The day my grandfather lost his wits, he pressed an old book nobody wanted into my arms.
He said the people in it had all been erased from history.
I opened it and was dragged into a death cell eight hundred years in the past, inhabiting a nobody whose name was never recorded: a jailer who carried water, an artisan who carved books, a station master who ferried people across a river.
Only then did I learn that I couldn't change history. I couldn't save Yue Fei or overturn a wrongful conviction. Anyone who tried to force history to change paid with their life on the spot.
But I could fill in what was missing. I could quietly restore the stroke that had been erased: add a page of true testimony so a man could receive a proper burial, or restore a name so someone might see it a thousand years later.
But every time I filled in a gap, I forgot a little more about my grandfather.
I was afraid that in the end, I wouldn't even remember who he was.
And as I followed the pages of the tattered manuscript deeper and deeper, I slowly began to realize something:
It seemed my grandfather had once filled in a gap for someone in this book, too.
This volume is over, let me say a few words of truth. There is indeed a prototype for this volume, which is recorded in the notes "Yongzhuang Xiaopin" written by Zhu Guozhen of the Ming Dynasty. During the Jiajing period, there was a fisherman in Fuzhou. His real name has not been handed down. Because he was a good boatman, everyone called him "Wang Changnian". In those days, the boatman was called Changnian. He was kidnapped by Japanese pirates and boarded a boat. He took a boatload of captured people with him, got the Japanese pirates drunk, killed more than fifty people, and then took the boat back to shore. He was more careful and cut out all the Japanese pirate's tongue and kept it in his arms. Sure enough, as soon as he landed, the officers and soldiers stole his head and money to take credit. They thought he had a bald head and a yellow beard and looked like a Japanese pirate, so they tied him up and treated him as a Japanese pirate for reward. Seeing that his head was about to fall off, he screamed for injustice in his native dialect and took out the tongue in his arms for people to examine: the heads reported by the officers and soldiers all had no tongues in their mouths. This was the case. Later, the governor wanted to appoint him as an official, but he refused. He was old and poor, and he was still fishing. You see, even such a fierce man didn't even leave his real name. The righteous man in the book, Huo Qingwu, and the face-to-face examination were all made up by me in this tone. I just want to make up for the names of people who have had their credit taken away from them. The next volume goes even further, at the end of Qin Dynasty, on the bank of Wujiang River, an old man rowing a boat. This time, I can't even fill in the name. See you later.
The first volume is finished, let me say a few words of truth. Yue Fei's case is true in most aspects: on the 29th day of the twelfth lunar month in the eleventh year of Shaoxing, he was sentenced to death in the Dali Temple prison. He was not taken to Fengbo Pavilion and beheaded as shown on TV. Fengbo Pavilion was a drama made up by later generations. He left eight words in prison, "The sky will be clear, the sky will be clear." What struck me the most was a small role. That night, there was a jailer named Wei Shun. He carried Yue Fei's body out of the city overnight and buried it. He tied a jade ring around his waist and planted two orange trees on the grave as a mark. No one was told, and he handed it over to his son before he died. Twenty years later, after the court rehabilitated him and offered a reward for his remains, his son told the story. This incident was recorded in a notebook from the Southern Song Dynasty called "Legends of the Chaoyang Dynasty". It is an unofficial history. I dare not boast that it is 100% true, but I am willing to believe it. The little water delivery jailer possessed by the protagonist in the book was made up by me, and the shadow of the things he did was that of Kuai Shun. Official history has not left a place for this kind of person, so I want to make a place for him. The next volume goes to the Ming Dynasty, where a fisherman kills a boatload of Japanese pirates and has his credit taken away by officers and soldiers. See you tomorrow.
On the first day of the new book, I would like to say thank you to you who clicked on this book. This book tells the story of a grandfather who lives at an old bookstall and a torn volume of books his grandson picked up. When you open it, you will fall into the cracks of history and become attached to a small person whose name has not even been left behind - the general situation cannot be changed, and you can only make up for the "cause" that was secretly erased. Because once it is made up, eight hundred years later, the person who owes it will have to pay it back on the spot. Each volume contains a true historical mystery, starting from the night of Yue Fei in the Southern Song Dynasty. I will try my best to make the research as solid as possible and tell the story so that you want to keep reading. When a newcomer writes a book, he is most afraid that no one will read it. If the first chapter makes you want to continue reading, please bookmark it and keep it on your bookshelf. Every time you read it, it will give me the confidence to continue writing. You can talk about anything in the comment section, I'll read it all. Stable updates, constant updates, never unsupervised. See you in the next chapter, on death row in the Southern Song Dynasty.