[Delusion-Fueled Misunderstandings] [Road Trip] [World Travel] [Urban Mysteries] [Lighthearted Comedy] [Boy's Adventure] [Multiple Heroines] [Writing Whatever I Dream Up]
Seventeen-year-old Hui Chen sets off on a budget trip around the world on a secondhand motorcycle.
He forgets to charge his phone before leaving, and the navigation app leads him down an old street that doesn't exist on the map. Looking for a cheap hostel for thirty euros, he runs into a schoolgirl who disappeared thirty years ago. He casually makes up a code phrase, and the other person immediately mistakes him for the contact they've been waiting decades to meet.
Hui Chen: I'm really just passing through. Stop imagining things!
With a little hypnotic suggestion and a knack for making things up, he passes himself off from country to country as a mysterious observer, the leader of an ancient organization, and a traveler from the future, making a name for himself in cities everywhere.
The old signposts in Turin's underground passages, the anonymous painting in a Milan exhibition hall, the bridge that keeps reappearing in Venice, the seven photographs in Rome's underground city...
One moving ancient road after another connects fragments of history, while companions from different worlds all believe he is hiding a master plan of earth-shattering proportions.
Only Hui Chen knows the truth:
All he really wants is to find a cheap breakfast and a little hostel with a rooftop where he can sleep.
