Hongxian Year Eighty-Three: Yuan Xi in the Late Han Dynasty

This is a novel I spent nine years writing. In 2017, my baby was born, and I spent night after sleepless night with the computer on, playing Romance of the Three Kingdoms X to pass the time. As I played, an idea came to me: What if Yuan Shikai, the man who was emperor for only eighty-three days and changed the era name to Hongxian, got a second chance at life and ended up in the Three Kingdoms? And so this story began: Yuan Shikai is reborn as Yuan Xi, Yuan Shao's youngest son. He escapes from the dead city of Xiangping in Liaodong, heads west, covers the retreat, takes an arrow, gathers the scattered remnants, and finally sets up a blank stone stele in Anding. His previous life ended after eighty-three days. This time, he wants to live a few years longer. Nine years, 920,000 words, growing alongside my child.