Shen Mo, a modern restorer of ancient books, was caught in a rift in time and space within the ancient text The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor. His soul attached itself to that of a poor scholar teaching at a village school outside Bianliang during the Yuanyou era of Emperor Zhezong’s Northern Song reign (1086–1094). He discovered that The Eastern Capital: A Dream of Splendor, which he knew by heart, was no mere collection of words: it was a living “map” and “book of prophecy.” But he also realized that the grand events recorded in historical sources, when brought down to each individual day, were filled in by the livelihoods, desires, and choices of countless ordinary people. He did not want to, nor could he, change the course of history. All he hoped for amid this turbulent age was to find a place where he and the ordinary people around him could make a life, and to record the fleeting afterglow of a golden age.
