Chang'an Holiday: When I Loved You, You Didn't Know Me

In the Tang dynasty's Ever-Bright City in 2026, Princess Taiping, covered in the smoke of battle and wearing a hairpin adorned with nine golden trees, crashes into electrician Zhou Ping's arms and tearfully scolds him: "Who gave you permission to push me away all by myself?!" At the time, Zhou Ping can only stare at her in bafflement, assuming she is an actress who wandered onto the wrong set.

Forty-eight hours later, a 380-volt electric arc hurls Zhou Ping into a canal in Daming Palace in 681. With tears in his eyes, he calls her name, but the sixteen-year-old girl presses a gold-inlaid dagger to his throat: "A secret agent of the Hundred Riders? I'll slit your throat on the count of three!"

My last day is your first; when I loved you most, you didn't even know me.

This is a Mobius strip spanning 1,345 years, its beginning and end locked together. It is also a Chang'an holiday written with a two-yuan lighter, a Peppa Pig pardon token, extra-sweet pearl milk tea, and a grand wedding procession stretching ten miles through the High Tang era.