The Winds of Western Jin begins with the fall of Shu Han in 263. It follows Li Xuanzhou, a scholar from Shu, as he experiences the bloody upheaval of Chengdu’s fall and the forced migration north to Luoyang. Just as his beliefs crumble, he gains supernatural abilities after drinking a spirit spring on Mount Qingcheng. A reclusive sage teaches him the cultivation method from the Record of Observing the Heavens, and he gradually awakens abilities including “Heavenly Insight,” “Earth Vein Perception,” and “Sharpened Senses.” From avoiding the world to cultivate immortality to becoming embroiled in the prosperity and undercurrents of the Taikang era of the Western Jin, he moves between the court, the frontier, trade routes, and plague-stricken regions as a Daoist practitioner, physician, and local official. He witnesses the extravagance of the Golden Valley gathering, the fierce debates at the Imperial Academy, the bloody feasts of the War of the Eight Princes, and the fall of cities during the Yongjia upheaval. Amid the defeated kingdom’s anguish of “being so content one forgets Shu” and the cultivation philosophy of “guarding the heart and seeing one’s true nature,” he seeks an answer to the question: How should a person live in troubled times?
