My name is Shen An. The year I graduated, Chen Qiao told me he was a time traveler, and that I was the one destined to fulfill a certain role.
I thought he was crazy. Until, again and again, I received old manuscripts written in my own handwriting, though I had never written them.
Demons walk among humans in human form, unknown to all. They are the embodiments of human thoughts, shaped from obsessions and regrets. The Zhou family's “relatives” are demons like these. An oil lamp, a colored cord, an incense burner, a bronze mirror, an oil-paper umbrella, a stringless zither, an old account book, and a celadon pillow: each of the eight demons has an antique as its true form, and waits to place its story in my hands.
Behind every volume of manuscripts lies a tale tied to one of the sixty-four hexagrams. Read a volume, and step into a parallel world: Jiang Ziya waiting for rain by the Wei River, Huo Qubing crossing the Qilian Mountains, Su Shi spending half his life in exile, Bai Suzhen borrowing an umbrella at Broken Bridge, and Lu Sheng dreaming of glory on a pillow. Demons dwell among humans, and in all things.
They say I am the one who must read every hexagram.
But Chen Qiao never tells me what he is.
Until the final manuscript is opened, and he stands in the setting sun and says, “My vessel is your shadow.”
Demons exist in the human world, hidden among all things. The last two hexagrams are for me to walk through alone.
Theme: The human heart holds countless thoughts and circumstances, and each of the sixty-four hexagrams has its own form. The true demons are nowhere else but in the human heart. Make peace with your shadow and accept what remains unfinished. In a world that is always on the move, hold fast to your true self. People are not made whole when their suffering ends, but when they see and embrace every part of themselves.
