Mending China's Soul Through Its Historical Regrets

The wounds of time and the cracks in history: sometimes, repairing them isn't necessarily the best solution.

Lin Shicheng clenched his bandage-wrapped hand. Fragments between his fingers were cracked and dripping blood.

He knew that what truly needed repairing wasn't an object, but time itself, gone rotten.

The earrings of a Qing dynasty princess seeped seawater from 1894 at midnight.

From the crooked-neck tree on Coal Hill came a sigh of resentment.

From the cliffs of Yashan came a child's plaintive cry.

If the timeline was twisted to begin with, why bother stitching it back together?

Mother, you're still too conservative.

The bandages unfurled. Every mark on his arm was an imprint of history that had been devoured.

And at the end of the river of time, black quicksand was swallowing the world before his eyes.