Little Glutton of the Tang Dynasty: Sizi

Freelance illustrator Lin Chen has simple plans for his life: take good care of his three-and-a-half-year-old sister, draw a little, cook a little, and enjoy a quiet life as a homebody in the city.

Then one day, the imitation antique jade pendant he’d just bought for his sister suddenly glowed, and a tiny girl in an exquisite Tang-style dress appeared out of nowhere in his living room. Soft-spoken and wide-eyed, she looked utterly bewildered.

The little girl gazed at the glowing “night pearl” (the electric light), then pointed at the people moving inside the “iron box” (the television). She timidly tugged at his sleeve. “Where is this place? Sizhi… wants to go back to the Hall of Legislative Governance.”

Lin Chen looked at the pendant in his hand, its dragon-and-phoenix pattern fitting perfectly with the ornament around the girl’s neck to form a whole. Then he looked at his own excited sister, who was calling the newcomer her “new big sister.” He was completely dumbfounded.

From then on, his modern life as a devoted big brother went completely off the rails.

When warming milk for his sister, he also had to warm a bowl for Her Highness, Princess Jinyang of the Tang Dynasty, and explain, “This is cow’s milk, not fermented milk.”

When using cartoons to teach her, he had to deal with the little princess’s amazement and curiosity about these “immortal shadow plays.”

Even a trip to the supermarket became a full-scale lesson in history and culture. Everything, from plastic packaging to elevators, made Sizhi cry out in wonder and pepper him with questions in her childish voice.

Meanwhile, the chocolate, picture books, and modern children’s medicine he sent through the jade pendant caused even greater astonishment in Li Shimin and Empress Zhangsun, far away in the Zhenguan era…

When a warmhearted modern big brother meets an adorable, sweet-natured little princess from the Tang Dynasty, a story of meals, lessons, and companionship spanning a thousand years begins.