My name is Xu Jiulin. I am an ordinary person who transmigrated into this world, and I seek immortality. “Returning home” is the one wish I have held all my life.
They call me the Imperial Preceptor, a demon, an immortal...
In truth, I am simply someone who does not want to die, an ordinary man who longs for eternal life.
I have seen Zheng He off, Yu Qian, Qi Jiguang, and all sixteen emperors of the Ming Dynasty who ascended the throne.
The close friends I spent half my life with have all returned to the earth. The splendor of a bygone golden age has faded like smoke. Only I remain, standing where I was.
I am forever frozen in my twenties, with sword-like brows and bright eyes, dressed in Daoist robes: handsome without being effeminate, dignified without being severe. The years have carved their mark only into my eyes, leaving my face and figure unchanged in the slightest.
For half my life, I have watched a dynasty rise and fall. For the other half, I have known the finest people the world has to offer: I plotted reforms with Zhang Juzheng to restore the court, lay tipsy in the Jiangnan rain with Tang Bohu, sat in quiet discussion of the Dao and human nature with Wang Yangming, tasted countless herbs and studied their medicinal properties alongside Li Shizhen, and walked thousands of miles of mountains and rivers with Xu Xiake.
I came to know the civil officials, military generals, and gifted scholars of the Ming Dynasty, living as an ordinary traveler who alone possessed eternal life, and witnessing the dynasty's rise and fall, its honors and its humiliations.
My name is Xu Jiulin, and I have gained eternal life. I do not know whether it is a blessing or a curse. My wish, “to return home,” has always seemed to follow me. But if that home is always with me, what does it mean to return?
