Are you still troubled by the fate of the 108 heroes in Water Margin? Song Jiang’s loyalty earned him a cup of poisoned wine, Lu Junyi lost his family and home, Li Kui was poisoned to death by his sworn brother, and Wu Song lost an arm and became a monk. Fewer than one in ten of the 108 heroes survived. This is a heartache that has never left countless readers.
What if there had been one more person at Liangshan?
Yu Junting, an expert on Water Margin, unexpectedly transmigrates to the late Northern Song dynasty and becomes the 109th Liangshan hero, the “Heaven-Breaking Star.” He knows every tragic turning point in the original story: Chao Gai is shot by an arrow at Zengtou City, Lu Junyi is forced to join Liangshan, Song Jiang pushes for an imperial amnesty, and more than half the heroes die in the campaign against Fang La. This time, he will defy fate.
He saves Chao Gai at Zengtou City, prevents Lu Junyi from being driven to Liangshan in Daming Prefecture, rejects an imperial amnesty for Liangshan, and joins forces with Yue Fei to fight the Jin army. He proposes a “third path”: neither seeking an imperial amnesty nor rebelling, but making Liangshan a power no one dares to provoke and no one can do without. Amid the clash of arms and thundering hooves, he meets An He, an orphan girl his father adopted. They come to understand and stand by each other through the flames of war, and pledge, “Hook pinkies, hang ourselves if we break our word, and never change for a hundred years.”
From meeting Lu Zhishen for the first time in a reed marsh to assigning seats in the Hall of Loyalty and Righteousness; from the bloody battle at Zengtou City to a journey of a thousand miles into Jin territory, Yu Junting fights shoulder to shoulder with the 108 heroes, rewriting one seemingly certain death after another. Shi Wengong atones by losing an arm, Song Jiang finds peace at the end of his life, and Yue Fei escapes the calamity of Fengbo Pavilion. At last, the Liangshan heroes find another fate.
Eight hundred years later, a mysterious manuscript is unearthed at the Liangshan Marsh ruins museum. Its display label reads: “Fragments of The New Tale of Liangshan, author unknown, recording another fate for the 109 Liangshan heroes.” A young man stands before the display case and says softly, “It’s not a legend. It’s real!”
