The White-Haired Soldiers of Anxi

The last thing Li Shuo remembered was a map of the Tang dynasty's northwestern territories in the library. When he opened his eyes again, he had become the "Seventh Brother" in a caravan heading east. There were ambushers lying in wait on the hillside. Someone beside him called him brother, but he couldn't even say where he came from. Two deaths sent him back to the same moment of awakening. The third time, he made it to Chiting alive. Horses had grown more expensive in the city, goods from the east were late, and news from Tong Pass had changed several times by the time it passed through the mouths of traveling merchants. The damaged cart had yet to be repaired, and Chang'an was no longer somewhere he could reach simply by following the road. The An Lushan Rebellion had begun, but the road from Anxi to the Central Plains had not yet been cut off. Li Shuo knew, though, that the years written just a few lines apart in the books would eventually fall upon him, one day at a time. Before then, he had to stay alive and figure out why he was going to Chang'an, and why the ambush on the hillside still wasn't truly over.