A New Taiping in the South Seas

The twenty-sixth year of the Daoguang reign, Guangxi.

Sixteen-year-old Shi Yan stood before the screen wall of the prefectural academy, looking at his name at the very top of the academy examination results. He had taken first place in all three lower-level examinations: the county, prefectural, and academy exams.

It was the tenth year since he had transmigrated from 2026.

When he woke after nearly drowning at the age of six, he discovered he had become Shi Dakai’s younger brother. Their father had died of illness, their clan uncle coveted the family estate, and a cousin had once pushed him into the water. He had spent ten years finding his footing in this unfamiliar age, protecting the family property, and waiting for his third brother to return.

But the Shi Dakai who came back was no longer the boy who had only been a carpenter. He had embraced the God Worshipping Society at Zijingshan, befriended Feng Yunshan, and joined Hong Xiuquan. He had returned with a heart already set ablaze.

Shi Yan knew how history would unfold. He knew the Jintian Uprising would begin in four years, that the Tianjing Incident would follow, and that his third brother would eventually die on the banks of the Dadu River.

But he could not say a word.

All he could do was speak to his father’s silent memorial tablet by the ancestral hall’s candlelight: “Third Brother, go your own way. I’ll take care of the Shi family.”

This is the story of a boy shouldering the burden of an entire family alone amid the tides of history.

It is also a long farewell about knowing how things will end but being unable to say so.