The Seven Luminaries of Liuli

In the twenty-ninth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty, Matteo Ricci presented an automaton clock to the Forbidden City. That era-defining chime did more than tell the time: it signaled the beginning of a vast “civilizational pact.” Four hundred years later, Lu Jianwei, a top antiques restorer at the Palace Museum, discovers that the Western clocks in the museum’s collection have all begun behaving strangely. At the same time, Lin Yilan, a Macanese guardian of cultural heritage with mixed ancestry, deciphers a civilizational code written in Matteo Ricci’s own hand, hidden inside an ancient clock inherited from her grandmother. One in the north, one in the south; one in a palace, one in a city. Lu Jianwei, who believes that “artifacts belong where they came from,” and Lin Yilan, who champions “shared civilization,” are forced to join forces. Following clues left by Matteo Ricci, Xu Guangqi, Ferdinand Verbiest, and other pioneers, they travel from the celestial coordinates at Beijing’s Ancient Observatory to the inscriptions on the ruined walls of Macau’s St. Paul’s; from an ancient church in Lisbon to a mysterious underground palace in Goa… They discover that this dialogue spanning oceans and continents is far more than a simple “Western learning spreading east” or “Chinese learning spreading west.” It is an epic contest played out on a chessboard of Eastern and Western civilizations, with countless magnificent artifacts as its pieces. Behind it all are a tycoon seeking to monopolize the right to interpret civilization, and an extremist organization that believes in “purity” and is determined to sever every channel of dialogue… When historical truth becomes a bargaining chip for power, and the blending of civilizations is treated as a crime, how can two young people protect a deliberately forgotten chapter of history as they pursue and fight back across the globe? And how will the artifact that ultimately points to humanity’s fate, the “Glazed Seven Luminaries Armillary Sphere,” emerge once more to challenge the future?