The wind blowing in through the window caused the candle to flicker. The pages of the Cycle of Civilization flipped gently. The book cataloged the rise and fall of the successive dynasties. And in the end, Chen Mo had organized it in a way that revealed a closed cycle, like the path of a bright moon on a long night. That cycle caused him to realize that every word of history, the name of every era, and all other things were just evidence of the turning of the wheel. And that wheel never stopped moving.1

Despite being weak and sick, Chen Mo used the last of his strength to carve his insights on to twelve bronze slips. Because the details were put onto bronze slips, they would be able to stand up to the corrosive power of time. Chen Mo knew that his enlightenment would be nothing but a tiny ripple in the great river of reincarnation. Even still, he persisted.0

The imperial historians used some unknown power to obscure the way time overlapped. They used myths to cover the...0