Also known as I Tell Stories in the Northern Song
While sorting through Northern Song texts, history PhD Shen Mo suddenly died. When he woke up, he had become an unregistered “vagrant,” trapped in the reign of Emperor Zhezong of Song. The struggle between the old and new factions was raging, and beneath the Great Song’s outward prosperity, undercurrents swirled.
No System, no pocket dimension, no military-industrial golden finger. Shen Mo’s only asset was the supposedly “useless knowledge” he had accumulated through academic training: collating variant texts of the Book of Odes, studying generations of commentaries on the Rites of Zhou, and even noticing subtle differences between the Luoyang and Bianliang accents.
From a vagrant hunted by the authorities to a down-and-out scholar who silenced street thugs with the “Luosheng chant”; from scraping by telling historical tales in the pleasure quarters to catching the attention of high-ranking officials by identifying forged ancient passages in the Book of Documents. Shen Mo discovers that in an age when scholar-officials share rule over the realm, knowledge itself is the sharpest weapon.
He wants no part in factional strife, yet gets drawn into it. He wants to save people, yet discovers he can’t even protect those beside him. When fate pushes an ordinary man to the center of the struggle between the old and new factions, he must face Sima Guang’s stubbornness, Zhang Dun’s sharp ambition, and the young emperor Zhao Xu, standing at a turning point in history. Shen Mo must answer one question:
If you know how history ends, do you watch from the sidelines, or take a chance and enter the fray?
Highly recommended😏😏😏