In the autumn of the first year of Xining, a ten-year-old Khitan boy stepped into the gate of Bianjing.
His name is Xiao Jingyuan. His mother told him: From now on, he is not allowed to speak Khitan language or mention his Khitan identity, and he should treat himself as a Han Chinese.
He didn't know why his mother brought him from Liao to the Song Dynasty to study. He only knew that before leaving, his mother said something he couldn't understand at the time - "You can't read the books of Liao in the way you want."
Only many years later did he realize that the meaning of this sentence was: the road under his feet was not in the Song Dynasty or the Liao Dynasty, but in the crack between the two dynasties that no one had walked.
He became a disciple of Wen Yanbo, a veteran of the Three Dynasties, and entered the imperial examination of the Song Dynasty with Khitan blood, becoming the youngest core cadre of the old party. He and Wang Anshi competed in the court, but they became close friends with each other; he was feared by the new party and suspicious by the old party, and both sides wanted to take his piece in the chess game.
He saw clearly in advance the difficulties in the implementation of the Qingmiao Law, and also predicted the rebellion of the powerful Liao minister Yelu Yixin and the rise of the Jurchen Wanyan tribe - but these judgments had no source and appeared in his mind like hallucinations. He wasn't sure who he was or why he saw what he was seeing. He only knew that there was something that didn't belong to this era living in this body.
Until the blade of the party struggle was put on his neck, he was framed, betrayed, and forced to a dead end. A Yellow River separated the Song Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty. He faced the final choice on the boat——
Should I be a sensible person who is trapped in the old era, or should I tear open the gap of this era with my own hands?
• Historical travel × dual identity × court intrigues
• The new elite of the old party vs. The name of the reform movement, the opponent is also a confidant
