I Forsook the Dao for You Alone

Link to the new story: The main story is complete. Click the title to go directly to it: The Song of the Empty Pool

A new story set in the Wei and Jin dynasties, with Ji Kang as the male lead. Click the title to go directly to it: Guangling Melody

This is a transmigration story built around Song ci poetry.

After growing tired of palace intrigue and alternate histories, and weary of the Three Kingdoms era, I suddenly felt like writing about something rarely explored: the literati of the Song dynasty. Looking at the timeless poems these gifted men left behind, weren’t their romantic passions and poetic reveries even more captivating than anyone else’s? What inspired Su Shi to write “Butterflies in Love with Flowers”? What circumstances led Ouyang Xiu to write “The Student’s Song”? And what of Qin Guan’s “Immortal at the Magpie Bridge,” which moves us whenever we read it…

So my heroine has to be steeped in poetry and proficient in the four arts. She transmigrates solely to pay homage to those writers whose names have echoed through the ages. So that all the literati I admire could appear together in their youth, I even went so far as to create a parallel world combining the Northern and Southern Song dynasties: the Western Song (laughs). In the peaceful Jiangnan of this golden age, she meets them. Their names are already legendary to her, yet in this parallel world they seem both familiar and strange.

A note: This story portrays the romantic lives of Song dynasty literati and involves a great deal of poetry. I have woven it into the story according to my own understanding, so some of the interpretations may be a little forced. The heroine spends time only with the literati, and of course relationships will develop, but this is not a love triangle, nor does it involve palace conspiracies or martial arts conflicts. I simply want to use a novel to imagine what the great writers who composed those timeless poems and songs might have been like ^^ This is my first time posting a story, so please point out any mistakes ^^

P.S. Whenever I quote poetry or need to explain a particular allusion, I’ll provide the source in detail in the author’s notes.

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