Dreaming of Dazhou

A thousand-year-old poetic soul transmigrates into the modern martial world. Yuan Zhen and Wei Cong unexpectedly awaken in present-day Dazhou, Sichuan, on the “Ninth Day of the First Lunar Month Climb.” They discover that the vow “Once you’ve seen the ocean” faces a new test. From the lantern-lit beef shop on a snowy night in Tongzhou to Bai Juyi’s prophetic poem carved into a stele on Phoenix Mountain, to the echoes of Liu Yuxi’s Bamboo Branch Songs in the mountains of Batai, Dazhou’s landscapes and delicacies conceal the codes of past lives and the dangers of the present at every turn.

When a feast of steamed fish on stone steps becomes a political gamble, and deadly intent hides in Sanhui’s water-cooked pork; when the “Sympathy for the Farmers” poem becomes a denunciation letter, and “Song of the Everlasting Sorrow” satirizes a vanity project; when the secret recipe for lantern-shadow beef is drawn into a business war and gunshots ring out in the Bashan Grand Canyon, seven Tang dynasty poets reunite under different identities. Through battles of wit over food and struggles amid mountains and rivers, they use a thousand years of poetic devotion to protect the city’s cultural heritage and its people’s livelihoods.

Wei Cong embroiders clothes for a life of poverty once more at her sickbed, while Yuan Zhen climbs Bashan three times in search of their old vow. Bai Juyi appears at the planning bureau to turn the tide, and Han Yu speaks out in protest to defend cultural heritage. From the mystery surrounding the looting of the Luojiaba archaeological site to the grand vision of “Poetic Dazhou”; from political secrets hidden in Qixing pepper pickles to the eternal poetry stele beside Lianhua Lake, they wield poetry as a sword and sincerity as a shield. Amid a mystery woven across past and present, they uncover a journey of guardianship spanning a thousand years.

“Where does the poetic soul return when its spirit is marked by the moon?” As the ocean becomes Dazhou rain and Wushan becomes Bashan clouds, seven poetic souls must choose anew amid political undercurrents and culinary intrigue: return to the river of history, or remain in this dreamlike home where they have rediscovered their true selves and rekindled old bonds?