When a fire broke out in the old library, Shen Zhiwei, a history graduate student, thought she was done for.
When she opened her eyes again, she had become Princess Changping, Zhu Meichuo, beneath Chongzhen’s sword.
Beijing had fallen, the end was near at Coal Hill, and the palace attendants had scattered. Nanjing in the south still awaited the dignified dream of a bygone age.
With one arm broken, she headed south carrying a box of old accounts.
They wanted her to mourn the fallen dynasty, preserve appearances, obey propriety, and keep quiet.
She insisted on asking about grain, military pay, human lives, and the rotten accounts hidden behind all that decorum.
This wasn’t the history she had read.
This was another fork in the road, in a parallel world.
She hadn’t come to mourn the old Ming dynasty.
She had come to clear a path for the living.
