This is a political romance written in an elegant, classical style. It tells of the bonds of life and death between the Seventh Prince, Li Muchen, the general Cui Zhaolan, and the six others collectively known as the Eight Luminaries.
The Seventh Prince, Li Muchen, was born under the fate of “Threefold Seven Killings.” Amid the emperor’s unforgiving expectations and the cold palace walls, he had to tread as carefully as if on thin ice. Eight people of very different destinies gathered around him. Li Huaiyue was loyal as solid rock, shielding him with his own body. Li Lingxiao hid in the shadows, taking the killing intent meant for His Highness upon himself. Cui Zhaolan came like a raging fire, rushing a thousand miles just for one glimpse of the person he loved. The physicians Gu Shen and Lin Yan used their medicines to glimpse the cracks between human hearts and the ways of heaven. The historian Ji Zhanglan and the Secretariat Drafter Cui Yiqing guarded the truth with their words: one dressed up peace and prosperity, while the other recorded events faithfully. The Astronomical Bureau’s Shen Zhao watched the courses of the stars with his double pupils, silently recording every parting and reunion.
Like stars circling one another, the Eight Luminaries lit up the darkest corners of each other’s destinies. Yet amid political intrigue and the shackles of human relations, a love that transcended the bonds between ruler and subject, brothers, and kindred spirits was destined to have no place in their age.
In the winter of the Bingxu year, a palace coup erupted. In the bloody battle at Chengtian Gate and the streets and alleys of Chang’an, they stood together through life and death. Each of the Eight Luminaries burned through his life in his own way, guarding that tiny spark in his heart. In the end, a box of their belongings sank to the bottom of the river, and their names disappeared from the official histories. Many years later, a fisherman found the box, and a scholar recorded its contents as The Events of the Bingxu Year, so that future generations would know that in those dark years, eight stars had truly shone, burned, struggled, and loved.
The stars sank in the Bingxu year, but their embers burn forever.
