Synopsis of The Abandoned Marquis of Poyang
When archaeologist Lin Yan is restoring a bronze distiller at the Haihunhou ruins, a thunderstorm activates the magnetic field of a jade burial token. He suddenly transmigrates to the third year of Yuankang in the Western Han dynasty, taking possession of the body of Liu He, the deposed emperor recently transferred to Haihun County.
This legendary nobleman, whose life saw four dramatic rises and falls, bears the stigma of madness and debauchery and is trapped in Poyang's miasmal marshes. Emperor Xuan of Han keeps him under surveillance from a thousand miles away, while spies from the Huo clan lurk nearby, waiting to assassinate him. And within his body dwells the original owner's lingering soul, tearing at his mind day and night.
Lin Yan knows two thousand years of history and holds the keys to changing his fate: vast quantities of gold buried underground, a complete set of improved farming and trade techniques, and full knowledge of what the future holds. He establishes himself in Haihun's polders, promotes rice-fish farming, distills fine liquor to open up trade routes along the Yangtze, and sets up supply depots and a time-credit system inspired by traditional mutual aid. He bridges the divide between the Han people and the Baiyue, gradually bringing prosperity to poor Haihun County.
But the court's power games have already laid a deadly trap. The commandery official Sun Wanshi sets a verbal snare, and one thoughtless remark costs Lin Yan his fief of three thousand households. His enterprises collapse and his people turn against him. Lin Yan makes peace with Liu He's lingering soul and sees through the millennia-old secret of Huo Guang's falsification of history and Emperor Xuan's efforts to keep the imperial clan in check. He knows he cannot escape the age of thirty-three.
In secret, he builds a cemetery at Guodun Mountain and buries the truth about the emperors, bamboo slips recording people's livelihoods, and countless treasures of gold and jade. He carves with his own hands the Ronghuan jade burial token that links past and present. When his life finally ebbs away, the token is buried with his coffin. Two thousand years later, Lin Yan once again stands before an archaeological display case and realizes that his transmigration, all his struggles and toil, had merely completed an inescapable loop through time. One tomb holds the joys and sorrows of a nobleman; one lake reflects the hearts of a thousand years.
