Livestreaming the Unofficial History, While Emperors and Empresses Watch and Gossip

Su Qingyuan is a history blogger whose account has never managed to attract much traffic.

The field of orthodox history commentary is already fiercely competitive. No matter how engaging her videos are, it's hard to stand out. After giving it some thought, she decides to try a different approach: digging through obscure notes and anecdotes in ancient books, and focusing exclusively on unofficial histories and strange tales.

But she never imagined that the moment she posted a video, a sky screen stretching across the ages would appear.

Emperors, empresses, ministers, and courtiers from the pre-Qin era through the Ming and Qing dynasties gather across time beneath the sky screen, quietly watching the many rumors passed down by later generations.

Zhu Yuanzhang stares grimly at the widely circulated portrait showing his distinctive shoehorn-shaped face. Yang Yuhuan falls silent for a long while at the bizarre tales surrounding Mawei Slope. As Ying Zheng listens to the rumors that mercury forms rivers in his underground palace and that Xu Fu sailed east, his brows sharpen like blades, and he says nothing.

It's hard to tell which rumors are true and which are false. Some are furious, some wistful, and some glimpse a different side of themselves in these scattered secrets.

Everything recorded in this book comes from unofficial histories. Here, the term refers to historical materials not compiled by official authorities, private historical notes, and folk rumors, not modern internet fabrications or memes.