The Nightless Lord of Lin'an

The Nightless Lord of Lin'an is a long historical alternate-history novel by web author Yue Guan, serialized on Qidian.com from January 1, 2024, and completed on April 27, 2025, totaling about 3.61 million characters. The protagonist Yang Yuan was originally a top public relations specialist at a modern agency called "Youqiu Media." By chance he arrives in Lin'an during the Shaoxing era of the Southern Song, when Qin Hui holds power, and at first can only make a living delivering "suohuan" (Song-dynasty takeout errands). Delivering a meal to the Banjing Hostel, where Jin envoys are lodged, he is held at knifepoint by the Jin noblewoman Wugulun Yingge, who wants to use him to create a scandal and escape a political marriage; Yang Yuan uses his crisis-PR skills to turn the tables and save himself, and from this founds the "Youqiu Bureau," solving problems for actors, merchants, and all sorts of people in Lin'an. Later, when his brother Yang Che is murdered, he begins hunting the killer, and along the way gets drawn into the succession of chancellors, the struggle over the crown prince, and Song–Jin confrontation. The novel uses real historical turning points such as the Battle of Caishi and Wanyan Yong's replacement of Wanyan Liang as its skeleton, with fictional reworkings, and ultimately reaches Yang Yuan's expansion of territory and his conquest of Xia and absorption of Jin. The book incorporates many Hangzhou intangible cultural heritage items and Song-era lifestyle details—West Lake, Longjing tea, the Qiantang tidal bore, embroidery—interweaving marketplace life with court intrigue. It is Yue Guan's transitional work of "returning to his original intent," won the Publishing Observer Group's Choice Award at the second "Read Intangible Heritage" writing contest, and was selected for the China Writers Association's 2025 Key Online Literature Works Support Program.