Traveling back to 1916, Zhang Yan became the sickly patriarch of a declining family in Shandong. The ancestral hall leaked, and creditors came to visit. Twenty families only saw despair in their eyes.
In a desperate situation, he was bound to a strange genealogy - as long as he fabricated the past of his clan members, he could turn it into a real talent.
He wrote the first pen tremblingly: "My ancestors were imperial guards, and their legacy is still there."
The honest cousin was able to carry the cauldron immediately and frightened away the evil servants.
Not enough to eat? Then make up an "ancestral imperial chef" and the food stalls will become popular in the county.
Bandits are coming? Let's make up another "ancestor is good at Qimen Dunjia", the mountain village is impregnable.
He made up history just to keep his people alive.
Until bloody writing appeared on the genealogy: "In three days, my cousin will die."
Zhang Yan suddenly realized that he was not only fabricating the past, but also writing the future of the entire family.
From mountain villages to Tianjin and Shanghai, from the flames of the Anti-Japanese War to the undercurrent of the Cold War. He holds the genealogy in his palm and spreads its branches to all over the world quietly.
Many years later, when the family representatives scattered around the world reunited with jade pendants, they were shocked to realize that the patriarch who made up stories in the dilapidated ancestral hall had weaved a protective network for China that spanned a hundred years.
"When I open my family tree, it's not to record history, but to write about the future."
