. As the truth comes to light, they discover that the so-called Nuwa Project is actually a seed of civilization planted by humanity to escape an AI backlash, and that primordial qi is, at its core, the lingering consciousness of an ancient civilization. Chen Yan must choose: destroy technology and return to tradition, or let humanity seek a new path through the fusion of human, machine, and ancient souls?