The autumn rain of the thirteenth year of Zhenguan made Chang'an City look like a dream soaked in water.
The raindrops beat on the tiles of the Xuandu Guanzang Sutra Pavilion. The sound is dense and monotonous, as if counting the passage of time. In the west corner of the attic, Li Zhe, a graduate student in the 21st Century Department of Chinese Language and Literature—who should be called Li Yunxiao now—suddenly looked up from a pile of yellowed Taoist scriptures.
A splitting headache.
The two memories were biting inside his skull like two entangled snakes. One is a bright memory filled with reinforced concrete and electronic screens: the library, thesis defense, a bizarre car accident that took him through time. The other is a dusty memory belonging to this sixteen-year-old Taoist boy: sweeping the house in the morning, reciting scriptures, and learning simple health-preserving exercises from his senior brothers.
"I..." He opened his mouth and made a dry sound.
The taste of dust filled my throat. He looked down at his hands - they were the hands of a boy, with distinct knuckles, thin calluses on the palms, and faint ink stains left by grinding ink on the side of the index finger of his right hand. He was wearing a green monk's robe that had been washed white, and the cuffs had frayed edges.
This is not a dream.
