“If the Way of Heaven is unjust, if it sees my mother as a demon and me as an abomination, then I shall use the mighty tide of humanity as my brush and the boundless hopes of the people as my ink...”
“I will rewrite the laws of this world and pass judgment anew on the deeds of immortals and Buddhas!”
“My mother is innocent. The tower must fall, and the heavens must open!”
This is the Age of Decline, an era belonging to humankind. Immortals and Buddhas have vanished, and gods and demons have withdrawn from the world.
The Way of Heaven has collapsed, and only the power of letters endures.
Reading lets one sense the aura of literature and ward off all evil.
The imperial examinations are a ladder to the heavens, with each step bringing one closer to immortality.
Xu Shilin was born mortal, with the blood of both humans and demons in his veins, and was frail from childhood. His only hope was to study for ten years, earn a place on the honor roll, and go to the Leifeng Pagoda by West Lake to tell his mother, who had been imprisoned there for seventeen years: “Mother, I've come to see you.”
But when an astonishing essay of his stirred an echo through heaven and earth, setting him on the path to “attaining sainthood through the imperial examinations,” he discovered...
The gods and Buddhas above saw him as a “demon child” who would overturn the world.
The human court feared he was an “anomaly” who could shake the foundations of the state.
Demons and monsters feared he was a “thief” stealing their fortune.
His very existence was a sin.
