This work attempts to use a span of sixty years to present the survival and testimony of an ordinary person in an era of drastic changes. The protagonist Quan Mo is neither a hero nor a tyrant, but a scholar who tries to preserve the memory of civilization in the torrent of history. His choice may not be able to change history, but it is countless such "powerless people" who rescued the seeds of civilization from the ashes of the Qin fire, allowing future generations to see the light of the pre-Qin Dynasty.
The inheritance of civilization has never been the great deeds of a few heroes, but the perseverance of countless ordinary people in troubled times. The gods and beasts wandering in the "Western Mountain Sutra" are part of this nation's childhood memory - they may have withdrawn from the stage of history, but they have never really left. As long as there are still people who remember them, they will live in words, legends, and the collective unconscious of this nation.
This book is dedicated to all the "unknown people" who have silently preserved the fire of civilization in the long history.
