"I hate history—until I become part of it."
My name is Chi Gui, a Nanjing social worker who has no interest in history, until one day I touched a carved ancient brick under the Ming city wall and was thrown into the Western Han Dynasty frontier fortress two thousand years ago.
I met Zhao Gu, a veteran with a scar on his face. He taught me how to survive under the Huns' cavalry. From the gesture of holding the sword to recognizing the stars, this rough border man became my only support in this other world. But when the three years of war in Yuanshou engulfed his figure, I realized that behind the "Han-Hungarian War" in the history books was the blood of countless Zhao Gus.
When I opened my eyes again, I stood under the sunshine of Chang'an City. The poetry and wine here made me feel like I could be reborn, until the iron hoof of the Anshi Rebellion crushed the colorful clothes and feathers. The little lady from the Pei family who taught me how to write poetry eventually died under the sword of the rebels, and I could only hold on to her blood-stained hairpin and watch the Daming Palace burst into flames.
When I finally returned to Nanjing, which I had always dreamed of, I found myself standing in the cold winter of 1937. The bookstore owner Cheng Wenyuan and his daughter Yutong took me in, and I didn't even have time to tell them what kind of nightmare this city was about to face. When the Japanese bayonet was pressed against Yutong's throat, I suddenly remembered Zhao Gu's words: "Living is more important than anything else."
But some life is more painful than death.
Reading tips:
1. It is not a cool novel. The protagonist is an ordinary person. There is no golden finger, only the struggle and growth that have been repeatedly torn apart by the torrent of history.
2. From the details of the frontier fortress of the Western Han Dynasty to the records of the fall of Nanjing, try to restore the real historical scenes
3. Every time and space has the regret of "not getting what you want", but there is light in the abuse.
"When we read history, we see a series of numbers; but history sees me as a madman kneeling in the ruins and counting corpses."
Intention: The humble people are struggling to survive in the torrent of history