In the thirtieth year of the Wanli reign, the Veritable Records of the Ming suddenly began rewriting themselves. Each new entry in the history books added a stretch of the past to reality; whenever an official was erased from the records, he gradually disappeared from archives, memories, and every trace of the world. While organizing old files, Shen Yanqiu, a proofreader at the Bureau of Historical Records, discovers that a colleague who spoke with him just yesterday has become “someone who never existed.” To preserve the true history, he is forced into a convoluted scheme revolving around the history books, the imperial court, and the Mandate of Heaven. But the deeper he investigates, the more he realizes that historical revision has never been about recording the past. It determines who deserves the right to live in the Ming Empire.
