When the Stars of the Tang Dynasty Shone

In the fourth year of Tianbao, the Tang Dynasty stood at the height of its prosperity. When history professor Feng Lun opened his eyes, he had become a poor young man in Songzhou, owing thirty strings of cash and on the verge of selling his fields and his sister. He had no System and no cheat. His only asset was the archive of the High Tang era lodged in his mind, which he could never forget. Corrupt officials demanding payment? He brought out the Tang Code’s Marriage and Household Statutes. Blocked from the imperial examinations? He carved a printing block and published New Sayings, making the scholars of the whole city speak up for him. From ghostwriting in the Western Market to having his name inscribed at the Wild Goose Pagoda, from farming garrison lands in Lingwu to the prison gates of Xunyang... Li Bai asked him for courage, Yan Zhenqing made an exception for him, Wu Tang invited him to wield the brush, and Du Fu entrusted half his life to him. When Li Linfu blocked the emperor from hearing the truth, he made the sound of printing blocks ring throughout the two capitals. As the drums of war thundered in from Yuyang, he held Suiyang to the last, preserving the Tang Dynasty’s final integrity with nothing but his historian’s brush. This is the story of a scholar too weak to even truss a chicken, who used a brush, an inkstone, and a carving knife to rescue the stars from the dust of the An Lushan Rebellion, one by one.