Core premise: From 1965 to 1975, this is the rise and fall of a Northern School tomb-raiding crew over the course of a decade, blending real historical events with the underworld.
Main characters:
• Chen Qingshan (protagonist): Born in Tianshui, Gansu, in 1948. An orphan, he heads to Beijing in 1965 and is taken in by the Northern School’s Suolongmen sect.
• Shen Hongling (heroine): Born in Beijing in 1950. Suolongmen’s only female disciple, skilled in feng shui and geomancy.
• Zhao Tieshan: Leader of Suolongmen, fifty years old and descended from the Qing imperial clan. An expert on The Book of Burial.
• Liu Mazi: From Baoding, Hebei, born into a family of tomb robbers and skilled at disarming mechanisms.
• Sun Xiaobian: From Shandong, heir to the tomb-raiding traditions of the Mojin Captains, skilled at finding dragon veins and selecting burial sites.
• Zhou Laodao: An expelled disciple of the Longmen School of Quanzhen Taoism, skilled in talismans and exorcisms.
• Ma San'er: Formerly a bandit in the Northeast, skilled in explosives and combat.
Real locations throughout: Beijing (Panjiayuan, Liulichang, the Forbidden City, and the Ming Tombs), Hebei (the Eastern and Western Qing Tombs), Shaanxi (the Qianling and Zhaoling Mausoleums), Henan (Luoyang and Kaifeng), Shanxi (Taiyuan and Datong), Gansu (Tianshui and Dunhuang), Inner Mongolia (Chifeng and Tongliao), and more.
